Just another reason, for me anyway, not to make the change. This has been confirmed through Slashdot and Bleepingcomputer.

http://rightwingnews.com/top-news/creepy-microsofts-new-windows-10-browser-will-be-watching-logging-everything-you-do/

"Microsoft says they collect the information “to provide you a personalized user dictionary, help you type and write on your device with better character recognition, and provide you with text suggestions as you type or write.”



"personalized user dictionary"??????


Say what?

How is this even legal? They are doing it openly and publicly?

The data they collect, is it going to be sold to 3rd parties, or to the highest bidder?

Does the government have their hands in this as well?

Too many questions to answer and I won't upgrade anytime soon.

Trax

According to the article, it tracks EVERYTHING you do on your PC, not just online. And yes, some of it is shared with third parties. For those of you who did it, you consented to it when you clicked "Agree" to the 45 pages of terms and conditions you didn't read.

According to the article, there's an opt-out option as well.

By default it's not set, and it's a bit of a pain to opt-out, but it can be done.

If you click on Default Settings, that's what you get - Big Brother

However, if you select Custom Settings, you can turn any or all of these features off

I rarely use default settings, they're usually designed to help someone else...

Trev

For whatever reason this could be useful. If you're working in a specialized field in astrophysics, or medicine, of [pick something yourself] for example, that might be helpful. Stephen Hawking uses a very specialized software of this kind for his lectures.

Your phone (if you are using a smart phone) has likely been building a personal user dictionary every since you turned it on the first time.

MS Office has been doing the same for a really long time, perhaps decades. Pretty sure all of the big 3 browsers have been collecting this info as well to various degrees. These 'personal user dictionaries' have been part of the software you are used to using.

Windows 8 has this on portable devices and it works famously while e-mailing or texting. Apple iOS as well since at least iOS 6 I believe. I've never had an Android phone so I don't know if it's in there, but confirmed in Windows 8 on the phone and at least in the text messaging feature of iOS 6 and above. These are the 'suggested' words that appear in various places while you are typing. That's your personal user dictionary. It's really not a dictionary in the sense of providing definitions, it's a personal commonly used word list and sequencing.

One simple example: I live in Colorado Springs. In my Windows 8 phone as soon as I hit a space after typing 'Colorado', 'springs' is in a short list of suggested words. There's also some kind of cloud reference as well as my own personalized list

It makes complete sense to integrate it into all Windows releases for all devices.

BTW - I just confirmed that Win8 has been doing this since 2012. See here: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2012/12/06/the-secrets-of-the-windows-phone-8-keyboard/

Here's one snippet of the article on how they build the word lists (erroneously called dictionaries):

"How did we build them? You helped us! Remember the little checkbox during phone set up (and in Settings) that talks about helping us improve text suggestions and build a better product? When someone gives us permission, we collect anonymous typing data—free of passwords, names, numbers, and other personal info—to help create and test Word Flow."

Here's Apple's latest iOS 8 describing basically the same feature:
https://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/quicktype/

Doesn't look like Android has a user-specific word suggestion/tracker built in from what I can tell.

As with any information technology, it can be used for good and for evil. I will say that I'm thankful for word suggestions on the Win 8 phone. E-mails and texts are 'muy rapido' compared to my iPhone 4s.

https://pghboemike.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/windows-10/ The link five things you must do on this page will show you how to disable A number of these behaviors

I update the page I find more information

Let's cut to the chase, guys. Win 10 functions as a keylogger. It searches for or records credit cards, passwords, and other personal data, then stores it, and possibly transmits it to Microsoft, who may then share some of it with third parties.

Here is one application where that may actually be criminal. As a medical transcriptionist (MT) working from home, under the provisions of a congressional act known as HIPAA, I am responsible for maintaining the security of patient information. I use a password-protected PC on a secure network in a locked room. No one may see or hear patient information besides me. An MT is liable for $25,000 per occurrence of a HIPAA violation. But if I upgrade to Windows 10, this data is being recorded, and perhaps being sent to Microsoft by default. How is that legal?

This is currently the subject of vigorous discussions on MT forums around the Internet. How does MS justify providing an OS with such a feature enabled without users' knowing consent?

1984 approaches with increasing speed.

The Internet Security experts readily agree: There is no such thing as Internet Security. Watch TED Presentations and be shocked and amazed.

Every signal that can be transmitted can also be hijacked.

Richard, it's always good to be security minded. You make excellent points. Like I mentioned, you can turn on or off any of these features. Most of mine are Off. I suspect you can turn just about everything Off. The 'default' option doesn't do this, but custom settings does. HTH
Trevor

That's a helpful image to post.
I don't know when I'll be doing the upgrade to Win10 but the icon is in my tray.

