Is Windows 11 spying on you?
Do you know what goes on as you happily turn on your Windows 11 system to perform your regular (and perhaps some irregular) activities? Bingo! Like government agencies and big tech, Microsoft is a bit of a voyeur, too.
This might not be news for some. This has been going on for so long that even books have been released about enhancing privacy in Windows 10. However, looks like they have outdone themselves with this latest Windows iteration.
The PC Security Channel has uploaded a YouTube video where they monitored Windows activity via Wireshark while using a brand-new Windows 11 laptop. Wireshark is a network monitoring tool that allows you to check and even analyze data coming and going from your system and into the network.
Aside from this, they monitored a Windows XP computer to gauge how the tide has changed when it comes to Windows’ efforts in spying on you. As it turns out, a lot has changed.
Everyone gets a cut of your data
If you thought Windows started spying on you when you connected to the Internet, think again. Windows 11 is into it even before you start doing anything. Just having Windows loaded means they’re getting loaded too, with your information.
This information goes to Microsoft mainly, but also to third parties. This is perhaps the most worrying part and it’s the reason why The PC Security Channel checked what kind of companies get this data.
Much of your activity goes to marketing and advertising-related companies, including software and antivirus developers. The antivirus telemetry, they noted, might be happening because of a trial version pre-installed on the new laptop.
Before you send me to read the manual and turn off telemetry settings on Windows 11, consider that all this was happening with the minimum settings available. There’s no way, at least no built-in way, to avoid this. And the thought of what happens when all telemetry settings are on makes me have nightmares at night.
How did Windows XP fare? Pretty good, actually. Telemetry was almost non-existent for the venerable OS, and the only connections it made were directed to Microsoft servers to check for updates. Ah, those were the times.
A sign of the times
Sure, there are tech advancements every day, but our era can be challenging for privacy-conscious people. You need to be on your constant guard, with everyone trying to get your data.
However, there’s no way around it if you expect to have modern features on your phone or computer. Logically, Google Maps collects your information to allow you to locate your position. Thus, it’s reasonable that Windows 11, with all its online functionality, will have the same requirements.
However, while Google Maps is free (at least at face value), Microsoft cashes in for every Windows 11 purchase, even if it came “for free” with your computer. Why do they squeeze your data, too, if they’re already profiting from sales?
Besides this, there’s a long process of normalizing these practices so the consumer will care less as time goes on, which will surely lead us to a Big Tech Dystopia and Machines fighting humans. Will that ever happen? Only history will tell.
I stopped using M$ back in 2005. I switched to Slackware. My Linux is locked down about as secure as I can make it. I utterly detest Window$, and all these disgusting anti human tech giants.
The amount of abuse M$ users take is truly disturbing.
It truly boggles me that people are OK with all of their information being sold. The masses are complacent sheep.
The moment all of this crosses the line *I have a line that of how much I’m willing to put up with…* I will be cancelling my internet forever. I can live without it.
I don’t care about online streaming, youtube, or any other junk. I’d downgrade my technology to a basic landline that is only used for minimal conversations.
I’m totally fine going to thrift stores for movies, and used tech stuff. I already planned to banish the internet, and all spy tech if it crosses the line.
I see the gradual creep, and I’ve encouraged people around me to be vigilant. Got my gf using Linux too.
I’d be much happier without the internet, and the invasive nature of it.
Get off Windows and install Linux. Problem solved.
At the end of the day your OS and online Corporations only know the things you feed them with. Never use personal info..use everything fake from names to phone numbers/emails..never use pictures of yourself on social media extra….They can have my browsing history I coun’t care a bit about it, lol
Even Facebook only requires one’s real world name and birthday and that’s it. Street address, picture, where you attended school etc. etc. are optional information not required to use the site. My Google account for example only has a shortened version of my first name and only the initial of my surname.
Ever seen the red asterisk in registration forms when creating a new account? That means it’s required information, fields without it are optional. Only fill in required information.
if you truly care about privacy or even if not you should view on yout.be the following channels for some enlightenment?
