Windows 7 Security Concerns With Microsoft Spyware?

Anak · 31 Jul 2016

Barman58 said:

Data is also collected at major chain stores & supermarkets, Gas Stations Etc, and although it's basically anonymous, if you use a card for payment it is identifiable. Here in the UK it is possible for a company to get your details from your car registration using ANPR systems by paying a small fee to the licencing authority - it's the way of the world. I was asked for my email address recently for a copy of my receipt for future warranty claims.

I haven't been able to find the exact number of States but registration information is sold here in Pennsylvania: News link to local TV station
Some States allow you to opt-out, but unfortunately PA isn't one of them.

Callender · 31 Jul 2016

So this thread prompted me to run another check. MS Telemetry had crept back in. It took 15 minutes to fix including a reboot.

Windows 7 Security Concerns With Microsoft Spyware?-history.jpg

No more (attempted) communications after 18:20:12 today!

route -p add 23.99.160.139 MASK 255.255.255.255 0.0.0.0

and removed these two:
wusa /uninstall /kb:3086255 /quiet /norestart
wusa /uninstall /kb:2882822 /quiet /norestart

Callender · 31 Jul 2016

kb:3086255 just reappeared in my update list. Looks like a security update so I'd better reinstall it.

Barman58 · 31 Jul 2016

Telemetry is by far the best way to keep a complex system running. No one today can say that any modern os is not a complex system. Unlike other complex systems where telemetry is fully understood by the user - airlines, race cars, athletes etc some computer users assume the worst and think that Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc are collecting the full text of every thing they type - this would not only be impossible but would be unusable.

Telemetry is basic error codes and their related variables or any variables when a totally unforseen issue occurs.

I spent many years working on this sort of closed loop error circuits in industrial plant, an I can assure you that you want the minimum telemetry possible as more than this just confuses things.

STU9000 · 31 Jul 2016

Like me, most people are completely lost when it comes to knowing how to set up an operating system to work in the most efficient and secure way possible. It's an exercise in cryptology. I know the basics of how to get around Windows, Mac and Android and that's about it. When something goes wrong I google it or ask people on forums.

At the end of the day it's near impossible to know for sure that you are not being spied on. The only thing I can be sure of 99.9% is how to prevent my online accounts being hacked, but even then there will always be a way.

I'm never sure whether to submit to volunteering information to software developers. If it's free I do feel an obligation to help, but at the same time I never know what information they can gather.

I don't lose too much sleep over it all.

Barman58 · 31 Jul 2016

When it comes down to it if you have something on your systems that has value to one of the real criminals, (or the agencies that try to stop them), then there is nothing a normal user can do to prevent it.

luckily, in reality, virtually no "normal" user has anything of value to these people so normal common sense and protective methods will protect against the common data attacks.

I can remember working in secure computing environments and perhaps a strange thing to many is that all or at least the vast majority of data security was physical security, at the end of the day the hard drives on the secure servers were backed up to tape and the HDD and tapes were taken to separate remote fireproof facilities.