Hmmm....if/when I click on that Win10 icon I'm still a bit unclear what happens.
Does it first ask me questions, etc. prior to any installation beginning?
No....I'm not terrified I'll muck something up.

Thanks for that post and image.

Carry on....

It asks all of the question the very first time Windows 10 starts. You can also get to the questions later on via the control panel (that's how I got the screen captures)

I found this TED Demonstration to be especially riveting:

https://youtu.be/YiUN35Ikdfw

Where can we hide?

When we can remotely destroy a nuclear power plant in Iran, what prevents them from blowing ours?

This is very interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqKafI7Amd8

Well on the second attempt I got windows 10 installed, most apps seem to work ok.

I do like it that you can open the apps now on the desktop rather than having to go to the start menu.

When windows 8 came out I bought the upgrade to my windows 7, though 7 was home version, my 8 version was pro. So I have upgraded that to 10, had error message on first install, second time around it went ok. I have turned off fast boot in 10 as I had trouble with that in windows 8 not booting right into the desktop in a dual boot with windows 7.

One thing I have found with windows 10 (though its got the new browser EDGE) is that the old internet explorer 11 seems to hang and crash but running as admin seems to have fixed that problem.

For the moment I am treating windows 10 as a novelty and a new toy, my go to OS is windows 7

Musiclover

As a tax pro I have the same level of security requirements from the IRS you do with your thing Ryzard. People's tax returns and financial information is obviously confidential.

Having said that I really think your concerns are blown way out of proportion. MS is not "stealing" that level of secret info, they're not keylogging you. If you don't want their "help" with writing stuff fine. That's not a problem but to think MS can go into your machine to steal patient records is ridiculous and over the top paranoid imho. Patient records get stolen by hacking the health care providers. THAT's where the problem is.

It's hackers getting into GSA's system and stealing the personal info of over 30 million former and current government employees, some with high level security clearances. Then there's the Sony hack, Target, Home Depot and who knows how many other big ones. It's stupid and incompetent IT people at these big entities or perhaps I should say maybe not the IT people, it's their bosses who cut their budgets and are too political.

You have a choice. You either have some faith in these huge companies and our government or you don't. If you do then take the usual precautions we all talk about here. If you don't then throw away your phone, your computer, your tablet, your credit and debit cards, online banking, anything that is connected to the internet and just go back to the 70's. No email, no social media, no Google, no streaming anything, no GPS, no PG forum, nothing.

Seriously there's no halfway with this, it's one or the other.

Bob

It POSSIBLY transmits it to Micro$oft who MAY then share it.....

We need proof, not speculation and possible case scenarios. Remember, I am as anti- Micro$oft as you can imagine, but "possibly" and "may" are not an indictment.

You remember when one of the cell phone carriers had some deal where you were supposed to give them names and numbers of your friends and then they would contact those friends and market them? Did anybody here do that? Then YOU are doing what Micro$oft is doing. How many people, upon a crash, click "send error report". Your computer then phones home and you have NO idea what it is looking at. Does anybody every say "Yes" to those "take a survey about our website" prompts? My question to that is "Do you get paid to do market research for that company?"

People are WAY too concerned about what might possibly could maybe happen. Most of those same people have no clue about data encryption. They think their actual credit card number is transmitted, not their credit card number multiplied by a random 128 character algorithm. That kind of paranoia is based on the same logic that says you should never drive on a highway because an engine might fall off a jet and hit your car.

Being prudent about where you use your credit cards is the key. How many people do I meet that go on and on about not using a credit card online because their number may be stolen, yet they think nothing about going to a restaurant and handing that card to a waitress they don't know who then disappears for 10 minutes with that card and perhaps leaves herself a voice mail with the card number, name and 3 digit security code.

More education, folks.

I don't often find myself in agreement with Eddie but the man is right on today.

Especially no PG Forum!!!

Apple watches you, Twitter watches you, Google watches you, LinkedIn watches you, Facebook watches you. If it's free, you are not the customer, you are the product.

So here is a little poem I wrote © substitute any of the above.

ODE TO FACEBOOK

Oh Facebook how are you today?
I visit you most every day

And everything I do or say
you put into my dossier

Where was I born? what was my school?
Enter your job, be very cool

You even know my family
and everything that's dear to me

My information's gold to you
it sells to stores and spammers too

If I click "like" or I repost
your clients will dig me the most

I click an ad merely to look?
the ad man pulls to set the hook

It'll be in my e-mail today
and web page ads, day after day

And It'll waste, my precious time
and you'll receive another dime

I wouldn't mind the money you make
if a commission I could take

I'd like to get twenty percent
but you don't offer one red cent

So Facebook please let's make a deal
just cut me in, no need to steal

I'll finish my profile if you do
and we will profit, both me and you

Insights and incites by Notes

It may or may not be moot, depending on whether this "feature" has been disabled in later versions, but I don't believe that it is overstated.

http://m.slashdot.org/story/208101

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/550808/windows-10s-keylogger/

Great, thanks for headsup. I turned a lot of this stuff off on my wifes new install of Win10.

