Even With Telemetry Disabled, Windows 10 Talks To Dozens of Microsoft Servers

[Thomas the Tank Engine]

<snipped>

 

 

Quote

 

Like many of you, I am concerned about the telemetry, spying and other surveillance features, known or unknown, of Windows 10. It has concerned me enough to push me to Linux Mint as my main operating system. Even so, I wanted to better understand Windows 10, but internet search results for a decent windows 10 traffic analysis leave a lot to be desired. As such, I decided to do my own investigating on what, exactly, Windows 10 is doing traffic-wise, and post the results. For this analysis, I wanted to simply analyse the network traffic of Windows 10 on a clean install, and just let it sit and run without using it.

What I have done for this analysis:

1. I have installed DD-WRT on a router connected to the internet and configured remote logging to the Linux Mint laptop in #2.
2. I have installed Linux Mint on a laptop, and setup rsyslog to accept remote logging from the DD-WRT router.
3. I have installed Virtualbox on the Linux Mint laptop, and installed Windows 10 Enterprise on Virtualbox. I have chosen the customized installation option where I disabled three pages of tracking options.
4. I have configured the DD-WRT router to drop and log all connection attempts via iptables through the DD-WRT router by Windows 10 Enterprise.
5. Aside from installing Windows 10 Enterprise, and verifying the internet connection through ipconfig and ping yahoo.com, I have not used the Windows 10 installation at all (the basis for the first part of this analysis)
6. Let Windows 10 Enterprise run overnight for about 8 hours (while I slept).
7. I use perl to parse the data out of syslog files and insert said data into a Mysql database.
8. I use perl to obtain route data from whois.radb.net, as well as nslookup PTR data, and insert that into the Mysql database.
9. Lastly, I query and format the data for analyzing.

 

 

 

Read the rest: https://voat.co/v/technology/comments/83574

[Gone]

<snipped>

 

Now back to my 2 hour repair attempt of MS Office since I can't uninstall anything or repair on Windows 7 right now.... all while in the middle of a project. 

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

15 hours ago, SpeedyTheSnail said:

<snipped>

 

Now back to my 2 hour repair attempt of MS Office since I can't uninstall anything or repair on Windows 7 right now.... all while in the middle of a project. 

 

Would the Office 2013/2016/O365 repair / removal tool be of assistance:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Uninstall-Office-2013-Office-2016-or-Office-365-from-a-Windows-computer-9dd49b83-264a-477a-8fcc-2fdf5dbf61d8

 

If Office 2010 Removal Fixit

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Uninstall-or-remove-Office-2010-90635a1d-aec8-4653-b358-67e1b766fc4d

 

 

[adrynalyne]

1 hour ago, SpeedyTheSnail said:

MS Fanboys will be here shortly to defend their beloved Windows 10, as they can never be wrong even when they are!

 

Now back to my 2 hour repair attempt of MS Office since I can't uninstall anything or repair on Windows 7 right now.... all while in the middle of a project. 

What is to defend? Anyone who has read the EULA knows the OS talks to MS. OS X talks to Apple too. 

[Gone]

1 hour ago, Eternal Tempest said:

 

Would the Office 2013/2016/O365 repair / removal tool be of assistance:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Uninstall-Office-2013-Office-2016-or-Office-365-from-a-Windows-computer-9dd49b83-264a-477a-8fcc-2fdf5dbf61d8

 

If Office 2010 Removal Fixit

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Uninstall-or-remove-Office-2010-90635a1d-aec8-4653-b358-67e1b766fc4d

 

 

Tried all of them, eventually my solution was this: 

http://mslivesupport.com/error/office-2016/error-code-0-1018-0-office-2016-how-to-fix-error/

and

http://superuser.com/questions/944057/office-2016-installation-halts-with-message-another-installation-is-in-progress

Which involved deleting some files, folders, and settings as well as removing schedules.

 

Either MS Visio or Intuit Quickbooks took a 2 hour assignment and turned it into a 6 hour nightmare (I had to use Visio to make a system diagram, but Visio was corrupted and when I repaired it, it deleted Office FML). I've had nothing but problems lately on that, but thank you and back on topic I go!

