Fuck? ! Over the previous few years, Microsoft has been accused of regularly violating person privateness. Windows 10, and particularly Windows 11, are two utterly completely different beasts on this regard in comparison with basic NT-based programs.
How a lot information does the Windows working system ship to the web server? According to a brand new video from The PC Security Channel (TPCSC), the newest model of the Redmond working system is an actual “talker” with regards to telemetry and different information about person preferences and on-line habits.
The video titled “Has Windows Become Spyware?” exhibits how a dwell seize session exhibits on-line communications between Windows and an exterior server. The video creator makes use of Wireshark, a widely known (free) community protocol analyzer that can be utilized to see what’s occurring on the community “on the micro degree”.
Using Wireshark to examine how a freshly put in copy of Windows 11 ran on a model new laptop computer, what they noticed was eye-opening to say the least: after the primary boot, Windows 11 shortly tried and reached a third- Party servers with completely no prior person permission or intervention.
By analyzing DNS visitors utilizing Wireshark filters, TPCSC found that Windows 11 connects to many on-line companies offered by Microsoft, together with MSN, the Bing search engine, and Windows Update. A lot of third-party companies are additionally current, as Windows 11 seems to have one thing to say in regards to the likes of Steam, McAfee, and Comscore ScorecardResearch.com, a market analysis effort that “researches and reviews on Internet traits and habits.”
Many of Windows 11’s preliminary DNS queries are designed to supply “telemetry” information to market analysis corporations, promoting suppliers, and even geolocation-related domains equivalent to geo.prod.do, with out asking permission or requiring internet searching exercise. The newest and best within the Windows household of working programs seems designed to “spy” on anybody and all the pieces from the beginning, TPCSC stated.
As a comparability, or as an vital notice on the present state of privateness within the Windows ecosystem, a YouTube channel tried the identical packet sniffing marketing campaign first launched in 2001 with Wireshark on Windows XP.
According to their evaluation, Windows XP would not even know what the phrase “telemetry” means: the primary DNS visitors from a newly put in OS is an try to contact the Windows Update service, and that is it. No market analysis, no searching monitoring, nothing.
Some attempt to make the case that Windows 11’s habits is secondary in a technological world filled with third-party companies and on-line options that require information enter to work as supposed. In response to the video’s feedback, the TPCSC nonetheless warns essentially the most educated and privacy-conscious customers that Windows 11 will nonetheless “ship content material” on-line by way of the DNS protocol even when telemetry is turned off by way of a third-party utility.
