Microsoft’s Build 2016 keynote offers Windows 10 devs an amazing array of new tools

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It’s not a list of new features in the next version of Windows 10. It’s an overview of where MS is headed – and some of it’s amazing. InfoWorld Woody
[See the full post at: Microsoft’s Build 2016 keynote offers Windows 10 devs an amazing array of new tools]

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This is how it is presented on one of the news sites here http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/design/microsoft-unveils-exciting-new-updates-to-windows-10-at-build-conference/news-story/c47a824ca77c13dbd276528899a43eb9
Paid advertising or not, it is informative for those who don’t have the time to follow the whole presentation.

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The tools may be amazing but they look downright frightening to this non-techie. If I understood correctly then soon Micros**t will have your fingerprints, your image, immense amounts of data about you and convinced people to dispense with their privacy completely. Would you willingly give all that to anybody? 1984 has arrived.

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You have a very good point.

People need to realize that, when they use the newer versions of many products, their privacy gets gutted in the process. Anybody who’s used a voice-activated “OK Google,” or “Siri” or “Alexa” needs to understand that those machines are listening to everything, all the time. If you have a mobile phone, your location is tracked constantly, either by the onboard GPS system, or by the cell towers you’re connecting to. Your Internet Service Provider keeps track of what web sites you’re visiting. I use “OK Google” all the time – and I use the Chrome browser, Google Search, and even a Chromebook from time to time.

It’s also important to note that these machines HAVE to track this stuff, if they’re going to deliver the features that people want. The companies that collect the information have rules for handling the info, but in the end all you really have is their promise.

I don’t have a solution to that. Wish I did.

My main point is that people should be aware of the consequences of what they’re doing. If it doesn’t bother a customer — doesn’t bother me that much — that’s fine, go for it. But if you are concerned about it, you need to curtail all sorts of activities. Awareness is key.

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If Microsoft don’t have them, Apple will. Or Google or someone else. The alternative? Stay away from the Internet or any other computer network if you can afford it.

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Your points are well stated and succinctly reveal the choices in play. I would suggest that the way to square this circle of issues is to make sure that customers/users can transparently control, i.e., disable the services they do not wish to use without wading through umpteen hidden menus with obtuse instructions. They should also receive reasonable assurance that the options to disable services actually do what they purport without needing to engage in extensive research to prove the result. This seems to be a minimum level of control when you have an MS that constantly seeks to insulate itself from any and all legal remedies to recover damages from harmed users. Not everyone wishes to behave like a modern day Luddite, but some of the remaining population actually has concern about things that must remain confidential (and are entirely legal) and also the prevention of identity theft.

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No, just refuse to use the cloud parts. There are ways. Some of us have set up systems that don’t spill the beans AT ALL.

What part of speech recognition or fingerprint checking requires data to be sent to somewhere else? It’s just STUPID to “cloudify” security!

Regarding the original story, how is adopting the scripting language of another operating system that’s been around forever considered amazing?

Wake up folks, it’s all hype and no substance. Windows 10 still isn’t actually any better to use than Windows 8.1 or 7, and many in-the-know don’t think it’s going to be any time soon.

-Noel

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Microsoft to show Bash on Linux running on Windows 10 by Mary Jo Foley
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-show-bash-on-linux-running-on-windows-10/

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@Noel Carboni,

It is almost impossible to “just refuse to use the cloud parts” if one doesn’t have much technical knowledge and only has a simplistic understanding of these devices/systems.
And, of course, the companies don’t make it clear to the average user what is really happening below the surface.

Plus, they do not make it easy, and sometimes make it impossible, for the user to turn off the privacy-invading parts and still get some kind of use or enjoyment out of the product/system. The newer products/systems are making it such an inherent part of how the products normally work.

What are the main things one should do to “set up systems that don’t spill the beans”, as you have done?
I know this is a huge topic, there’s no way a person could explain everything in a brief comment… Are there any websites/articles that you would recommend for non-techie people who are concerned about their privacy and security?