[+Warwagon MVC]

I'm more curious on how many megs that amounted to

[ZakO]

I like how he calls the post "Windows 10 telemetry network traffic analysis" and then does absolutely zero analysis of "telemetry" data. 

 

He did a fresh install of Windows 10 Enterprise, didn't disable any network-based apps (Windows Update, NTP Syncing, News, MS Money, Store, Weather, XBOX, Bing Popular Feed) and is then surprised when connection requests are made. Not only that, but rather than actually monitoring what data is sent, he has his router blocking connections silently. The OS/Apps know they're connected to a network, but wouldn't know why their connections are failing so a lot of them will periodically retry their requests, potentially to multiple servers if the app assumes it's the remote server that is down rather than him blocking the connection. 

 

I'm not saying there isn't additional telemetry collection in Windows 10, there might be, but this data shows nothing useful. 
 

[Yogurth]

There is nothing to worry about it is just Windows translating itself with help of Cortana and some online dictionaries.
 

[Stoffel]

I thought this was cleared up by now?!?

YES, MS collects data from you, about your system, to make sure everything keeps running smoothly, they are not stealing your personal data.

Why do people struggle so much with this? Every OS does this by now

[Active.]

The fact of the matter is that Microsoft has decided to only grant enterprise customers the privilege to turn off telemetry completely due to privacy / data protection concerns those customers have  voiced.

[Active.]

_{Huh...maybe I should have read the OP. Didn't even realize this was talking about the enterprise version.}

[+Raze Subscriber²]

A friend of a friend of a friend of mine works at MS in the document shredder department and he says that everything he's read/viewed before shredding hasn't contained any personal info, soooo he doesn't think they (MS) are spying.   There you go, proof from an MS employee himself! 

 

Now we can all sleep at night, our porn "personal entertainment" data is safe!   

[+JHBrown Subscriber¹]

I am hoping that once Satya gets replaced, we will see these sneaky tactics exonerated. I will once again fall in love with Microsoft, as I did in the late 80's. 

[chrisj1968]

I'd ask that anyone born in the last 20 years, realize that, those of us who started with Windows 1.0 - 3.11 to consider we have seen most of microsofts developments good and bad. So don't be too hard on us older fellas who don't like seeing where this is going (Windows in the bigger picture).

[+JHBrown Subscriber¹]

5 minutes ago, chrisj1968 said:

I'd ask that anyone born in the last 20 years, realize that, those of us who started with Windows 1.0 - 3.11 to consider we have seen most of microsofts developments good and bad. So don't be too hard on us older fellas who don't like seeing where this is going (Windows in the bigger picture).

Correct. In the grand scheme of things, I'm not a fan of their game plan. 

[DeusProto]

11 minutes ago, JHBrown said:

I am hoping that once Satya gets replaced, we will see these sneaky tactics exonerated. I will once again fall in love with Microsoft, as I did in the late 80's. 

Yep I still have faith that once Microsoft decides to make desktop users a high priority again we will get a solid OS with Windows 10.1 or 10.2 or whatever, possibly with things like Aero Glass being restored, the ability to customize vertical spacing between rows on jumplists to be EFFICIENT and COMPACT for us mouse users, and also the ability to again customize how many items you can pin -- where the crippled XAML jumplists are limited to 11 items now with zero customization. You can't even drag to reorder jumplist items anymore. 

 

I have faith that in a couple years or so, desktop users will be catered to once again and Microsoft will be content to make iOS and Android programs in terms of their mobile sandbox instead of a "one size fits all" OS. 

[oldtimefighter]

3 hours ago, Raze said:

A friend of a friend of a friend of mine works at MS in the document shredder department and he says that everything he's read/viewed before shredding hasn't contained any personal info, soooo he doesn't think they (MS) are spying.   There you go, proof from an MS employee himself! 

 

Now we can all sleep at night, our porn "personal entertainment" data is safe!   

Was this meant to be a joke? A friend of a friend of a friend? Why would people's personal info ever be on physical paper even if Microsoft was straight up spying on us?

