I'd really like to point out this stereotype Everyone's getting the impression that Microsoft has geek monkeys sitting in front of computer logs and spying on people's documents and files in a hidden undergound Microsoft dungeon. The truth is, Microsoft is using this data sctrictly for debugging purposes, they aren't going to sell your data nor are they going to read for the sake of knowing personal secrects and files. And what some people don't realize is that their ISP (Internet Service Provider) loggs all the websites that you visit, all the files you download, and all the things you upload, now isn't that even more scary? It's not justified to call Longhorn spyware. -whyme

Reply

even though bill gates is pretty avericious...

anyways, windows I say is like this:
It's as far away from perfect as possible, yet, you can't really have a high end computer without it.

I don't really know about you, but when's the last time you've heard a big thing in the news that has to do with linux, or OSX? I've only heard of things like "new update lets you destroy malware in windows" and let's not forget, "the biggest game ever! (system requirements: nvidia sound card, windows operating system, etc." You can't really make an apple computer, and you can't really upgrade an I-mac. That's probably why everyone likes windows, but I wish that this longhorn thing is finalized before it's released, cuz I hate updates. They allways slow down my system untill I am fed up and buy a new computer. IT takes my laptop around 15 minuites to load, and I have 8 things in the background. It's enough to drive me insane!

 

 

 

Reply

Hi all,
Good comments.. keep 'em coming !

Nothing personal but.... Have to comment on a post above that said


Well, the REAL TRUTH is... thats what Microsoft SAYS its doing with the information.
The point of this poll is NOT what Micro$oft says.. but the real point is..

How secure is your information once you have lost control over it.. ???

And that depends on various factors like ..
reputation & trust.. which should be based on previous performance (ie. actions)...
and other things like ... whats humanly possible (to do at all) ....
and other things like.... [ you fill in the blank here]...etc.

Its like saying...
We're from Micro$oft ... trust us ... or
We're from the government ... trust us ..or
We're from [fill in the blank] ... trust us

So, you decide.... and
voice your opinion here.. and
please vote.
Thanks
RGPHNX
ps- Has anyone here heard about the "NSA backdoor" that Micro$oft secretly installed in all versions of Win 98 that would have allowed the government to secretly gain direct access to your confidential information.. without due process of law (ie. court authorization). Micro$soft only removed it after the consuming public got wind of it and threatened to boycot their product. Its a matter of historical fact.. just do a search for it.. you'll find lots of info.

PPS- Special kudos to xboxrulz for his post comments on linux & Win 2000 security!!! . Its accurate and if you don't think computer systems can be designed with REAL security protection.. you should just do some checking.

Reply

yep actually win xo do that but not as deeper as is describe for the new version of windows ... i dont believe that our privacy is respected, actually a lot of programs send stats to their websites ... many programs do that ...

by the other side is impossible to make a perfect operating system, if the use for making longhorn better i think is a good idea but if they r using it to make market stats ... shame on them ,...

but sincerly i dont feel that win xp sp2 have a better performance ...

Reply

No offense, but I think you are all jumping to early conclusions. I'm not saying don't be cautious, of course, but people tend to hear a little bit of something and then make huge assumptions. It's what leads to mass paranoia.

The article goes on to say:

I suspect RGPHNX may have cut the article short before this in an intentional attempt to make it more... 'dramatic'.

But anyway, it's basically saying that you can decide whether or not to send information to Microsoft, and if so, what sort of information and how much of it. Further more, if you do send information, it is going to be anonymous. Believe it or not, Microsoft has better things to do than collect information about you personally. Or to be more blunt - they couldn't care less about you, or what you're doing (unless it involves mass amounts of software piracy).

I think this is a wonderful idea on Microsoft's part. Stop thinking about your unimportant self for a second, and imagine how much this would help businesses and organizations that experience technical difficulties all the time. It would allow them to pinpoint what's going wrong and when, under what conditions it is happening, and what they should fix or try and avoid doing.

On another note, why do so many people seem to think that Microsoft's primary goal is to invade people's privacy? Whilst I'm sure that in reality, they have little respect for it other than as is legally required, the only real reason that they would want to collect information about consumers is for marketing-related purposes; and most such data is mass collected and aggregated, for the record, so they can't individually identify you anyway. I don't think they are going to spend billions of dollars on finding out who you've been talking to on the Internet or how much porn you have been downloading. Why? Because even I don't care about that.

Oh, I just read whyme's post; and I think he is absolutely right. Microsoft doesn't want to know what you personally are doing.


The real truth is that if Microsoft doesn't handle your information as they say they will in privacy policies, terms of use statements, and end-user license agreements, you can sue them. The real truth is that all such details of information handling is given straight to you by Microsoft. It's not they are hiding it - it's just that you are too lazy to read it.

Reply

What will happen when your internet browser crashes while submitting your credit card number? What will happen when an application crashes when you enter your password? All of that information will be kept inside that error report!

I'm not saying that the Microsoft (notice: no more $ instead of s ) employees will read my personal information from my every error report, but this confidential information may eventually leak out!

What do you think about this?
http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=17509&category=main

If Windows NT and Windows 2000 source code can be available on the Internet, what can happen to your privacy?

There is a very slim chance of this happening, but how many people do use Microsof Windows? Just one incident... just one is needed to cause a very big scandal!

