[Skybird]

Very recommendable read.

LINK - Microsoft walks a thin line

The author does not hide his highly sceptical attitude, but nevertheless does a very good in trying to stay objective and fair.

And as he said: at the core of the issue, it is about trust, and whether you think Microsoft has deserved to be trusted any longer, or has nullified any reason for being trusted. My answer was, and still is, and will remain to be: No, it does not deserve to be trusted.

I tend to agree with what a reader named Frank posted in the comments on this blog entry: LINK

Originally Posted by reader named Frank

Excellent and fair article Woody regarding Win 10 data collection. I guess one takeaway would be “when the product is free, you are the product”. I do not want to get into all the back and forth details about what MS is doing or not doing; however, I personally do not view it as being benign as the very design construct of Win 10 is intrusive. I find comparisons to Google snooping of online searches not very compelling as it is more naturally “bounded” by the manner in which I employ their search engine. In the case of Win 10 it is the entire OS and hence covers the user’s entire computing environment. Although I generally approve of regulatory action as an absolute last resort, I do see early parallels to the way we got the Federal Communications and Federal Wire Fraud Acts. In the early days of telephone, eavesdropping on party and private lines was quite common, This occurred for a variety of reasons ranging from personal nosiness to commercial espionage. Once it became apparent that virtually everyone needed a telephone to conduct the requirements of daily living, a new regulatory doctrine was set forth, namely, the telephone company owned the phone and the communication line but they had no legal interest in the communications transmitted. Hence, communications could no longer be eavesdropped without someone obtaining a court order from a judge having jurisdiction. The Federal Wire Fraud Act worked in tandem to prohibit any “artifice or device to deprive a party to the honest use of communication services”. Now we are in the relatively brave new world of the internet where it is increasingly difficult to conduct one’s affairs without a computer with an OS and an ISP. This is rapidly becoming the new telephone and increasingly we are seeing the types of unregulated behaviors by commercial parties that led to a recognized need to legally circumscribe what is kosher and what is not. I fear we are drifting toward some type of regulatory umbrella if this crap continues because after all the internet is at its core just another venue for two way communication and providing an OS should not confer on the provider an unlimited privilege to intercept and store such communication.

I hate regulation, and since I am also hostile to the idea and concept of modern states, it gives me even more troubles. But the need to install limits on what companies like MS can do without being called to order, should be obvious by now. Since states themselves are heavily engaged in and interested in constant surveillance of all and everybody, I doubt they are the instance that can be trusted to set up such regulation without violating it heavily themselves. No matter what, I think the most realistic scenario thus will be that we will sink deeper and deeper into the surveillance state, and that our young ones will be educated and trained to find nothing suspicious about it. And people arguing against it one day will be seen as suspicious and as a danger to the public like having no debts and no credit cards already today raises your suspectability of being a terrorist and can automatically put you on a terror suspect list (we learned about that mechanism that after 9/11).

Advise? Say No. Do not use all the latest tech stuff. Use alternatives, and if no alternatives are available, say No to using it at all.

Life without all this was possible until just a few years ago. Its no essential stuff. Not at all. All it takes is determination to not accept tempting "compromises" that get YOU sold, and the readiness of confronting offices and services that will be irritated if you do not play by the common rules of embracing all surveillance technology whole-heartly and "voluntarily". You will run into conflicts if you do not play by these rules in full. Have the nobleness and grandeur to fight them.

Else you may one day wake up in a state where resisting them will bring you into prison. Or will cost you your life. States are the coldest of all monsters - all states, without a single exception.