Microsoft quietly enabled telemetry in Windows 7 / Pi-hole for Raspberry Pi - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 26, 2018, 02:37:09 am
content: So I kept seeing a bunch of domains being blocked at my firewall, namelysettings-win.data.microsoft.comwhich I thought was a bit odd. On further inspection, it looks like Microsoft introduced the same telemetry in Windows 7 as they use in Windows 10. The sneaky bastards.By default, when you install the relevant updates, telemetry (or "Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program") is enabled.This page explains how to disable those services:https://superuser.com/questions/972501/how-to-stop-microsoft-from-gathering-telemetry-data-from-windows-7-8-and-8-1EDIT:If you have a spare Raspberry Pi laying around, I highly recommend runningPi-holeas your primary DNS server on your LAN. It works really well and is a piece of cake to set up and configure.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2018, 02:57:33 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on August 26, 2018, 02:37:09 amTook the words out of my mouth.Now, I will need to double check all updates to a list when installing....About time to leave windows... But wait, damn office work, I have no choice but to keep on using it...

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 26, 2018, 03:00:04 am
content: Quote from: BrianHG on August 26, 2018, 02:57:33 amI made the transition from Windows 7 to CentOS 7 a little over a month ago and I haven't looked back. I still run Windows 7 in a VM for those one or two applications that don't have a Linux equivalent and don't run under WINE. It's been a bit of a learning curve, but if you're already familiar with the DOS/Windows command prompt, it's not a steep learning curve.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2018, 03:06:49 am
content: With Steam's latest attempts into Windows compatibility within games, if I can get close to all of my current games working on Windows, I am prepared to make a final switch to Linux, after dual booting for a good amount of time, and to reserve my version of Windows Server 2016, which I have used as a desktop operating system about since it came out, to my spare 500GB hard drive, which I currently run Arch Linux on.The only app I honestly use on Windows that does not have support for Linux, is Fusion 360. I'm not aware of any similar replacements that are Linux compatible, but I haven't really looked.It's something I don't get. You'd think a company would try to sell consumers a product they would want to buy, but they have a habit of making unpopular decisions that annoy their more dedicated and experienced user base. I might be oversimplifying the situation, but what the hell happened to buy product that was made with a passion by experienced people who wanted to make their customers happy in exchange for a price?Arch Linux awaits, I just need game support to get better.

author: fonograph
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2018, 03:11:00 am
content: I hate Windows but I need I Windows.Companies that reach monopoly status are cancerous tumors of capitalist society,its always the same,as soon as pressure of competition is gone,they reveal their true colors and begin to treat customers as schmitt.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2018, 03:16:19 am
content: I rank Steam just slightly higher than Microsoft when it comes to spying and telemetry. Even if you put it in "offline" mode it's still constantly phoning home. There is really no good reason why it should have to be running non-stop while playing a game.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2018, 03:50:44 am
content: Quote from: rdl on August 26, 2018, 03:16:19 amIt's DRM, and is there more as a compromise for copy protection in a way. Steam doesn't get in the way of your gaming, and doesn't get in the way of your other tasks, it just checks license validity, to my knowledge. The issue with Windows is that it provides telemetry for more private matters and situations. I don't mind necessarily if it phones home, but I want to know that what it phones home is very basic, not personally identifying, and has absolutely no relation to any real interaction I have with the operating system, especially on a personal basis.

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 02:47:51 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on August 26, 2018, 03:00:04 amI put CentOS 7 on a spare hard drive in the main work Windows machine, and installed the most recent version of the MicroSemi FPGA tools on it. Supposedly all supported, naturally it doesn’t work. Grrrrr.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 02:56:36 am
content: Maybe the best solution to the data collection is to make it collect random junk in order to make the whole thing useless.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 03:09:10 am
content: I turned off Windows Update completely a couple years ago after the aggressive push to get everyone on Win10. I completely lost all the trust I had in Windows Update and it became a greater concern than any kind of external attack or malware.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 04:16:53 am
content: I thought this was fairly well known, to be honest. The good news is that you can uninstall the patches, the bad news is that Microsoft periodically rereleases the kbs causing them to be reinstalled even when hidden. The definitive solution seems to be to make a script that hides the updates on every boot or shutdown. You schedule the script with the Task Scheduler. That should kill off any sneaky rereleases.It's quite tiresome to have to jump through these hoops, but there aren't many OSs left that are to be trusted and none with a similar ecosystem.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 04:38:06 am
content: Has anybody tried this as a potential replacement for the built in Windows Update?http://www.wsusoffline.net/

