Windows 10 is here

Your next step should be swapping out your HDD for an SDD. I know it sounds hard, but for less than a $100 you can turn a slow machine into one faster than the average computer worth 1K.

 

The problem is, even when you turn off all the user-facing stuff in the GUI and say "No, stop tracking me please", the OS keeps going out to those 100+ domains anyways.

That's kinda the point. Even when you follow their steps, the OS does what it wants anyhow. And that's a bad thing, imho.

 

I'm sure it does. I think though it just fires blanks.

Just for arguments sake do you know what's it's send? Is it just how much internet traffic, where you are, etc etc? Maybe your IE usage, which I never use because fuck IE? I'm curious for sure. I don't really care about Microsoft knowing I use a couple of dozen GB's of data and where I live but if someone is looking at much more than that then I can understand the concern a bit more.

Plus, to be honest, all of the IP's here in Canada are tracking everything too. The amount of people I know that have been caught downloading anything illegal is very very high. My brother came over for a couple of days and even I got a warning letter about downloading videos because of him. I know of ways around that but the telemetry and location tracking is just becoming a fact of life thing now. How bad that is I can't really say.

 

No, I don't know what data or information those processes are sending, or trying to send. That's ALSO the point. Microsoft won't say other than "It isn't personally identifying, trust us, pinkie swear!"

And, as for as *I* am concerned, telemetry tracking and location stalking is NOT 'just becoming a fact of life'. Nor is my ISP sniffing my data. That wasn't part of our agreement up front, and it isn't any of MS' goddamned business either. So long as I have the control over my hardware, you will do things my way, software providers, if you want my money. This is not negotiable.

 

I totally understand that feeling. I wasn't trying to stir up anything .

I thought maybe you knew what the data was and I was curious.

 

Me neither! I'm not anti Microsoft by any stretch (I make a living building and maintaining servers and workstations and networks running 90% their software), I'm just anti-"What they're doing with 10, and HOW"

I just firmly believe the truth should be available to anyone that wants it, when it comes to the tech we're asked to pay for and, let's face it, it is our lives these companies want to mine for data and make millions off of.

 

How do you do this? I turned all my shit off but if its still sending....

 

Nailed it. Yes, this is the reason why these companies want our data. It's money to most companies now.

 

In my case, I make / run networks for a living, so I simply built a standalone LAN in my test lab, sequestered it, fired up a packet sniffer on the other side of it, and installed 10 on a test lappy. Bang. Dump to a pcap file and you're done.

Basically, I built a network like you have in your house, installed a big magnifying glass on the network line going from your ISP-supplied router to the pole, and noted what I saw when the Win10 laptop was the only thing plugged in and running. I have all the hardware and test gear to do this already, so its not a big deal.

The closest you could come would be to run wireshark on a second laptop in wide-open sniff mode on your LAN, while installing 10 on your test/target laptop. Physically unplug everything else from your router for the duration of the test...should only be 10-15 minutes. Have only your lappy and the sniffer running on the inside of your house. This includes physically disconnecting cable boxen as well, as they will be transmitting/receiving the whole time.

The wireshark machine can and will get a look at all the traffic whizzing by.

 

Wouldn't that method also end up catching a whole bunch of Windows services that people should leave alone. Like Windows Update. I mean I'm all for security but if Windows can't retrieve updates on it's own and people don't take the time to manually get them then that's going to create issues to.

 

You mean like the Windows Updates that try to sneak/force you to download 4GB of an OS you don't want?

Heh

No, this is even with windows updates temporarily turned off. MS really went Full Dark Side with the bullshit in Win 10, and they still haven't owned up to it all.

 

Yes, don't worry I know all about the forced push out of 10. I think anyone with any computer savy knows about that. I thought it was closer to 8 GB it took up though .

Actually I was more pissed about the whole key thing. At first they were causing all sorts of issues with people upgrading if the windows key didn't carry over correctly that would require a refresh. Then, after 90% of people who were going to move had already moved, they finally linked windows 7/8/8.1/10 upgrade authorizations to the MB...

Okay, you might want to add the step "turn off windows update" for a newbie then. If they left it on, or any other service, and tried to do part of your shortcut they could end up causing some trouble for themselves. I'm just going to point blank say, other than directly copying your list, they should avoid doing something that technical for fear of causing more issues than it's worth.

 

I mean ho do I block this activity? I use the Windows Firewall.

 

Honestly, you don't. You either have to block it at your router or at an external point like it. Which is part of the problem....you USED to be able to do shit about it on the PC itself with custom rules, hosts file entries, etc. MS specifically backdoored around these because fuck you, that's why.

 

Hmm. I have DD-WRT Firmware installed on my Linksys; how do I use the info you've provided to block this. I don't wear a tin foil hat, but I don't appreciate that kind of shit.

 

Maybe

http://www.technipages.com/block-certain-web-sites-via-your-linksys-router

 

Windows 10 update........ Have they finally worked all the driver problems out? I had an HP that i upgraded to Windows 10 when it came out, and it was absolutely crap, but waited till after the 30 days, and had to get a friend to wipe it and start over with windows 8. Have they worked out most of the bugs now? Should I consider trying to upgrade again, or just stick with 8?

 

Ive had no driver issues with win10 at all. I have a Cannon and HP printer installed and still using the original win7 drivers. Sounds like the drivers were corrupted during the install? Try uninstalling them, deleting all the temp install files, etc... and doing a fresh reinstall.

 

Not even close.

Yesterday, nVidia had to pull a driver update because Win 10 was shitting the bed so badly with it installed that some folks were asking warranty replacement questions. That driver on my 8.x gaming rig is fine, and on my 7.x workstations at the office is fine.

 

I had issues as well with nVidia and windows 10 that went away until my last update.