Privacy International
Triggernometry
BigBrotherWatch
Direct D, Crimebodge, Auditing Britain,.. (police auditing, see how the police state is already upon us and your “rights” are basically non existant
and the GOAT, Russell Brand
and if you want a debloated windows 10 or 11, check “The PC security Channel” for their review of windows 11 superlite (SPECTRE), it seems to be well reviewed, im tempted anyway! (not affiliated either just a curious observer!)
the times we live in eh! FML
And after reading all those sites, can we write a spies book based in the former iron curtain? Or even about the newest iron curtain, probably. There are dozens of curtains or walls to write about. Sincerely, please, just think that if someone with the enough power and resources wanted to spy you all, he/she will spy you deeper than the end of a space dark hole. Please, configure the default settings for recommended privacy options of the OS, programs and so forth, and just live your life outside the screen. There will be enough privacy inside the coffin. Good friday to you all, I go to the forest all the weekend to see flowers, plants, trees and butterflies. :D
Interesting discussion. It is definitely the case that most Jo Bloggs like me are mostly unaware of tech spying in their devices. Of course we know about cookies, ad stuff, bug reporting, clearing our cache once a year :) etc but tbh? I don’t think 90% give a damn or even think about it. Largely thru ignorance & general unwillingness to explore the issues or find the time to inform themselves. In that sense, the article does a useful job, it pops up in news feeds of many ordinary people, not just the well informed.
How paranoid is too much or too little? The lack of an opt out / opt in of elements more extensive than earlier / simpler OS’s is of some concern. Huge & powerful corporations do not have your best interests at heart, no matter how avuncular or appealing you find their CEO’s or their promo.
And they are definitely talking with the govt. History shows us that some govts (& their friends in business) are happy to imprison, exile, disappear & mass murder their own citizens. The right to freedom is a battle never won, only a never ending series of skirmishes, the results of which may only be held for decades before reversal but that seriously affect or even kill millions.
You do not have to have done anything wrong or illegal to be on one of those lists, just be the wrong kind of person, therefore expendable. See “First They Came” by Martin Neimoller.
The ability of today’s technology to be used to keep tabs on your every move is vastly superior to your compromised informant neighbour or the sleuths of the stasi (insert agency of choice)
The fact that you live an exemplary life is no guarantee of immunity.
On the other hand, an excess of paranoia is not a healthy way to live.
Well, don’t use MS Windows (11). It’s that simple, isn’t it?
Next subject?
Does a bear shit in the woods?
Yes, MS Windows is basically a giant piece of spyware.
To be honest, I wouldn’t give my OS’s telemetry/data to Microsoft to collected if it wasn’t for improving Windows performance and fixing bug, I always want an OS that is (really) fast/less bug/secure/”private” & (really) efficient so even if Microsoft “spying” on me for the better I would happily go along just fine.
Using mocrosoft is like leasing a house. Everything inside is yours, except the owner wants to slip in the back door so they can see what you have AND use that information to make money.
Dumbest questsion of the week: Is XYZ spying on you?
Of course it is. What OS, suite or application doesn’t include telemetry, data collection, profiling or fingerprinting these days?
I think most people really have no idea what’s going on in the real world. They live in their little bubble thinking everything they are told by the “authorities” us true. “Well aware”? No, not even close.
The real problem starts when they only want to spy you. That’s precisely the good point of mainly all discussions about privacy: the more they spy a lot of people, the less worried you should be.
“Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”
…
if the publishers were confident that the answer was yes, they would have presented it as an assertion; by presenting it as a question, they are not accountable for whether it is correct or not.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
there is no hidning when it comes to privacy whatever OS you use there is tracking…some doing it more than others but still..you can not hide online. If you break the LAW the Gov goes straight to your ISP and all your online accounts and put everything together. lol
Look at Microsoft’s Telemetry in Vista . It gotten worse with every new Windows version.
https://news.softpedia.com/news/Forget-about-the-WGA-20-Windows-Vista-Features-and-Services-Harvest-User-Data-for-Microsoft-58752.shtml
“Microsoft is a bit of a voyeur”–honestly, a voyeur is “person who derives sexual gratification from observing the naked bodies or sexual acts of others, especially from a secret vantage point.”
If one is concerned about Microsoft and personal data, simply find and use the numerous tools widely available to stop such eavesdropping.
Humor for the day–MS is a voyeur!
@VioletMoon, your comment has very sense of good humour. :)
I think the term “voyeur” should be replaced by the term “observer”.
I truly doubt that Microsoft can get excited with the telemetry.
I hope it won’t.