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 04:51:55 am
content: Quote from: rdl on August 27, 2018, 04:38:06 amIs your intention to isolate your Windows system from the internet completely?I've played with WSUS offline a bit and it seemed to work well. I've toyed with the same idea too, but in my case it's quite impractical.

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 07:25:45 am
content: Quote from: james_s on August 27, 2018, 03:09:10 amSame here. So far, so good.Microsoftisthe largest source of Windows malware, at this point. I hope Valve is able to do what no one else has been able to do, and give the world a meaningful alternative.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 05:37:38 pm
content: I'm not sure if it is a good idea to stop Windows updates *completely*, but certainly if you have the time to check, you can pick and choose what to patch. I'm not sure if using Windows offline is practical for most people though. Why not look to an alternative (Linux options are increasingly popular) if Microsoft/Windows practices are becoming philosophically opposed to one's views of computing?I have been on Ubuntu for several years now and after some learning I found Linux alternatives to all of my more "critical" necessary software, and most of my non-critical apps. Just to be sure, I maintain VM's of WinXP, Win7 and Win10, and have installed some old games/apps directly in WINE to run Windows apps.At my office, I have been forced to use Windows due to the need for a proprietary and expensive schedule/appointment/billing/image management software package specifically made for my industry for which I pay exhorbitant annual maintenance fees. I am using the WinXP version, and although entitled to free upgrades to their latest Win10 edition, choose to stay with their leaner faster smaller WinXP edition as it does what I need.....The only change I've made is installing Ubuntu and creating a VM version of each machine with the proprietary software on it, running on WinXP Mode (Microsoft's WinXP for VM's) for a few reasons. First, WinXPMode is supposed to be more patched and secure than even my older WinXP that was fully updated. They stopped supporting WinXP years ago, I could not trust the AV and security of those systems. Running WinXPMode doesn't guarantee full security either as they have access to the internet and could also potentially be exploited with malware, but being in a VM environment if I detect anything (or even if I don't) I can just periodically refresh the VM with a background unused copy. There is nothing on the VM which needs to "persist" as the software I use is just a client that accesses the server which has everything on it.Sorry, I diverged from the main thread... My point is, it may not be easy but alternatives to Windows exist if one is willing to suffer through some pain short-term figuring things out. One will be glad they did.[EDIT: Just one more thing.... ]I forgot to mention, it seems increasingly that Microsoft is going the way of Apple/Google in some ways, creating an ecosystem model that relies on "free" operating system in order to gather user information for advertising purposes, and relying on software-subscriptions to use their apps rather than sell one-time forever-use applications, in which case they are going to want to gather as many metrics on their users as possible. This is another reason for the push towards everyone being on the same OS version and abandoning older stuff, so improve efficiency.

