Don't trust Cortana!

[NILL]

She's a literal Skynet that forces change onto users that they may not need or even want.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKryvDPoJf8&t=82


Youtube

[Digger[NJLP]]

I really thought you were talking about Cortana in Win 10, which I don't use.
But I won't trust her or her alter Halo 5 double.

[NILL]

I really thought you were talking about Cortana in Win 10

I was. Regardless how poorly I feel about Brian Reed's contributions to Halo's Canon, that scene ironically manages to summarize the whole Windows 10 forced upgrade debacle.

[Digger[NJLP]]

Yeah well, when I saw Cortana pop up and ask to be my helper I laughed.
I instantly thought of Office Paper Clip.

Been running 10 home and in the office now and thus far, pretty happy. I know the force update is really BS but so far Win 10 is pretty stable

[NILL]

Honestly, it's no nicer than any other modern OS like Mac or Linux and those don't force change down your throat and spy of your activities. I'm multibooting a Hackintosh right now, and it was a pain in the ass installing Windows 10 onto a GPT partitioned drive so I could get UEFI features working. It's really weird that Media Creation Tool doesn't have an option for that considering it's a five year old standard. I had to use a third party tool called Rufus to make a working USB installer. sigh, what I do for Halo games.

[Murdock]

I love Cortana. I use it all the time.

Cortana, play some music.

Cortana, play Billy Joel.

Cortana, send a text to Nill.

Cortana, open audible. (I wish it would star playing the book.)

Cortana, wake me up at 6:00

Cortana, remind me to call the landscaper when I get home.

Cortana, next time i talk to Nill, remind me to ask him if he is going to The GXL.

I've read the privacy statement, and it looks good to me. Is there something in the privacy statement that I am missing? I just did a search for privacy concerns with Cortana, and I don't see anything I haven't agreed to, or didn't know about. Plus, almost all of the articles in looked at were from 2014 out 2015. Nothing new.

[NILL]

Cortana, play some music.

Cortana, play Billy Joel.

So can your keyboard and mouse. All without your data being harvested and sold to marketers.

Cortana, send a text to Nill.

Is that why you sent me so many text messages the other day. Use email like the Internet founders intended. It literally better than text in every way.

Cortana, wake me up at 6:00

Cortana, remind me to call the landscaper when I get home.

Cortana, next time i talk to Nill, remind me to ask him if he is going to The GXL.

All of these things are can be entered in via keyboard quicker and with more info attached.

I've read the privacy statement, and it looks good to me.

And you trust Microsoft? They've proven time and time again to treat their users like children who don't know what's good for them.

I just reinstalled two Windows 7 machines, Windows 10 several times, downloaded updates for all of them, installed Office 365 for three work computers and you know what I noticed as someone not conditioned to the Microsoft experience?

What the hell is with the progress bars? The first installs weren't bad because all the data was on USB thumb drives, but getting update for Windows 7 was ridiculous. It just sits there telling you that it's working, but you have no idea if it's locked up at some step. It has to sit there for hours "Checking." I think it downloaded them in the background, but I had to go to sleep and finished the process when I woke up. If it were downloading, it should have a download rate and eta like every other OS does.

Installing Office 365 was an even bigger pain in the ass. At first, I thought it was going to be between 300mb and 500mb, so I downloaded the standard installer and ran it on three different machines at the same time. Yeah, because Microsoft doesn't like file download progress bars, file sizes, download rates or ETA, I wasted a day before I realized that it wasn't going to work that way on my connection. Next time, I downloaded the multi-gig offline installer and ran them on two of the machines. It still seemed to be taking too long, so I stepped away for an hour to do something at work. Came back and it didn't make much progress. Came back a few hours later and it had stalled at 90%. I had to google a solution and force quit a stock Microsoft process on both the freshly installed system and the "lived in" one for it actually finish. This was a common enough problem for the solution to come up in the first few hits from google, but fixing it would be admitting what ever feature the process was for was a mistake.

How about installing Windows 10 on a GPT drive so I can have UEFI features? I had to download the ISO via the Media Creation Tool, but you would think that tool could make an installer compatible with a five year old standard? Nope! I had to use the third party tool, Rufus to make it, then launch the command line from the installer to format the destination drive as GPT, than I could install it. Even Linux lets me do that via the GUI! But why would anyone want to multi-boot when you have glorious Windows! You can do this with Windows 7, but you actually need a preexisting Windows GPT install to grab a specific file from and rearrange some files. I'll give them some slack here, just because GPT and UEFI didn't exist when Windows 7 came out, but the Media Creation Tool could have side loaded that if it wanted to actually support industry standards.