Or not? :S
“Initially, voyeur referred to someone who derived sexual pleasure from watching others undress or engage in intimate acts; it was synonymous with Peeping Tom. By the middle of the 20th century, its meaning had broadened to “an unduly prying observer,” particularly one interested in squalid or shocking details”
There’s not only sex in life :=)
Of course Microsoft is a voyeur, of course it is interested in (but not only) “squalid or shocking details”. Not only Microsoft, by the way, Google, Facebook and tutti quanti as well. And when they meet exhibitionists then it’s a win/win game I guess. Frankly, all of GAFAM is authentic craps.
Source : [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/voyeur]
is this a rhetorical qeustion?
That’s not news. I doubt there’s a single Windows owner out there who isn’t well aware of spying and either doesn’t care or takes substantial effort to reduce the output.
What are you suggesting about government? In most ‘free’ countries there are privacy protection laws and a host of government employees more than willing to spill the beans if someone transgresses. The concern is private enterprise. Privately owned media directs scrutiny towards government, which distracts from all data selling by big business. That doesn’t discount skullduggery from within government but there are rogue employees everywhere.
@Anonymous:
I’d say the *vast majority* of Windows users are probably not tech-savvy and only dimly aware of the extent to which they’re being spied on and how their information is being used. I’d also guess that only a small minority of Windows users take steps to reduce their exposure. And finally, every year brings a fresh crop of inexperienced young users whose focus is almost exclusively on what’s new and cool, with zero thought to privacy.
And I don’t know what country you’re living in, but it sounds nice. In my country, it’s major corporations and billionaires who give government its marching orders, not the other way around. Similarly, it’s those same corporations and billionaires, courtesy of their advertising and underwriting leverage, who determine what 95%+ of traditional media report. In *social* media, government agencies and their NGO cutouts — again, representing the dominant consensus of major corporations and billionaires — offer “recommendations” as to which sources, facts, and opinions to promote and which to suppress. As for privacy laws, the only ones with theoretical teeth relate to personal medical information, and even those are increasingly being left unenforced, particularly when it’s a major corporation that’s violating them. For all intents and purposes, there *is* no distinction between private enterprise and government. Government outsources things it’s “legally barred” from doing to private enterprise, and private enterprise turns to government when it wants something coercively enforced, at taxpayer expense.
As for government whistleblowers, are you *serious*? Did you not pay attention to what happened to Chelsea Manning? Edward Snowden? Thomas Drake? John Kiriakou? Jeffrey Sterling? And how about whistleblowing journalists? Did you miss what happened and is still happening to Julian Assange? Both types of whistleblowing are more timely than ever, given that just yesterday investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a leaker-informed account of how the United States blew up the Nord Stream pipelines. If it wasn’t an authorized leak (as in “we can blow up anything we want and there’s nothing you can do about it”) and it wasn’t a carefully fabricated hoax intended to discredit Seymour Hersh (similar to the fake word-processed document that forced Dan Rather to resign in disgrace from CBS News), the leaker *sure better* have covered his or her tracks. Well … either that or have only a few months left to live anyway, without leaving any loved ones behind.
Yes, they spy us, and it’s not such that serious. All companys spy for something. Anyway, people share their lifes at TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and so forth other social media with no embarrasment at all… And you are worried about someone spying us while using its own OS? I don’t really care about it, they can spy me whatever they want, whenever they want because I have nothing to hide, nothing to be culprit for and, sincerely, the problem is that someone only spyes you, however what’s the problem if all of us are spyed? As I said in one post time ago, the best way to hide yourself in a place where all people are spyed is just doing the same as the others: nobody will see you. If you are the only man/woman that have a Ferrari in a city full of Volkswagen cars, everybody will see you when you get off the garage. If you live in a city with all citizens have Ferraris, you will bright like the sun with your Renault. The worth of knowing everything about 9.000.000.000 human beings is ZERO. Thanks for the article.
@John G. *sigh* The Whataboutsism-Meter just broke the scale.
+ voluntary giving away information or being sniffed on a web service is one thing, but getting spied out on OS level by its developers is another.