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 07:21:19 pm
content: Quote from: edy on August 27, 2018, 05:37:38 pmIf I had time to babysit WSUS to that extent, I'd undoubtedly want to use it for something other than micromanaging WSUS. More to the point, I simply don't have the information I would need to do that. All any of us can do is take Microsoft's word for what a given patch does. They have lied before, so it's safe to assume that they will lie again.My rationale for dropping Windows Update is that OS security is a bathtub curve. When an OS is new, it's very safe to run it unpatched because there aren't any exploits for it yet. Once it has achieved a high degree of adoption, it's obviously very hazardous to fall behind on patches because everyone is gunning for it. Eventually it becomes safe(r) to slack off on the updates because the exploits are all aimed at newer versions.Case in point: I remember when a Win2K system would be exploited by malformed ICMP packets within a few seconds of being connected to the Internet, if you were brave/foolhardy enough to plug the NIC directly into the wall without going through a NAT gateway. I'll bet that doesn't happen anymore. It would be interesting to try it and see.What I'dreallylike is a trusted third party with an Enterprise license, where someone who isn't Microsoft administers my systems remotely and keeps them up to dateonmyschedulewithout injecting unwanted features or programs or exfiltrating unauthorized data. I would pay for that... just as I'd be willing to continue paying Microsoft for what I've always paid them for, if they would sell it to me.