Oh yeah, I almost forget. If you ever have Linux, OS X or any other OS on a machine and you install Windows later, make sure to unplug the other drives or Windows will overwrite the boot-loaders on those and any drive attached to the computer because it knows you really don't want to multi-boot. If you have them installed to a different partition, have the tools ready to repair that. All Linux installers have that as default because of how common a problem it is.

In the past month, I've relearned about all my hatred for Microsoft and their shitty UI choices and treatment of users.

[Murdock]

So can your keyboard and mouse. All without your data being harvested and sold to marketers.

Not if I am busy doing something else. This brings up a good point. I wish Cortana didn't take "focus". I wish if I activated Cortana, it would do its thing without directing my keyboard/mouse input to it...I wish it would just leave me in whatever program I was working in, and listen to my voice and do what I want. In this particular case, I was using Cortana on my other laptop next to this one.

What was the price to my privacy if a marketer determines that I like Billy Joel, or whatever other music I was listening to? Wouldn't that mean that someone, somewhere out there has figured out that another person still prefers Billy Joel to the crap that is on the radio today?

Is that why you sent me so many text messages the other day. Use email like the Internet founders intended. It literally better than text in every way.

I think it was you that texted me the other day? I think the one way that a text is better than an e-mail is the immediacy of it. I generally use texts if the message may be timely and might not be able to wait for someone to check their e-mail. I think you get that. I think that was why you chose to text me versus e-mail me about the start time?

All of these things are can be entered in via keyboard quicker and with more info attached.

Not if I am driving.

And you trust Microsoft? They've proven time and time again to treat their users like children who don't know what's good for them.

I do...for the most part. Plus, there are a lot of people out there with a lot more invested in privacy, and I listen to them (like the EFF), and their concerns, weigh them, and make up my own mind. (I am sure that the EFF is saying to turn off Cortana too, but like I said, I am making up my own mind.) (Actually...I just did a search to see what they were saying...and the answer is...not much. I did find an article on users petitioning the EFF to go after Microsoft and their upgrade-gate...Um...really? I wonder why the EFF isn't wasting their money to go after them? I don't know? With all the problems, as you described below, and that woman that sued MS and won for $10K, I don't know why there isn't a class action by now? )

And about your situation below. Ouch. That's rough. You do do a few things beyond the normal user. I'm not saying it shouldn't work. It should. And I am not sure why you had all the trouble. I have done 6 Upgrade installs of Windows 10, and all but one was flawless. And the flawed one is being blamed on a HD that chose that moment to die. Not sure I believe that, but that is what the MoBo/HD company is saying. Oh well.

And all of my installs of Office 365 have been perfect and super fast. I must be lucky. Sorry about that.

Oh yeah, I almost forget. If you ever have Linux, OS X or any other OS on a machine and you install Windows later, make sure to unplug the other drives or Windows will overwrite the boot-loaders on those and any drive attached to the computer because it knows you really don't want to multi-boot. If you have them installed to a different partition, have the tools ready to repair that. All Linux installers have that as default because of how common a problem it is.

Good point and something worth noting, so I decided to quote it here in case someone may have missed it.

In the past month, I've relearned about all my hatred for Microsoft and their shitty UI choices and treatment of users.

Let go of the hate. Life is too short. It does no one any good. Peace be with you. When you "hate" something, you are wasting brain power and emotion over something or someone that usually doesn't waste that energy on you.

[NILL]

What was the price to my privacy if a marketer determines that I like Billy Joel

Personalized ads. Imagine walking down a street and a vending machine detects your phone because you left the Bluetooth or Wifi on and it knows you MAC Address. It will play a song that it knows you like in an effort to get you to turn your head and look at it. That will greatly increase the odds that you buy a drink or snack from it. And yes, your phone is being tracked by marketers already. Some phones even have features to randomize the MAC Address within a certain range to counter this. You know those solar powered garbage cans in NYC? That's what they do. Being able to say X number of people that walk past street sign Y eventually walk past storefront Z is very available to marketers. Also creepy as s**t, so I leave my bluetooth and wifi off when I'm not using it.

I think it was you that texted me the other day?