@Peterc & @Anonymous, the problem is not that they spy all us, the problem starts when they (legitimate enterprises) spy only me. They can know how many times per day I do, what? Turn on my computer, the sites where I buy, the places I visit, my activity? Probably. Do they know what I am typing? No, because they don’t have a keylogger installed making the surveillance on my computer. Again we should trust that up us there are a lot of guys that are protecting the web from institutional intelligence agencies to fight against the worst kind of attacks. I browse mostly all the time with Firefox with the maximum privacy it offers by default, and I have W10 with the privacy options well configured at Settings (it’s easy). And I have email filters to block the common words used in the scams, also a filter to send ads to a different folder and some other filters. And I only bought products online in safest and known places. That’s enough for me and it should be enough for 99% of common users.
@John G.:
With the tools tech companies and intelligence/law-enforcement agencies now have at their disposal, there’s no more being a needle in a haystack. You could be living in a city of 10 million people where everyone drives the exact same model, year, and color of car, and they’d still be able to zero in you. (Did you learn *nothing* from Snowden’s revelations?) And if you think tech companies, government, and the people they provide your personal information to are going to “play by the rules” because “you have nothing to hide,” think again. The people doing the spying and their “clients” are the ones who decide what they don’t like about you and what to do about it — not the rule of law or some utopian sense of fair play, and certainly not *you*. If you don’t leave in a completely totalitarian society and your opinions and behavior don’t actually risk influencing anyone else or causing the spies/clients any real trouble, they’ll probably leave you alone regardless. But if they don’t like what you’re thinking, saying, or doing and it worries them enough, they’ll try to crush you like they crushed Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring. And heaven help you if you ever blow the whistle on something of consequence.
I suppose it’s possible you are simply young and naïve, or a paid apologist for an outfit that engages in or profits from “surveillance and spying,” but your comment comes off as intentional post-bait. If it’s that last one, congratulations: I posted. If you’re a paid apologist, you can probably guess what I think. But if you’re sincere, I really don’t understand how you can enjoy living in a virtual panopticon.
You are the client they want. Take your cookie and keep being a good dog.
@Masha, thanks for the cookie!
Remaining positive in the face of adversity is smart but not at the cost of expressing nonsense.
I’m have to agree with @Masha : you are the client they all want, docile, driven by the idea that privacy is meaningful only to hide. Others believe that privacy is a component of dignity whether or not anything is to be hidden.
I’m disappointed, John G.
@Tom Hawack, privacy is important when you decide that it’s important. And when you decide that it’s important you should apply the comon sense and not use propietary software that is applying telemetry research about your activity. You can choose Linux instead to be your OS and/or use free software with no telemetry. What you can’t do is using W10/11 and then yield for the mountains that it has telemetry. Obvious it has. Then don’t use it, or block their spying methods with some third party. I my case I use Windows 10 that has several privacy options that you can configure at your will. And I don’t really care because yes privacy is part of the dignity on human beings, but the major dignity is to be able to decide what you really want, to be hidded or to be completely exposed. Freedom to decide is more important than telemetry when such this telemetry is part of the OS. If you want a car with three wheels you can’t blame the seller, you can perfectly see the three wheels and that’s what you want. In the other hand we need to be serious and we can’t give the readers the unveiled idea that telemetry is the same than an illegal intrusion in your PC. It’s not the same. In order to protect the wellfare of our society we need to give something at change.
@John G. you forget one thing : Microsoft’s monopoly. Linux? We all know that this OS is not accessible to the masses, technically speaking and/or a challenge for millions who’ve never known but the Microsoft-style and have taken their habits as addicts.
This said, I cannot agree with the fact that privacy is the price. Privacy is priceless. Have you had a look at the video mentioned in the article, video which demonstrates the fantastic difference between XP and Eleven in terms of DNS connections at the time of the OS install? Stunning. Microsoft is mad.
> “And I don’t really care because yes privacy is part of the dignity on human beings, but the major dignity is to be able to decide what you really want, to be hidded or to be completely exposed. Freedom to decide is more important than telemetry when such this telemetry is part of the OS.”
To be able to decide … when there are alternatives to start with, not to mention that this ability has nothing to do with dignity : privacy is not an ability it is a human right which should be the default for all independently of one’s technical skills : opt-in, not opt-out, provided opt-out is a built-in option!
Freedom to decide … and freedom to adopt all means contributing to our privacy in a computing environment dominated by a monopoly.
Unfortunately your comment participates to the article’s last paragraph :
“Besides this, there’s a long process of normalizing these practices so the consumer will care less as time goes on, which will surely lead us to a Big Tech Dystopia and Machines fighting humans. Will that ever happen? Only history will tell.”
