5 ms·

>System tooling for reporting bugs on Windows is also less advanced. Windows has plenty of solid diagnostic/post-mortem tools. They also have ETW (Event Tracin

by tux3 3y ago

>System tooling for reporting bugs on Windows is also less advanced. Windows has plenty of solid diagnostic/post-mortem tools. They also have ETW (Event Tracing for Windows), and they're pioneers in vacuuming up crash reports at scale with invasive telemetry. If for instance someone tries to run an exploit against you and they cause any instability whatsoever in Windows, the stacktrace can end up on someone's desk at MS and vulnerabilities are regularly discovered and fixed that way. That doesn't replace a user giving good bug reports, but their tooling is not less advanced at all. As a salient point of comparison, the most advanced tooling for bug reporting that the Linux kernel has, is "printk a warning into the log and hope someone looks at it"

throw555chip 3y ago
> the stacktrace can end up on someone's desk This is chillingly scary and one reason why I use Linux desktop.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  Microsoft has good protocols around this to respect people's privacy and devs can only temporarily have access to them.
  - ta1243 3y ago
    So devs can see what I've been upto on my own computer. I assume the problem is the default is "send" rather than "don't send"?
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      >So devs can see what I've been upto on my own computer. If you consent to sharing the error with Microsoft. It may contain some information about what was running to assist with finding the issue. There is a strict privacy policy for what this data is allowed to be used for. >I assume the problem is the default is "send" rather than "don't send"? No, unless an admin changed the policy.
      - ta1243 3y ago
        Ahh, if the default is don't send and it's just an option then I don't see what the problem is
  - themoonisachees 3y ago
    But this is all according to the goodwill of Microsoft, who may very well use it for other purposes for any reason and you'd never know.
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      >But this is all according to the goodwill of Microsoft No, there is a privacy policy and they would get in legal trouble if they violated it.
      - nrabulinski 3y ago
        How would anyone know that? Is anyone checking on them? There’s been plenty of instances of companies breaking their own, even legally binding, word
      - themoonisachees 3y ago
        I haven't read the privacy policy (who does?) But I am willing to bet that it doesn't restrict MS to these purposes and in fact allows them to do whatever they want for any reason.
- tux3 3y ago
  It certainly is. And every time a program is forced to have the crash reporting be opt-in because of the region I live in, I sing Ode to Joy. Don't get me wrong I'm no invasive telemetry enthusiast. But I wouldn't mind being _able_ to make that choice for some projects I trust. If it were up to me, Linux maintainers would be looking at enough (opted-in) user stacktraces in their code that they'd start thinking of syzbot* fondly. (* Fuzzer that Linux maintainers love to complain about due to the deluge of rare bugs and crashes it drops on them)
  - account42 3y ago
    A number of Linux distros and software have automated bug reporting tools, they just tend to require an explicit confirmation before submittingn anything. E.g. there's Ubuntu's Apport, Fedora's ABRT, KDE's Dr. Konqi.

by tux3 3y ago

throw555chip 3y ago

> the stacktrace can end up on someone's desk This is chillingly scary and one reason why I use Linux desktop.

charcircuit 3y ago
Microsoft has good protocols around this to respect people's privacy and devs can only temporarily have access to them.
- ta1243 3y ago
  So devs can see what I've been upto on my own computer. I assume the problem is the default is "send" rather than "don't send"?
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    >So devs can see what I've been upto on my own computer. If you consent to sharing the error with Microsoft. It may contain some information about what was running to assist with finding the issue. There is a strict privacy policy for what this data is allowed to be used for. >I assume the problem is the default is "send" rather than "don't send"? No, unless an admin changed the policy.
    - ta1243 3y ago
      Ahh, if the default is don't send and it's just an option then I don't see what the problem is
- themoonisachees 3y ago
  But this is all according to the goodwill of Microsoft, who may very well use it for other purposes for any reason and you'd never know.
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    >But this is all according to the goodwill of Microsoft No, there is a privacy policy and they would get in legal trouble if they violated it.
    - nrabulinski 3y ago
      How would anyone know that? Is anyone checking on them? There’s been plenty of instances of companies breaking their own, even legally binding, word
    - themoonisachees 3y ago
      I haven't read the privacy policy (who does?) But I am willing to bet that it doesn't restrict MS to these purposes and in fact allows them to do whatever they want for any reason.
tux3 3y ago
It certainly is. And every time a program is forced to have the crash reporting be opt-in because of the region I live in, I sing Ode to Joy. Don't get me wrong I'm no invasive telemetry enthusiast. But I wouldn't mind being _able_ to make that choice for some projects I trust. If it were up to me, Linux maintainers would be looking at enough (opted-in) user stacktraces in their code that they'd start thinking of syzbot* fondly. (* Fuzzer that Linux maintainers love to complain about due to the deluge of rare bugs and crashes it drops on them)
- account42 3y ago
  A number of Linux distros and software have automated bug reporting tools, they just tend to require an explicit confirmation before submittingn anything. E.g. there's Ubuntu's Apport, Fedora's ABRT, KDE's Dr. Konqi.