And a little bit more about the error reporting features in Windows:
Error reporting cannot help the Microsoft staff very much unless you take some time to describe what were you doing when the error occurred! So... Unless you write an complete error report (this is a thing that a beginner or a novice user will not be able to do, and advanced users will simply refuse to do it), it is very difficult to know what the user did to make that error appear. (It can be a wrong video codec, a faulty application, a virus, spyware... anything!)

Reply

i don't think longhorn could possibly ship without bugs. every OS they've shipped so far has had countless patches, fixes, alerts, etc. what's to say longhorn will be any different?

Reply

Sigh, people, whenever you are using a computer, your personal data is ALWAYS at risk, there is no golden security feature on ANY OS that protects all your data, privacy, or protects your security. Hackers could hack into your computer and your passwords could be compromised, you could get a virus that would sell your passwords.

The fact is, if you're going to use a computer, your data will be at risk, no matter what precautions you have taken. Microsoft isn't the gaint evil company which is going to read your personal data.

And more so, the only reason why the Windows OS is so vunreable is because 90% of computer users happen to USE IT. Why would hackers waste time trying to hack into an Apple computer when 90% of the world is using Windows? It's easier to hack into Windows because you have a greater number of people using it.

Sorry, I may have gotten a bit off topic, but the fact is, if you're worried about your privacy, not using LongHorn won't make your privacy any better. I suggest you stop using a computer.

Reply

Microsoft employs a whole team of people whose job is solely to prevent any breach of security on their servers. The incident of source being leaked is very, very different - firstly, people are actually interested in seeing some of the very secretive and jealously gaurded Windows source code; and secondly, reports stated that it was not leaked from Microsoft itself, but from a smaller company which was working with Microsoft on the product in question. Because of the importance of source code, I don't think it would be stored on machines that have access of any form - restricted or otherwise - to any kind of external network.

On the topic of credit cards, I highly doubt that your credit card number would be submitted. If, for some reason, it was, you would be able to view and remove that information before the report was submitted. When a credit card number is being processed over the Internet, it should be done over a secure, 128-bit encryption SSL connection. Whoever sees the data (if anyone at all - the majority of error reporting will be done by computerized hypothesizing, I would imagine) will most likely not be able to see what your credit card number is. Even if they did care.



That's exactly the point of Longhorn's new 'black box' feature - it reports everything. So the people handling it can work out what went wrong, without having to deal with users who wouldn't have a clue about what they're doing (which makes up something like 80% of Windows users). Even if you are an advanced user, a lot goes on behind the scenes that you don't know about (because you don't need to know about it) and never see (because you don't need to see it), so despite how much you might know about the operating system, you would not be able to write an extensive error report anyway, even if you had specialist debugging software capable of retrieving a lot of low-level data. Because Windows is at the core of all this information processing, it is obviously aware of everything that is going on, and therefore can generate a very extensive, in-depth report that can allow people to work out what went wrong and even recreate a simulation of the problem should they need to.

Reply

And a GREAT DEAL of those 90% of users are HOME/OFFICE users! Servers usually run a *nix or *BSD based operating system:

Taken from http://counter.li.org/estimates.php


That was in 2001! How many servers are running Linux right now?

And there's one of the answers right there: Hackers (usually the ones who play dirty) ARE INTERESTED in your personal data! Why would they bother stealing money from a large company with enormous risk of getting caught, when they can steal money from you with numerous methods and with very little risk of getting caught? ("Phishing", sniffing, IP scanning for open ports and shared disks, exploiting, you name it!)

A few dollars from a few users every day can pile up a great amount of cash!

Windows source code is not available to the public (except a part of the Win NT and Win 2000 code that I mentioned earlier, but that’s illegal), and if hackers are still able to find security holes inside MS software, that means that Windows is not that secure. Linux, on the other hand, is Open Source, and it’s whole source code is available to the public, so, if there is an error, or a potential security breach, hackers will find it very fast! (but only a few are actually discovered)



Isn't the job of the security staff to decide if the company (that is receiving the Windows source code) is capable of guarding it also?



Remove it from where? You can view Windows XP error reports when you encounter one, but you can’t edit it... and if you could, you would have to be an very experienced user to find that information in that large hex dump...



Windows gathers information during an error from the system memory also (which is unencrypted, by the way), and that includes information that is typed in text boxes, so there is a great risk of your credit card number being included inside the error report.



Everything? Does that “everything” include your personal information? Let’s face it! Computers can’t see the difference from your passwords, credit card numbers and other personal info from cake recipes, your homework or your note to pick up a few groceries on the way home.



Like you said:


80% of Windows users will not be able to remove that information before the report is submitted, and (like I said) Windows will not be able to tell the difference between important and completely irrelevant information, so it will not be able to ask the question “This error report contains your credit card number, would you like to remove it?”.

I’m not saying that users will have to type in low level information in the error report (btw: they won’t be able to see it in the first place), but I know that if you say that an error occurred while pressing the “Check hard disk for errors” button in *insert program name here* from *insert company name here*, it will be allot easier to determine what is causing the error.

What if I am running a third party program? Will Microsoft be able to create an simulation without it? I doubt it...

The main question still remains unanswered: While there is a very slim chance of getting into an situation where an Microsoft employee is viewing and writing down your personal information for later use, is MY ERROR REPORT SAFE in Microsoft’s hands?

Reply