Your comment, John, is that exactly : caring less as time goes by (if you ever cared). You are either surrendering or totally unaware of the implications of privacy intrusion.
@Tom Hawack, Microsoft is not a monopoly, it only has a widely used OS, that it’s not the same. There are Linux in a high variety of distros, Chrome OS, MacOs and Android OS. Also Microsoft is not W10/11, it is also W7 and W8.1, or W10 LTSC. There is also a lot of third party software like O&O that blocks all telemetry at your choice. You can select some possible options, so you can decide between having fear or running careless about what they could see about you. Privacy is not priceless in the sense that you need to send some data to just update your system, to send an email, to receive email, to upgrade your OS, you send data everytime you turn on your smartphone that can be tracked by the police, you send data when you turn on your computer and also you send data when you post a comment like this, and obviously when you post a photo at Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, Youtube… Real privacy does not exist because even your doctor knows your medical results and he can comment the results with his friends or wife if got drunk. Also the bank knows what you are doing with your money each time you pay with your credit card. Everything is registered however not everything is relevant to identify you as a whole “privacy seeker” that is fighting for the dignity of the human being. After some years of using computers I started to apply an advice from my father: “the worst invasion of privacy is done by the smartphones when some other people record your voice or makes a video without your consent, be careful what you talkd or do outside home”. However I understand what you meant, believe me. And some day, probably, you will think the same because it’s a lost war.
@John G. but who ever mentioned that privacy had any sens but total? Of course the natural consequence of human relationships engages one’s privacy, generally accepted within an environment of confidence based on secrecy inherent to the profession but also because we simply “trust” for sometimes no natural reason.
Here the point is neither to assume that a bullet-proof privacy makes any sens nor that it’d be even desirable unless to consider paranoia. The point is to focus on, 1- there is no explicit users’ consent, 2- what is done of the collected data, 3- with whom is it shared. We may be entitled to consider that none of these points is handled in regard to the user’s respect, advantage.
It is not a lost war (should I presume you are surrendering?) as well as freedom is never a victorious one : both are everlasting battles but resigning is always a victory for the adversary. The aim is to hurt (in our case to make him deaf as possible) the adversary in order to reduce his attacks, it is definitely a battle. You can lower the opponent’s harm by resisting and remain aware that doing so doesn’t set the war but only makes things tougher for your opponent. But whatever, if you lack confidence, if you abandon your fighting mates on the ground all is lost anyway then you are definitely a looser… unless to consider the opponent is not your adversary, which is one’s right of course. As you wrote it above, if you don’t feel concerned by intrusion in your private life, should it be because you consider it normal and the price to pay for an OS bringing you what you cherish together with what you don’t give a damn for then… OK, it’s your life after all. One may replace “life” by “country” if the latter speaks more to him than the former.
I and others lower significantly the intruders’ ability to further seek into our lives, and that’s the goal. It’s feasible but indeed you have to be committed to the value of your privacy and that is, I believe, the main point that will determine the future of our digital lives, far more than our inner debates here : the younger ones, in particular, want to have immediately what they seek for and don’t care any more than that, and that is frightening.
@John G. I forgot to respond to your naive,
“Microsoft is not a monopoly, it only has a widely used OS, that it’s not the same”.
Web search for “Microsoft monopoly” and you’ll find plenty of wel-written, well-thought articles.
Just a sample of three ;
[https://casestudyhub.com/microsoft-monopoly-case-study/]
[https://time.com/3553242/microsoft-monopoly/]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.]
Of course Microsoft is monopolizing the OS market, like all other GAFAM spend their lives trying to achieve this as well, it’s in their very nature. If you don’t understand that then you won’t understand anything of what is the core of their business to achieve their monopolistic aim : know all they can of us to empower and impose themselves. That’s all there is to it.
@Tom Hawack, Microsoft is not a monopoly, however it’s true that it has a dominant position in the market due the high and extended use of its Windows. Obviously I am talking on factually terms on what a monopoly is: “a market structure where a SINGLE seller or producer assumes a dominant position in an industry or a sector. Monopolies are discouraged in free-market economies as they stifle competition and limit substitutes for consumers.” Where is the problem? In the word “single”. Microsoft is not the culprit that Linux, MacOS and ChromeOS hadn’t the experience or the knowledge to built a better OSs, or even to achieve the technology enough to make their OSs attractive, useful and easy for the consumers. It’s not the fault of Microsoft that the other competitors were so bad triying to reach massive users neither increasing their market share — and they all have had enough time to make a good, easy and cheap OSs for decades.
