If so, that sounds unbelievably error prone. What if your password is of the "correct horse battery staple" form, rather than the standard unreadable scramble? It seems impossible to reliably distinguish that from other text. Does that mean that Microsoft then has your password? Even anonymized, that's a massive problem.
Passwords and the like are probably identified by the type of field they're entered into, as Windows forms and websites have explicit identifiers for passwords, and it would be easy not to record this. I think this analysis is more for things like analyzing the frequency of terms and which characters tend to follow other characters, but I don't have much more information, and I agree that there needs to be more shared about how this works.
> only "some"
99% is still "some". Regardless, since when is "some" keyloging acceptable?
> too much data
That depends on a lot of factors. Text is small and trivial compared to most stuff on the internet these days. How many kilobytes per day of text does the median windows user even type?
It would be even easier for MS to filter out stuff like video games (DirectInput?) to reduce the size.
> I think
Guessing is useless. What matters is the data going over the wire and what authorized MS to do in the future.
> there needs to be more shared about how this works
No, there needs to be explicit informed consent form the user.
Most people probably like all that, but I would like to see more robust privacy settings to easily disable tracking whenever it's desired.
You mean, like this?
# apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
Granted, running that isn't 'forced', but given that OSS users don't _actually_ analyze the code in their software, it's basically the same thing.
There's always a chance of something being slipped in later, no matter what OS you're on. Rampant paranoia and conspiracy theorizing does no one any good.
The problem of inspecting the code itself is a separate issue entirely, though at least in the area of Free Software that inspection is possiblea, and reproducible (deterministic) will simply the problem. Good luck doing the same with Windows (or any other closed software).
> Rampant paranoia and conspiracy theorizing
Now you're simply resorting to either insults (and/or wilful ignorance).
I think it's you that missed my point.
> people choose when (and if) they upgrade, for a variety of complex reasons
If they're running Gentoo, or maybe a small group of other distros, sure. Otherwise, people (on all operating systems) don't really do a lot of choosing at all. If updates are available, they generally run them. The only picking and choosing I've ever seen from the vast majority of people (including technical folks) is if they don't have the bandwidth/time to update a particularly large piece of software at the moment. Of course, they'll update it later when they are able.
> The problem of inspecting the code itself is a separate issue entirely, though at least in the area of Free Software that inspection is possible
Yes, it's possible, but it isn't done in practice, which is why I said it. That's the reason I said it's 'basically the same thing'. Whether you receive updates automatically or choose when to download them, you are still accepting what the distribution method gives you. There are FAR too many software packages out there for the average person to work out the logistics of reading accounts from early adopters of every single point release.
> Now you're simply resorting to either insults (and/or wilful ignorance).
It's not an insult. It's a factual statement. You claimed in your comment that a multi-billion dollar corporation who has a vested interest in keeping the good will of their customers (some of whom are corporate, some government, but the vast majority are consumers who look to them for help) would willfully send compromised software through forced updates in the future. If that isn't a conspiracy theory, I'd love to know what is.
Apparently you need to get out more, because you seem to have missed that "not upgrading" is so incredibly common that some major software packages (web browsers) and at least one operating systems have decided to force upgrades.
Also, do you really believe that all the IT departments in the world are running current versions of anything? There are entire industries that run "last year's" versions, who only upgrade after extensive testing.
> I'd love to know what is
Did you even read the thread you're replying to? You're knee-jerk application of the paranoid-style[1] ignores the fact that "It's in the privacy policy." There is not secret. MS is telling everyone they will send forced updates (which have already cause stability issues for some people). As for MS keeping "the good will of their customers", again, did your read this thread? Windows 10 has already forced various professionals to drop windows.
Also, "compromised" is your term, not mine. I'm sure any future update they push out will be buzzword compliant. The point is we don't know what future updates will bring, but you agree to run those future versions anyway.
--
Meh. I have better things to do than waste any more time on your distractions. If you want to be the apparatchik that refuses to believe MS would do anything malicious, that's your business.
[1] http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-ame...
Honestly it does not look like you wasted much time at all, you seem to have missed his point again.
You type "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." You continue typing other stuff. 30 minutes later, there's a queue of random slices like: { "lazy dog", "chocolate donut", "brown fox" }. That gets encrypted and sent into a big pile of other data for a machine learning algorithm to develop better typing prediction.
I would like to know if that's the gist of it or if there are other things happening. Hopefully there will at least be a developer blog or something like that to better explain it.
I'd like to see precisely how they anonymize the data, and I'd also like to know what data it is.
If Microsoft was a known moral bastion who had perfect security might not be a problem. But it isn't and it doesn't, so there is only one response: NO!
(OK, there are more responses, but I'm not sure if they are allowed with HN's code of conduct.)
So, has anybody ever audited build farms for Debian, Ubuntu, etc? Have we ever seen a breakdown of their income sources? How do you know that the binaries you install are built from the sources you can browse or download from the net?
Do you compile everything yourself?
For the situation I'm talking about where absolute confidentiality is required, the right way to do it would absolutely be auditing all code and compiling from source, assuming you're working in an organization that has that kind of capacity.
But for most cases, just dealing with an organization you trust is enough, whether they provide source or not.
Ah, good to know. Do you have any links to articles or discussions about this? Would like to learn more.
/LOL.
Various security measures rename sensitive fields into things that are basically random strings that are stored in a session. [e.g. Fields to change your password? They are set to something like 2ajefklaj23324rk]
There is also the issue of people who write erotica for fun. Or doctors writing down notes for patients.
In any event, during the installation process, you do see a screen where you can turn all this off. It's not off by default, but viewing these settings was part of my Windows 10 installation experience.
The problem is that Windows 10 does not respect you having this turned off. It will send away your data, even if you turned off all the switches.
Don't you see this as a huge problem?
Otherwise wouldn't every commonly misspelled word show up incorrectly in spellcheck?
There is quite a bit of work in the field of speech recognition, too, and it's entirely possible to create a functional model without recording every user's voice and storing that information on a server. Even if they require speech samples, or samples from different languages, they should at least pay someone for that information.
I was disappointed when I learned that the voice recognition feature in Siri wasn't local to the phone.
Do you know what actual data is, and is not, sent to Microsoft as you use your device?
Even if you do, will you still know once Microsoft pushes a mandatory update and/or changes its 12,000 word terms of service?
“Some of this data is stored on your device and some is sent to Microsoft to help improve these services. Data sent to Microsoft for product improvement is put through rigorous, multi-pass scrubs to remove sensitive or identifiable fields (such as email addresses, passwords and alphanumeric data) and strings are chopped into very small bits and stripped of sequence data to prevent the information from being identified or put back together.”
http://blog.laptopmag.com/windows-10-privacy-issues-exaggera...
It amazes me that this information isn't easier to find and I end up being the one defending Microsoft. I definitely recommend using Free Software only if you want to be absolutely sure of confidentiality.