author: SparkyFX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 09:15:02 pm
content: Quote from: KE5FX on August 27, 2018, 07:21:19 pmWould agree, but the ones that do hit tend to hit hard and reach many machines. Plus... newer versions are not complete rewrites, there are high amounts of old/legacy code buried in there and then all susceptible to the same problem. But the whole thing is marketed as "new".QuoteThat is one reason to switch to linux. It avoids the requirement to reboot after patching as much as possible, you can restart system services (daemons) to a very small degree within seconds and you can check their dependencies from the command line if needed. This results in updates to unrelated programs not necessarily impacting a production system - even if, it takes a few seconds to recover. Obviously i still would not recommend to update any production system online, as people do slip dependencies and data might get lost.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 09:51:49 pm
content: It's interesting to note the worldwide usage stats on computer OSes.... here is the Wikipedia page:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systemsApparently Windows vastly dominates the PC/laptop OS, in the 80%+ range of adoption, followed far behind by MacOS (<20%?), and then in the low single-digits for Linux (1-2%?).Contrast that with the Server market, in which Linux is more on an even level with Windows (~30%'s share each) and the final third being made up also by Unix-like systems (just not Linux). So overall the Unix-like market share for servers is in the 60%'s.How much of that market share is actually a function of usability/utility on the part of Linux vs. Windows on the desktop, and how much of it is due to lack of user awareness of any feasible alternatives to Windows, and the fact that pre-installs of Windows vastly dominate the vast majority of store-bought PC's?Given that a HUGE majority of people could probably function perfectly well on a ChromeOS netbook and rely mostly on a few basic major applications (now widely cross-platform available) and mostly browse the web, and look at photos and videos, I think a huge chunk of that Windows market could easily be satisfied by Linux machines.However, GAMING still is not a forte of Linux (although I run Steam on Linux and have installed a number of Windows game under WINE) and many iPhone users have no option to use iTunes on Linux (although Linux options are available to mount the phone and copy stuff on/off). You can always use a Windows VM if you are absolutely stuck, but the average user may not know what to do (although some distros have come a long way to make things more user friendly). Printer driver support is still spotty, as likely other drivers.It's still a long road ahead for anything other than Windows on the desktop it seems. The few of us using Linux seem to be highly technical/computer/engineer types that like this stuff. Sad that it has to be that way, as I have my whole family (from as young as 6 years old) on Linux and everyone is doing better than if they had Windows, but only because I'm there to setup and administer their systems.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 10:30:39 pm
content: Quote from: edy on August 27, 2018, 09:51:49 pmLinux sits around 5-6% of the desktop market. Just in the last 6 months alone, this is up about 0.5% which is a significant jump. I suspect we'll see this trend continuing as people ditch Windows.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 10:44:36 pm
content: Quote from: edy on August 27, 2018, 05:37:38 pmI hate to say it, but that hardly sounds convenient at all. It's a lot of extra work and you're still not entirely free from Windows.My experience is that a lot of programs simply don't have a viable non Windows alternative. Wine doesn't always work and you can forget about support after paying huge amounts for licences. There's also quite a lot of big or small incompatibilities that aren't acceptable in a professional environment, not to mention the risk of introducing mistakes that are costly to correct later.I'm poking around in Linux every once in a while to see whether the time to switch has come, but it inevitably means spending more time on figuring things out, which does get better after the initial pain but never goes away.Of course, if Microsoft keeps compromising the usefulness of Windows there will be a break even point sooner or later.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2018, 10:51:40 pm
content: Quote from: edy on August 27, 2018, 09:51:49 pmWhy on Earth would you want a Chromebook? If you're worried about spying that's about the worst thing you can do. It's not Windows with spying tacked on, it's built upon the premise of shipping all possible data back. People do evil things to Linux based OSs too.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2018, 12:14:08 am
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on August 27, 2018, 10:44:36 pmYes, for my particular needs I found the break-even point happened a couple years ago when my Win7 system decided without my permission to download Windows 10. I also noticed my 2-3 year old hardware was getting slower and slower, and continuous updates and patches just filled up my machine to the point where it was becoming painful to use.That's when I booted a Linux USB key (UbuntuStudio) and noted that I was able to be more productive on it given my particular use case, PC hardware, smartphone and printers. Around the same time, my kids needed some laptops for school and something to use at home, so I was able to pick up some older machines for free, wipe them clean and get a "light" version (Lubuntu) installed on them. It was at that point that I found it was no longer a necessity for me personally (the professional office is another story). We found applications in Linux (open-source) that could handle all the stuff we needed, cost nothing, and realized we could survive without Windows (although it was scary at first).It was NOT without a steep learning curve.... but it has become easier. The latest distros make it easy to set up a dual-boot partition so you can keep Windows around while testing the waters. I did that for a while, and then one day I decided I was going to completely wipe the machine when updating to a newer version of Ubuntu and that's what I did.I agree, it is not for everyone and there are still many things that can go wrong and you need to sit there into the wee hours of the morning searching forums for fixes. I remember that happening with Windows too, it's not immune either.Quote from: Mr. Scram on August 27, 2018, 10:51:40 pmI personally wouldn't want a Chromebook, but many people live their entire life "in the Google cloud" and use it for all their needs. If I did get one, I'd try to wipe it and install Linux on there. As for evil things on Linux, it is also not immune. You still need to be smart about what you install on it, what ppa's you decide to add software from and so on. Nevertheless, if you stick to the "official" repo's and use the most popular apps that are open-sourced and being vetted, you are likely not going to pick up anything strange.However, mistakes do happen even in the Linux world and you can sometimes install something that inadvertently "breaks" some feature due to incompatibility or problems with dependencies and other such things. It happens, BUT..... now that I have been using Ubuntu as my daily-driver for a couple years, these inconveniences are but minor compared to the numerous benefits.If you asked me this 2 years ago... I would have told you that I wouldn't last a week on Ubuntu. This was an irrational fear... but it is certainly NOT FOR EVERYONE. That is why Windows still dominates. But you are right... sadly the main drive to trying something new seems to be PAIN with Windows rather than PLEASURE from Linux. It is human nature to stay in your comfort zone, I can see that nobody will want to take on the task of learning a new and arguably "harder" OS like Linux. Also, it reminds me of the story of slowly turning up the heat in the pot until the frog boils... The frog won't jump out. If you try throwing the frog in hot water, it will jump. When we use Windows daily and it gets slower and slower and takes up more and more space, we just don't feel it because it happens over many years. Usually we just buy a new machine and it starts flying again. Certainly it helps the hardware market continue pumping out machines. Not to say Linux can't do the same, but because of the modularity of the system and ability to use different desktops (LXDE, XFCE, Gnome, etc) you can customize it while still being current on the most up-to-date kernel/distro.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 10, 2018, 06:18:05 am
content: So now that I've had myPi-holerunning on my network for the past few weeks, I thought I'd post an update.On average almost half of the DNS queries on my LAN are being blocked by Pi-hole. This just goes to show just how much garbage your smartphone applications and the websites you visit try to access. (And before anyone mentions it, none of my devices have any malware, viruses etc...)Screenshot below.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 10, 2018, 07:26:00 am
content: I'll also add that I'm fully aware that Dave gets some ad revenue from hosting ads on the forum. I've taken a blanket ban approach to all advertising on my network and on my devices. I simply hate advertising and it's a waste of my time. It has zero influence on me when deciding to buy products or services so I'd rather them not take up valuable screen real estate and be all up in my face.To offset this, I've become a direct supporter of Dave each month. If you decide to use Pi-hole yourself, considerbecoming a "Patron".