And about privacy, you can increase your privacy in your normal life, like paying with cash, like buying travel tickets directly in the train station, airport or port to avoid being tracked. You can go to the bank to make your incomes and so forth, to avoid doing operations online. You may give some quality writing letters and tell people to send you letters not emails. They also can call you by old phone, not smartphone. The problem with privacy is just the media, not the actions. Digital privacy is a complete chimera just to maintain users using third party programs and using all kind of tricks to get privacy and more privacy but they won’t ever know how the hell the third party software is managing the info that it’s being blocked. You can think, “oh, I am protected, I control all ports, I control all cookies, DNS, VPN, I avoid the MIT, I am blocking Javascript, I control everything with thousands extensions…” Nope. You control nothing because you won’t ever know what is happen everytime Windows gets an update or Firefox, Chrome… the sensation of control is a chimera itself.
Just to finish, it’s a good idea to consider the privacy like an onion, with some layers of privacy. For example, you can configure Windows privacy, then Firefox privacy, then one site’s privacy, and this only cut some branches and root of the tree, nothing else. And as I said in one post, Microsoft spies us, Chrome/Firefox too, however they don’t want to know what we are writing but only statistical use of programs or so forth. Keylogging is not allowed, and the fact that Microsoft knows how many time I open Edge is not dangerous for me. Fight with an invisible enemy is really frustrating, do you know?
Many thanks @Russel,
These are facts. I always appreciate facts, explained. Moreover in this case I’ll save the article (and its translation to French) to have at hand next time I meet minds which affirm I’m exaggerating in my views of Windows modern OSs’s privacy intrusion. Deep, very deep intrusion.
The article’s conclusion meets my fears :
“Besides this, there’s a long process of normalizing these practices so the consumer will care less as time goes on, which will surely lead us to a Big Tech Dystopia and Machines fighting humans. Will that ever happen? Only history will tell.”
If users don’t care, who will?
nice one. im actually doing the same. collecting/saving links/articles to have material at hand when think software is good b/c its comfortable, has blingbling and just cant be evil. esp.when ppl claim the infamous ‘i have nothig to hide’ fatalism. ppl just forgot or never learned to think, or avoid b/c its uncomfortable..
What is this? Seriously, where does softonic keep finding these guys, and then have them post this kind of shit on gHacks of all places? I am expecting a certain amount of competence. A bare minimum of effort would have been 30 minutes of your time to set up a Win11 VM and then capture how much data and where it is being transferred to. Then posst your findings here.
We know the mere mortal “consumer” versions of modern Windows are very chatty over the internet. What is the purpose of your post?
Yuliya: “What is this?”
I was thinking the same about your comment.
Most computer users are ignorant to telemetry. The more spotlight is thrown on how to Microsoft has turned to being malware writers, the better.
And you think that malware writers (and the people who “hunt” those) are not capable of detecting that their software is running inside a virtual machine? If they know, don’t you think that this is unknown to Microsoft themselves? It is not like they make virtualization software themselves (Hyper-V). And if they detect, why wouldn’t they adjust behavior? Malware certainly does, so why not the others?
For funsies, install Windows (in a VM), disable all telemetry during the installation procedure. After Windows has started, use a tool like ‘O&O Shutup’ and see how little of the telemetry is stopped when disabling telemetry during installation.
In the end there is a lot more network traffic being generated and that data needs to to data centers. Which society needs more and more of. And datacenters have a huge need for clean water and lots of energy. Power requirements that easily power 100.000 homes and vast amounts of clean water that comes out of a datacenter way too hot and dirty as well. Societies problem then, I’ll guess?
Datacenters create local problems that they try to buy off by adding to forests in the middle of nowhere somewhere else on the globe. There was no need 15 years ago for all this telemetry. There is no need now, with fair pricing software is already profitable. But that doesn’t satisfy the greed of big tech as a whole.
To make people aware this is going on behind their backs, or nowadays even right in front of them as well, you’ll have to start somewhere. So why not articles like this do enlighten more people?
The vast majority of W11 users are Enterprise Clients.
What is being vacuumed from these clients … and being sent to third parties?
Windows is the most hacked OS on the planet – wonder why!
Yes. Next question.