I was referring to after I called you to get Greg's number. Text is fine for small pieces of info. You started texting me afterward when a call would have been quicker for some reason. I mainly use text messages if I think the other person is at work or if I need to leave info and I don't want to assume the other person have scrap paper to write on. I use voice for when I expect a lot of back and forth or when I'm driving(with in dash speaker phone).

I wish text messages work in the US like they do in Japan. There, text messages are just a wrapper for email and isn't tied to to the carrier.

Not if I am driving.

Don't do anything like what while driving anyway. Anyway, I remember a few years ago you had wanted to set something up in your car so you would have a keyboard that played BF2 sounds. Considering you haven't been shot by a cop when accidentally hitting your DIY soundboard during a routine check, I'll assume you never made it.

And I am not sure why you had all the trouble.

These are routine things, but normal users don't know what kb/s or etas are, so it wasn't included in the GUI. Microsoft assumes that you have at least a medium speced machine. The Office 365 hanging was ridiculous just because it's a common problem that Microsoft doesn't want to acknowledge. I had to go on an independent site to find the fix.
https://www.google.com/search?q=office+ ... e+365+hang

This isn't the only time official Microsoft has been absolutely unhelpful with a problem I had. Here's a great example of a standard non-answer:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... c66?auth=1

Let go of the hate. Life is too short. It does no one any good. Peace be with you.

Oh, stop. This isn't hate. This is a well earned rant. It's very therapeutic. And in case you didn't catch on, the first post about Cortana was just a joke. I wouldn't seriously be using a cutscene from a video game cutscene as evidence of foul play by Microsoft.

[Digger[NJLP]]

I really don't trust any software vendor, OS or otherwise. There isn't a successful software vendor that doesn't have some type of reporting being sent back as to the health and status of their own product.

There is no legislature in place the defines what can and cannot be done, other then arguing/arbitrating what is or isn't considered personal privacy. All we know is what personal data is, but as to how they use the software and product, that is the grey area.

The EULA from MS, is clear the OS is not personal property no matter how much you argue. So what they do with their product and the reporting factors of the OS is all about perceived protection and what they can get away with.

Forget about MS, have you seen Amazon Tap? It is a stand alone, amazon web searchy, buy you stuff, talk to you home device.
It sits in the home and respons just like siri, do you think the searchy, shopping, questions asked, marketing data is not reported back to amazon to be used in marketing and research?

We are so beyond the level of privacy with data stored in the cloud, the argument to me is silly.

Even Commvault has reporting from our product coming in from all of our customers. Many of it is for support purposes, but also marketing information as to total amount of storage backed up, types of backups, etc..
I sometime wonder if developing a truly Private secure OS that can still function and be a part of the online world is possible, but I sort of doubt it.

The linking of OS/console/phone/tablet to online account is so regular and normal, the amount of information that is obtainable about you is staggering.

DOS 5.1 most private OS out there!

[NILL]

How, I forgot about this one. By default, Windows 10 will use your bandwidth to upload Windows 10 updates to other Windows 10 machines. It was one of the first things I turned off when set it to defer all updates so I wouldn't get any nasty surprises.

How to turn uploading off.
http://www.howtogeek.com/224981/how-to- ... -internet/

Oh, a nasty surprise.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3069997/ ... -menu.html

DOS 5.1 most private OS out there!

Or OS X or Linux or Unix or BeOS or NeXTSTEP(oh wait, that's OS X)

It really isn't that hard to setup servers at your own home so you can have all the features modern internet users have grown accustomed to. The biggest thing holding be back from setting up my own "Cloud" services is my s**t bandwidth. I've looked into it, and I can have my own email server, but now a days, most other providers will see me as a spammer. I think there's a way to fix that, but I have other projects I'm working on before that. And I don't have any social media accounts besides Reddit and Youtube(neither of which are real social media sites) and neither of them know my real name, where I live, or get any pictures of me or my neighborhood. I also use a PO Box and a work address for anything to do.

[NILL]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

France: Windows 10 collects 'excessive personal data', issues Microsoft with formal warning
http://betanews.com/2016/07/20/windows- ... on-france/

[NILL]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rYakeZft5E


Youtube


http://www.pcworld.com/article/3100358/ ... pdate.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3101396/ ... ctics.html

Oh and reportedly, not only will a Windows installation screw up any non-microsoft bootloader, even some windows updates can do that also.