Great little ditty there Bob, and never a more true word was said....

Trev

Eddie is right on. I just read that thread on Bleeping Computer and to me the key item is this:

"It is a technical preview, so people are supposed to be testing stuff on it..."

It sounds to me like this is all about the beta that has been out for some time now not the final release version. If this keylogger is still there now then I'm sure MS has been hearing about it and will respond.

Before I posted this I decided to do a fast search and found this from last October that makes my point:

http://lifehacker.com/windows-10s-keylogger-fiasco-has-been-blown-out-of-pr-1642931793

Got interrupted, here's a current article from ZDnet:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-youve-got-questions-ive-got-answers/

First, this is a great overall article explaining in detail how to install, how it works, all that stuff. Plus scroll down to near the bottom and there's the question of the day, "Does Win 10 include a keylogger?" Answer, NO.

Chill out guys.

Bob

There are times when I have absolutely no problem with being wrong. This is one of those times. I'm willing to look a little foolish in the interest of protecting the community.

Hey Richard, no one's looking anything but very careful here. And that's the best option, for sure!
Trev

I certainly have no problem at all with pointing stuff out that might help others but when it comes to something as big as this, I do a few Google searches first.

Bob

And google is watching you, too

Supposedly DuckDuckGo, ixquick, and StartPage do not.

StartPage is supposed to give google results but through a European proxy.

Insights and incites by Notes

And google is watching you, too

Supposedly DuckDuckGo, ixquick, and StartPage do not.

StartPage is supposed to give google results but through a European proxy.

Insights and incites by Notes

Add Amazon to the list of sites that watch you.

When I do a search for an item on a website and maybe a day later on a totally different site and an advert pops up at the side with the same or similar item, then someone is indeed watching me. I have noticed this has got particularly bad of late.

And that's on windows 7 with no spyware or malware on board.

Musiclover

It's called 'remarketing' and is amazingly easy to do .. if you know how.
Go to a commercial site once, and you'll see the ads pop up on other random sites.
The concept is simple; you showed interest in the product, so nudging you occasionally is not out of the question.

They don't care what other sites you visit, or look at your browsing history or 'track you'. Like I said it's pretty simple.

You come to the site. You get a 'cookie'. This cookie lets the ad provider know you've been to the site, so a related ad is a 'preferable' ad, as opposed to a 'random' ad. Thus you get the related ad. It feels like tracking, but it has a line in the sand when done by the rules.

Clear your cookies or browsing history and it will go away (if done ethically).

I can show you the code that does it, and show you the actual 'cookie' if you want.
The cookie can be set to expire in anywhere from 30 to 120 days usually. Depending on the market, the expiration is up to the programmer/marketing team of the site you visited. If you don't want them either turn them off or don't visit sites that use them!

/Europe has different rules than US on the use of cookies, so if you are in US it will likely be more prevalent. /

Trust me; they don't care what other sites you visit, but if you show interest in their product it seems logical to use the ad systems to remind you and possibly prompt a sale. It's really nothing more than that.

They don't know 'who' you are, or what other sites you visited. They simply know you came to their site, got a cookie, and since they pay for ads, their ad gets displayed with preferential priority. It's really a win/win if you think about it. You get ads related to things you're interested in, and they get more focused ad placement.
Like I said, they aren't really 'tracking you' like some people think.

Edit:
The 'how it works' side is pretty simple, but running a campaign with good ROI can be pretty involved from the other side. Knowing which sites to pay for and excluding others, controlling the budget (etc.) takes a lot of thought/effort. I certainly didn't mean to downplay the work of a good retargeting/remarketing campaign. I was simply commenting on the technology and use in my above post .. you are not being 'tracked' in the sense some people think they are.
Yes, Google tracks you, since they offer the AdSense program, but again not the way some people assume.

Again guys this is simply another example of something that can get blown all out of proportion. Rharv is right just like Eddie is also right.

Whenever I look up anything online from the price of a new Yamaha mixer to a storage shed for the backyard which I just did, an ad for that same product pops up in the margin of the CNN or Fox News websites. So what? Seriously SO WHAT? No problemo guys, please. Stop with all the "they're watching us we're all gonna die" conspiracy theories.

Yes, I'm sure there are a few illegal exceptions but your car can get hit by a meteor in the driveway too or you can get hit in the head by a fish sucked up from the bay by a waterspout.