[+JHBrown Subscriber¹]

2 minutes ago, DeusProto said:

Yep I still have faith that once Microsoft decides to make desktop users a high priority again we will get a solid OS with Windows 10.1 or 10.2 or whatever, possibly with things like Aero Glass being restored, the ability to customize vertical spacing between rows on jumplists to be EFFICIENT and COMPACT for us mouse users, and also the ability to again customize how many items you can pin -- where the crippled XAML jumplists are limited to 11 items now with zero customization. You can't even drag to reorder jumplist items anymore. 

 

I have faith that in a couple years or so, desktop users will be catered to once again and Microsoft will be content to make iOS and Android programs in terms of their mobile sandbox instead of a "one size fits all" OS. 

My thoughts also. As long as the great Bill Gates is alive and kicking, I will be a fan even with these bone headed decisions. They've slacked off in the one department that made them great, and have chosen to give us Beta Shareware for an operating system. Microsoft better get it together!

[+Raze Subscriber²]

11 minutes ago, oldtimefighter said:

Was this meant to be a joke? A friend of a friend of a friend? Why would people's personal info ever be on physical paper even if Microsoft was straight up spying on us?

You've got to be kidding right?   lol   

[Order_66]

Obviously Microsoft has a problem with rampant spying in windows 10, why else would there be a slew of 3rd party programs out there that tries to disable the spying?

 

Is everyone one so paranoid that they devote weeks and months creating a program for no reason? Do thousands of people install and run these programs for no reason?

 

Something is obviously going on and its nothing good.

[chrisj1968]

Can the world survive without Microsoft operating systems? -yes.

 

People would flock to alternatives. however, gaming will take a hit for a long while since MS owns the largest gaming PC platform. But as history has proven time and again that, people/companies can reach the top after a time but can lose their poise and creativity because entities like MS tend to then focus on bottom line than a great product when they hit the top. If MS were to fail, the world would NOT end rather, a new player would take the reigns and be the flavor until they lose it.

[+JHBrown Subscriber¹]

55 minutes ago, chrisj1968 said:

Can the world survive without Microsoft operating systems? -yes.

 

People would flock to alternatives. however, gaming will take a hit for a long while since MS owns the largest gaming PC platform. But as history has proven time and again that, people/companies can reach the top after a time but can lose their poise and creativity because entities like MS tend to then focus on bottom line than a great product when they hit the top. If MS were to fail, the world would NOT end rather, a new player would take the reigns and be the flavor until they lose it.

I agree. I made a post similar to that last week. Microsoft has gamers by the throats with Direct X. Microsoft could not pull off this spying nonsense, and half-baked operating system if we had some kind of competition. Their monopoly over the operating system market is the only thing holding them together. We need competition desperately! Gamers would leave in droves if Linux had the proper gaming support. 

[adrynalyne]

13 minutes ago, JHBrown said:

I agree. I made a post similar to that last week. Microsoft has gamers by throats with Direct X. Microsoft could not pull off this spying nonsense, and half-baked operating system if we had some kind of competition. Their monopoly over the operating system market is the only thing holding them together. We need competition desperately! Gamers would leave in droves if Linux had the proper gaming support. 

They tell you what they collect, you agreed to it in the EULA, yet you call it spying. It isn't spying if they tell you about it. If they are collecting more than that, lets back it up instead of making wild claims.

[lassekongo83]

11 hours ago, adrynalyne said:

I have asked for this proof so many times. I'm sill asking and will still not get it. 

Microsoft has an advertising ID for you in Windows by default.

 

Windows 10 EULA refers to: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement

Windows 10 may not apply to all of those statements, but if ads are displayed within Windows 10 in an official Microsoft app for example, it would make no sense not to collect a lot of what stated in their Privacy Statement within Windows 10 as there is a lot of profit to be made by doing so. The statement also states they can share this data with a trusted third party. I would actually like to know more about who those trusted third parties are.

 

But should we use the word "spying"? Maybe, maybe not.

[spaceelf]

1 hour ago, lassekongo83 said:

Microsoft has an advertising ID for you in Windows by default.

And it's easily disabled.