By Sillicur at Wednesday, February 10, 2016 12:23:00 PM

Since the launch of Windows 10, arguably one of the most concerning topics has been privacy (or the apparent lack thereof) due to the Operating System (OS)’s data collection and tracking. A Voat user CheesusCrust has recently completed an extensive investigation into the issue and according to his / her report, found some shocking results.

Here is a look at the extent to which Windows 10 ‘spies’ on its users and how Microsoft is taking a step in the right direction with Windows 10 update notes transparency.

Windows 10 collects and tracks more data than you think

Before we show you the data collected, first take a look at Microsoft’s explanation with regards to telemetry data collection / tracking and its role in Windows 10.

“Telemetry is a term that means different things to different people and organizations. For the purpose of this article, we discuss telemetry as system data that is uploaded by the Connected User Experience and Telemetry component.

The telemetry data is used to keep Windows devices secure, and to help Microsoft improve the quality of Windows and Microsoft services. We discuss separately the network connections that Windows features and components make directly to Microsoft Services. It is used to provide a service to the user as part of Windows.” - Source

Voat user CheesusCrust' extensive investigation into telemetry data collection on Windows 10 and found what many would consider shocking results; Windows 10 contacts Microsoft to report data literally thousands of times per day.

Keep in mind that the investigation was done on the Windows 10 Enterprise edition (which gives users the most control over their Operating System’s settings). The tests where done on an unused installation of Windows 10, with all three pages of tracking options disabled.

Check out the results according to CheesusCrust’s investigation below:

In eight hours of network traffic analysis there where 5508 connection attempts that tried to send data back to 51 different Microsoft IP addresses.

At 30 hours of use, the OS expanded the data reporting to 113 non-private IP addresses. Forbes’ Gordon Kelly comments that: “Being non-private means there is the potential for hackers to intercept this data. I’d argue this is the greatest cost to owning Windows 10.” - Source

Using another clean installation of Windows 10 with all data tracking again disabled and adding a third party tool DisableWinTracking, another 30-hour testing session was done. Windows 10 still managed to “phone home” with data 2785 times to 30 different IP addresses.

That is a lot of data tracking / collection to say the least, especially since attempts were made to stop Windows 10 from phoning home. It would be interesting to see what numbers come out of a test using Windows 10 Home or Professional Editions without any attempt to stop data collection.

The results show that all Windows 10 tracking simply cannot be stopped, which is in line with Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President Joe Belfiore’s statement in November 2015, which reads:

“In the cases where we’ve not provided options, we feel that those things have to do with the health of the system. In the case of knowing that our system that we’ve created is crashing, or is having serious performance problems, we view that as so helpful to the ecosystem and so not an issue of personal privacy, that today we collect that data so that we make that experience better for everyone.” - Source

It might not be time to panic just yet, as according to Microsoft the data collection is not an issue of personal privacy. However, their lack of transparency is worrying. Forbes’ Gordon Kelly contact Microsoft for a statement about the investigation results, to which a Microsoft employee replied: “I’m afraid we are not able to provide a comment on this.”

Furter, BetaNews’ Mark Wilson comments: “With Microsoft facing unprecedented levels of criticism for its lack of transparency over spying components, these findings will serve only to add fuel to the fire.”

Keep in mind that according to Windows 10 End User Licence Agreement (EULA), Microsoft has full legal rights to collect data. Further, Microsoft has made several attempts to communicate that telemetry data collection and tracking should not raise privacy concerns for users, as it is only to improve and do ongoing maintenance on Windows 10.Therefore, even though Windows 10 collects / tracks a lot of data, you might have nothing to worry about.

Microsoft’s transparency on Windows 10 updates

Not everything Microsoft is doing with Windows 10 is bad, in fact, besides the "spying" and aggressive marketing, it's all good. Since the launch of Microsoft’s latest OS, there have been a lot of updates; from small security patches to feature updates. However, up until yesterday Microsoft did not release notes alongside their updates; which meant that users where kept in the dark as to what exactly their OS is downloading and installing.Microsoft listened to feedback and created an update history page so that users can see what each update they download and install does.

A Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat: “After listening to feedback regarding the level of disclosure for Windows 10 updates, we decided to implement a new system for communicating updates to the operating system. Today we are rolling out the Windows 10 update history site, a hub for the release notes that will accompany each update and serve as a historical record of prior release notes.” - Source

In the future, the site will be updated as soon as a new patch for Windows 10 rolls out. It is excellent to see Microsoft become transparent regarding what changes are made to your Windows 10 installation with each update.

Hopefully, they will soon do the same with the Windows 10 data collection issue; judging by the first section of this article, Windows 10 ‘spying’ is arguably one of the biggest concerns for users. It is something Microsoft should become transparent about to ease the concerns of Windows 10 users.

What do you think about the extent of Windows 10’s telemetry data collection and should Microsoft offer complete transparency on their data collection / usage? Let us know in the comment section below.

Sources: Voat, VentureBeat, Microsoft

Main Image credit: ITPRO

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