Just clear the cookies in your browser every few days if it really bugs you. The only reason I don't is some cookies are for remembering login info for certain sites and I don't want to go through the login dance every time I go there.

Edit. Since my soapbox hasn't collapsed yet, one more thing. How much do you worriers want to pay for all these websites? As in subscription fees. You think these sites don't cost big bucks to run? Without all these ad's they either would not exist or we would be paying for them probably similar to our cable TV. We'd have all these bundles like so much for column A, so much for column B.

Bob

Ccleaner can do that for you. You can select which cookies are here to stay.

Sharknado 3 ..oh hell no.

Good tool! I use that one too.

Off subject to the thread, but responding to Steve. I've seen all 3 ... #2 is the best as far as cheesy goes

Here is my take on all this, and it's changed recently.

There is NOTHING you can really do about all this.

If someone wants to track you it's easy. I recently watched a BBC program where using a free and feely available app you could, on a phone, track and record anyone's calls, take pics of them without them knowing, log their location.

Privacy? HUH!!! Anyone that knows your zip/postcode knows where you live to within a few houses.
Ensuring that your machine's are set up for privacy? You must be joking. I recently told my Android to stop logging my location - it/something switched it back on. It can even be done by triangulation software that does not need location switched on.

We all give off unique identifiers, there is nothing you can do about this. You take a certain shoe size, walk a certain way, have certain habits and customs. Machine's are nearly ready to pick this up. For example, how long until in the shopping mall, the software monitoring the cameras, bleeps when a body acts in a suspicious way? It's probably here, and how can such software be used 'creatively'?

In order to become more 'intelligent', machines MUST start learning about the world and the way it operates, and that means they must learn more about YOU baby!

Even if you downed all tools and walked around in a black cloak, there is NOTHING that you, or even Bill Gates can do to stop this remorseless avalanche of mass observation, its here and it's staying.


So, as Dylan says....

"Just lay there by the Juniper, while the sun is high....

As Batman said: "I laugh in the face of adversity!




Z

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/31/windows-10-microsoft-faces-criticism-over-privacy-default-settings
Z

Only Microsoft and Windows 10?

Surely not.

Who else is watching you?

Watch this...

be vigilant...

Yes VideoTrack, its much more than just MS. The scary thing is you cant be vigilant, because you simply dont know who and how you are being watched. This is not " conspiracy junkie over imagination", it's fact.

Even if you never go on line, and never own a phone, it's still true.

BTW I read Win 10 privacy statement - it should be called WIn 10 publicize your data statement, it has NOTHING to do with privacy. The language is deliberately vague and interpretable.

Z

Nice info ZeroZero. I walked into WalMart with my smartphone last week and my grocery list app produced a pop up that said, "Hey, why don't you pick up some of the things on your list since you are in Walmart." Freaky stuff.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33772261

Your phone logged into their network and they have it set up to send a message on logon. Simple. That doesn't mean they are watching YOU. They send a message to every new login. You, her, him, them, us.....

If anyone would like to escape all of this watching and tracking, move into the mountains, hunt for your own food, build fires to keep warm and put it all behind you.

JMHO!

They'd even send one to me .. if I logged into their network. I don't automatically log on to any network that's available. Some people do.

Many people do actually.
Not sure if many noticed but cable companies are making a public WIFI labeled with the cable company name (IE xfinitywifi) available if you use their internet.
It's open and uses the equipment in your home .. I don't like the sounds of that.
Another reason I have my own router for my network...

Amen, brotha! And find a place tp park your horse and buggy.

Too many people say too many things they don't really know about. Nobody is watching YOU. The infrawebz tracks HABITS. Nobody knows it's Joe going to Home Depot's web page, just that some computer went there and then they send you ads that relate to home improvement. Nobody can see that Bob Jones of 17235 Maple Street in Anytown USA is doing something. "Tracking" has become a buzzword. And if it bothers you, do like Mike said. Get rid of your cell phone, never go on the internet again. And to boot, don't drive anywhere because you might see a billboard with an ad on it. And shut off that TV. They have commercials. All those little ads on your screen are, really, are commercials. If you don't want to see them, use Chrome with AdBlock and you will see an empty spot on your screen where an ad would be withough AdBlock.

Can anybody here honestly say that there has not been an instance or two where that ad they suddenly saw was actually something of interest? Everybody relax and stop feeling offended because technology is what it is.

PS. If anybody wants to see my browsing history, I will send it to you.

One of my favorite 'browser' sayings is "At least I can type 'a n a l' into the URL bar and Google Analytics is all that pops up from my history.


Well, that and to call that one browser Internet Exploder ..
/I'm old; get off my lawn

Great tips. Thanks for posting. Ray