Even When Told Not To, Windows 10 Won’t Stop Talking to Microsoft
August 18th, 2015Via: ArsTechnica:
For example, even with Cortana and searching the Web from the Start menu disabled, opening Start and typing will send a request to www.bing.com to request a file called threshold.appcache which appears to contain some Cortana information, even though Cortana is disabled. The request for this file appears to contain a random machine ID that persists across reboots.
Some of the traffic is obviously harmless. On connecting to a new network, Windows machines try to request two URLs (www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt and ipv6.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt, the former over IPv4, the latter over IPv6) to ascertain whether a given network is routed to the Internet and if there is a captive portal in the way (NCSI stands for “Network Connection Status Indicator”). These requests are very bare, with no machine IDs or other data sent. If you want to turn even these off there is a way to do so, but the privacy impact is minimal.
Some of the traffic looks harmless but feels like it shouldn’t be happening. For example, even with no Live tiles pinned to Start (and hence no obvious need to poll for new tile data), Windows 10 seems to download new tile info from MSN’s network from time to time, using unencrypted HTTP to do so. While again the requests contain no identifying information, it’s not clear why they’re occurring at all, given that they have no corresponding tile.
Other traffic looks a little more troublesome. Windows 10 will periodically send data to a Microsoft server named ssw.live.com. This server seems to be used for OneDrive and some other Microsoft services. Windows 10 seems to transmit information to the server even when OneDrive is disabled and logins are using a local account that isn’t connected to a Microsoft Account. The exact nature of the information being sent isn’t clear—it appears to be referencing telemetry settings—and again, it’s not clear why any data is being sent at all.
I’ve spent TWO WEEKS locking down my Win10 install. The defaults are terrible and I doubt many people will have the patience/knowledge to do what I did. Using TCPview shows no connections to MS now. Cortana is disabled (deleted actually) but boy has it taken alotta work to get here. The “funny” thing? I’m still not 100% sure its secure/private hah!
This situation is nuts. As nuts as Windows 8, but in a different way.
How about a “Cloud Off” switch? One setting to turn all of this nonsense off.
Microsoft lost to Apple and Google on mobile devices that are spying and people the whole time. Nobody in their right mind would trust iOS or Android in terms of privacy. So now Microsoft has gone and done THIS to Windows.
I think MacOS is still usable without an Apple account and connections to iCloud, but I wonder for how long.
Apple is an iPhone company now. Their general purpose computers represent less than 10% of revenue now:
http://www.cnet.com/news/iphones-double-edged-sword-big-sales-but-also-big-risk-for-apple/
I also use Android but like WIndows 10 I spent WEEKS securing it and locking it down. I must be one of very few people that don’t run a SINGLE Google app on my phone! This includes the store, search, maps, gmail etc. I also run a firewall controlling what can connect outwards.
Its great, phone runs so fast and is stable. I used to have to reboot the phone weekly (high memory useage) but now I only reboot it every 6 to 8 weeks and RAM useage is waaaay lower.
Its sad that its come to this. No privacy. No-one cares.