So.... Windows "has become spyware"

[anrkyuk]

https://www.techspot.com/news/97535-windows-11-spyware-machine-out-users-control.html

A clean install of Windows 11 had seemingly important things to say to the likes of Steam, McAfee, and Comscore ScorecardResearch.com, which is a market research effort that "studies and reports on Internet trends and behavior."

Many of the Windows 11 initial DNS queries where designed to provide "telemetry" data to market research companies, advertising providers and even geolocation-related domains like geo.prod.do with no permission or web browsing activity needed.

Curious to see Steam harvesting data via the OS TBH, and I thought it was the Epic store that was the bigger Privacy concern.

[_I_]

since win10 is it spyware built in

[anrkyuk]

Originally posted by _I_:

since win10 is it spyware built in

Wasn't W10 "telemetry" being sent only to MS tho?

First time I'm reading of data being sent to 3rd parties, at least directly. I'm not surprised by the news, I am however surprised by data being farmed by Steam and McAfee.

[Omega]

It has been doing stuff like this for years. Nearly every interaction with the OS is tracked. It has only become worse since the Bing integration in search.


That an app is sending network traffic does not automatically mean it is spying. The Steam client is litterally a Chromium web browser, of course it is making a connection to the internet for certain pages like the store. On top of that it has to do stuff like keep track of your friend's status and incoming messages etc.. so it is regularly comunicating to the outside to check for updates, it is only logical.

Steam does very little in the way of telementary besides Google Analytics (Which you can decline) and basic telemetry needed for the app to function. You can find all data Steam has on you in your account's privacy settings since the GDPR came in to effect.


The Epic Games launcher you mentioned did do some nasty spying a few years ago, it scraped your Steam games to see what you had installed.

[_I_]

Originally posted by anrkyuk:

Originally posted by _I_:

since win10 is it spyware built in

Wasn't W10 "telemetry" being sent only to MS tho?

lol, you wish

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by anrkyuk:

...I am however surprised by data being farmed by Steam...

https://store.steampowered.com/account/cookiepreferences

You shouldn't be surprised about McAfee.

[anrkyuk]

Originally posted by Omega:

That an app is sending network traffic does not automatically mean it is spying. The Steam client is litterally a Chromium web browser, of course it is making a connection to the internet for certain pages like the store. On top of that it has to do stuff like keep track of your friend's status and incoming messages etc.. so it is regularly comunicating to the outside to check for updates, it is only logical.

The article states the telemetry is recorded from a clean install of Windows 11, from a clean boot, no open browsers.

[Omega]

Originally posted by anrkyuk:

Originally posted by Omega:

That an app is sending network traffic does not automatically mean it is spying. The Steam client is litterally a Chromium web browser, of course it is making a connection to the internet for certain pages like the store. On top of that it has to do stuff like keep track of your friend's status and incoming messages etc.. so it is regularly comunicating to the outside to check for updates, it is only logical.

The article states the telemetry is recorded from a clean install of Windows 11, from a clean boot, no open browsers.

That is not what I was refering to, OP explicitely mentioned Steam which is what I was talking about.

[_I_]

windows desktop is its edge browser
so...

and all the default trackings are set to on

[Elucidator]

Windows has always been spyware
but like, it become a complete rootkit trojan type of malware at some point that can run remotely executed commands without authorization or knowledge of the user.

(There have been security concerns, as microsoft essentially can control the systems windows is installed onto. Currently it just uses this previllage to install updates when you think your pc is turned off, by making it turn on and install the update, if they deem it nessecary)


Edit: well, not always. There was a time where windows wasn't. But I can't say the same about microsoft. I think the spyware stuff started getting bad with windows 7.

[anrkyuk]

Originally posted by Omega:

Originally posted by anrkyuk:

The article states the telemetry is recorded from a clean install of Windows 11, from a clean boot, no open browsers.

That is not what I was refering to, OP explicitely mentioned Steam which is what I was talking about.

Then why are you talking about the Steam app/client ?

[Omega]

Originally posted by anrkyuk:

Originally posted by Omega:

That is not what I was refering to, OP explicitely mentioned Steam which is what I was talking about.

Then why are you talking about the Steam app/client ?

Originally posted by anrkyuk:

Curious to see Steam harvesting data via the OS TBH, and I thought it was the Epic store that was the bigger Privacy concern.

Originally posted by Omega:

OP explicitely mentioned Steam which is what I was talking about.

[Illusion of Progress]

Originally posted by nullable:

What cave have you been living in? I mean, 2015 called and wants its fuss back.

This.

It's "news" now simply because someone did a video and put it on Youtube some days back, and in the recent couple of days, tech sites are making articles on it. Goes to show that something can be accepted and then suddenly become a fuss with nothing actually changing except someone making awareness of it. This is nothing new, but I wonder how many people will grab and run with "glad I'm on Windows 10" without knowing what OS actually was infamous for starting it.

Also, wasn't that video done using a OEM laptop with whatever OEM-ware it would have come with? Or am I wrong? I thought I read that it was, which would raise some questions on how much of that came from that stuff instead.

[Carlsberg]

Originally posted by Elucidator:

(There have been security concerns, as microsoft essentially can control the systems windows is installed onto. Currently it just uses this previllage to install updates when you think your pc is turned off, by making it turn on and install the update, if they deem it nessecary)

Microsoft cannot turn on your computer, its because its already on but sleeping.

Windows does not power off when shut down it hibernates to enable a faster restart and the OS, (not microsoft), can wake it to install updates and put it back to sleep. If hibernate is disabled which you can do then the machine does a full power off shutdown.

[plat]

Well you can search this, there's some stuff there. I already disabled "optional telemetry" in Windows 10, you can do it also for 11. Leaving this enabled sends your Edge browsing history to Bing, oops I mean Microsoft.

Disable Cortana, another snoop and snitch. More.

Here's one source--I picked this one because following this article, there's one titled "Windows 11 is Big on Privacy.."

https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-10-11-disable-telemetry/

Edit: you cannot evade telemetry in Windows completely. Never, ever.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Oh no they're spying on us with our tin foil hats on.... I list the things to cut to the chase.

- Any OS that allow reporting, or monitoring, basically telemetry, may collect data.

- Apps you install may collect data.

- VPN, or proxy services you use collect data.

- Services you sign up to collects data.

- Websites you visit may collects data.

- Web browser you choose to use may collect data.

- Your ISP may collect data on you.


Anyways the point of the issue should focus on is what exactly do they collect, and what they're doing with the data, aka transparency. There no way to avoid not having your data collected period, there always something that collects data on you one way, or another, the one that feeds it to them is the end user.