A few days ago I described some of the little things that I am doing:
https://www.askwoody.com/2016/more-about-the-interlocking-gwx-patches-kb-3035583-and-2952664/#comment-77778

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@Chris,

It was frightening to me too. Yesterday when I read Woody’s article, all the technical whizz-bang stuff passed me straight by, and I just felt incredibly sad on a personal level about the kinds of things certain technology companies are desperately trying to do, and will impose on everyone – on the human race forever more – to the point where life honestly will never be the same, and it will be some kind of horrifying twisted fake facsimile (in my view).

When I was a little kid, there were mainly 5 tv channels, we had a black-and-white tiny tv, and I was a night owl (same still), and late at night when I was the only one up I’d sneakily watch repeats of the original Twilight Zone tv show and a couple of other odd shows like I think a Hitchcock drama half hour and the Outer Limits or something, and the better ones of their spooky stories would have an impact on me. They would provoke weird feelings of uncertainty, dislocation, dread, mistrust, betrayal, entrapment, etc., but that would only last for a little while after turning the tv off, and then real life would fade back in.
Later, I learned about how things were in some other countries and a little history, and travelled behind the Iron Curtain a couple of times, and felt that extreme unease, fear, being watched, having a gun pointed at oneself by security guards standing in the backs of moving military trucks and standing at checkpoints, etc., and had the briefest outsider’s glimpse into how it might feel to live under that sort of controlling/mass-observation/record-keeping/recording/forced-heightened-alertness/soul-destroying milieu all the time.
What I didn’t expect was that when I grew up and became middle aged, in my own, free, country, that things would suddenly shift so much that everyday normal life would increasingly give me the “willies” like a middle-brow, pulpy, budget science fiction drama,
with the depressing realization that it all could tip over at any time in the next 5-50 years into serious, horrifying, real-life, iron-curtain/dictator/you-name-it stuff – but worse, because of the advances in technology.
It’s not harmless, it’s not easy to control once it’s unleashed, it’s not only going to be used for beneficial means by well-meaning people, it’s not worth it, and it’s unstoppable.

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I hear ya, but what you’re seeing is a tidal change in what’s expected, and what the companies will deliver.

My son is fascinated by my Android phone – he loves to pick it up and say, oh, “OK Google, when did the Cretaceous period end” or “OK Google, when is Zootopia playing.” I’ve probably said a dozen times, “OK Google, navigate Costco.” It’s magical technology.

But in order for the technology to work, Google has to be listening to everything, all the time. It has to know where I’m located. And there are hundreds of additional “snooping” things it really needs in order to do what I want it to do.

I’ll write an article about it some day, but we’re really seeing a massive change in technology, for better or worse. I, personally, welcome our new electronic overlords – but your opinion may well differ.

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@poohsticks
A brilliant summary of the issues. It does appear to be unstoppable (probably because early opponents were written off as cranks) and frankly I give up all hope when Woody himself says “I, personally, welcome our new electronic overlords” and he’s one of the good guys!
If I understood enough I would lose Micros**t entirely and move somewhere else but (I guess) like most non-techies I’m not confident enough to try it.

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May I add that it’s long overdue that people read Huxley’s “Brave New World”, which was incredibly prescient. Probably people are too busy looking at their mobile gadgets to do something like that though.

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It’s interesting to see how the story is playing in the financial press. From the March 31 Wall Street Journal:

“Terry Myerson, executive vice president of the Windows and Devices Group, said 270 million active devices run Windows 10. In the last update, on Jan. 4, Microsoft said that 200 million devices ran the operating system, which launched last July. The company said the uptake outpaces that of Windows 7, previously the fastest-growing version of Windows, in the same time frame by 145%.”

This simple narrative lacks details that are present in your article, such as the differences in the way adoption numbers are calculated. But who’s paying attention, right? This is our story and we’re sticking with it–and woe to anyone who continues to insist that the emperor has no clothes.

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Microsoft does an excellent job of playing the press. Waggener-Edstrom, their PR company, is one of the best in the world.

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It’s prolly available to read *via* a mobile device!

I don’t know if it’s out of copyright yet, and possibly available for free on gutenberg.org or another free-book website, but it might be.

I’ve had a quick look, but My PeerBlock settings are blocking me from viewing http://www.gutenberg.org.

On free-book site bartleby.com, Huxley isn’t in the list of authors: http://www.bartleby.com/authors/

I had never read it because I don’t much like science fiction generally, and as the fiction transmutes into non-fiction, at this stage of my life I think reading it would probably just depress me further about these issues.
I’m sure it’s very good. The wikipedia.org article about it is interesting.

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@Chris

“…frankly
I give up all hope
when Woody himself says
“I, personally, welcome our new electronic overlords”
and
he’s one of the good guys!”

I know! Aaaauuuugggghhhh!

But, as he is leaning towards the good-guy side, I am grateful that he is clued-in so much to the industry and can translate/teach to the public about some of the important stuff that is going on, even if he supports most of the things that I find so concerning.

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Woody,

It would be great if you wrote an article about it.

And maybe a slideshow about the top 10 or top x number of things that Joe/Josephine Public can do to curtail/manage the spying/recording/tracking in their own lives (and what some of the trade-offs of each action might be).

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I support choice – and education. People need to know what they’re getting in to. If they don’t like it, that’s fine.

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I have been developing a script that tweaks Windows. One part of it quiets down some of the telemetry, etc. and some other parts of it do things like uninstall ALL the Apps and some of the services that connect them with the web.

Of course, some people WANT Apps. Such tweaking might not be of interest to them. I’m hesitant to post the link here because it’s not something to be run blithely – you should know what you’re doing before permanently uninstalling Windows components (though “permanently” takes on new meaning when Microsoft delivers a new in-place upgrade every 4 to 6 months).

As far as muzzling Windows, there are some very good easy-to-use tools out there that focus just on that – for example Google “O&O ShutUp10” and “W10Privacy”.

Also – and again this is geek/guru level stuff – I recommend a good 3rd party firewall management package. Even though it’s possible to deconfigure virtually all of the chattiness, it’s good to have a safety net. I use one called “Sphinx Windows 10 Firewall Control”. The key thing this does is provide outgoing “deny-by-default” functionality. In other words, if you haven’t allowed it, it won’t communicate. However, setting such a program up really does require some knowledge of how IP networking works under the covers, and some knowledge of how Windows uses networking. The particular package I named is powerful, but not for someone who doesn’t want to take – and maintain – an active role in determining what communications are allowed.

On a related note, you can VASTLY increase your security, especially when browsing, by blacklisting communications with servers identified as bad by a number of freely available lists online. I’ve written a script that retrieves a number of such lists and compiles a hosts file. The hosts file guides local name resolutions before Windows ever goes online, and it redirects such requests to the invalid address 0.0.0.0, which are immediately rejected. As a bonus it eliminates virtually all ads. See:

http://win10epicfail.proboards.com/thread/105/build-own-hosts-file

I have it scheduled to run every morning. The file it generated for me this morning blocks 40,000+ sites known to serve badware or ads.

-Noel

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@Noel Carboni,

Thank you for the information – I really appreciate your reply!

(I can’t directly reply to your comment because it’s at the point of nesting where comments can no longer be replied to directly, but I hope you will still see this thank-you.)

As you correctly surmised, my knowledge level is such that I won’t be able to attempt any of your ideas, but I am glad to know about them anyway.

Even using the hosts file blacklist that you created, and generously distribute freely, is way beyond my abilities. [However, I do use the old, free Peerblock program and I use a number of free blocklists as provided by iblocklist.com with that, plus a few blocklists that I created by hand for myself. Peerblock has kept a lot of stuff/ads/trackers from connecting with my computer. (Along with turning off Flash, SSL, TLS 1.0, DOM storage, IPV6, and numerous scheduled tasks in “computer management” that are meant to “phone home”; and making some rules for my firewall for some IP addresses that were somehow getting past Peerblock.) Consequently, there are some websites I can’t view at all, and many sites where my view/the functionality is hobbled, but I don’t mind.]

Good luck with your efforts, and thank you for sharing your work with others.

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