author: particleman
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2018, 12:07:30 pm
content: Using windows XP in 2006 I tried to install a new graphics card. Installing it for some reason required me to reactivate windows. I had lost the "key" so I called M$*** and asked for help, they said there was nothing they could do and I needed to buy a new copy of windows. That pissed me off so I installed Debian and have not owned a M$*** product since. Linux does everything I need. This install is over 5 years old and using under 12gb of disk space. Feels good man.

author: Zucca
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 10, 2018, 12:49:40 pm
content: Since I have pfSense, I will try pfBlockerNG:https://forum.netgate.com/topic/91736/pfblockerng-v2-0-w-dnsblGood to know about the Pi-Hole thing.

author: klunkerbus
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 10, 2018, 03:05:46 pm
content: I've had two piholes in my setup for over a year now, and have been quite happy with them. One is the primary DNS and one is the secondary. If nothing else, I did this so that if the first one dies, I know I've got a hot backup ready to go. I do see that secondary DNS handling about 10% of the queries, so evidently having both of them on line has helped with peak loads.I see the piholes block about 38% of my traffic. I typically don't bother looking at the pihole logs. Life keeps me busy on more important stuff.Visitors using our guest network do sometimes complain about how "sponsored" ads don't work - especially when doing product searches in google.Websites seem to be getting smarter about adblockers in general. I seem to running into more and more sites that won't display any content since they've detected I'm blocking their ad content. If that trend continues, things like pihole might have to get smarter too - perhaps going ahead with requesting the data from the web site in the background, but just not displaying it to the user.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2018, 07:23:15 pm
content: Quote from: klunkerbus on September 10, 2018, 03:05:46 pmWe're at the point in time we need adblocker blocker blockers. Ad companies still haven't caught on that their behaviour won't be accepted by people, no matter how much you try to force the issue. You reap what you sow.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2018, 07:57:07 pm
content: Adblock Plus does have an "acceptable ads" initiative to give an incentive for "acceptable" (not annoying) ads in order to reduce the need for an adblocker in the first place.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2018, 09:12:16 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on September 10, 2018, 07:57:07 pmWhat they consider acceptable in their book isn't acceptable in mine. Anything that isn't locally hosted and anything but a simple image is a veritable risk for your security and privacy. Eevblog is one of the few websites getting it right, but most claim it's not feasible in the current advertising landscape. Unintrusive doesn't equal safe or acceptable.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 10, 2018, 10:34:11 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on September 10, 2018, 09:12:16 pm+1

author: TERRA Operative
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2018, 01:10:24 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on September 10, 2018, 07:57:07 pmAnd 'acceptable' is defined as 'does the advertising agency pay AdBlock to let their ads through?'uBlock Origin is the legit one to use. Lightweight, no tracking, no 'pay to allow ads', etc.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2018, 01:17:11 pm
content: There's a formal list of what constitutes an acceptable ad:https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-adsJust blocking everything doesn't give any incentive for ads to be less annoying.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 28, 2018, 08:40:16 pm
content: I use pFsense with two VDSL lines, and a 4g modem and many different switches for my experiments which has been working since 2015.Very handy to add to the blocklists and set rules.It is a low spec Gigabyte motherboard with a low power Xeon quad core 2.5Ghz, 4 pci slots, 2 pcie, 4GB low latency ram with four ancient Alteon Acenic/Tigon 2 network cards and a Quad port Intel gigabit and a good amount of static pressure fans.The Alteons are limited to a little over half a gigabit without the jumbo frames but it seems more responsive than the quad port Intel so I use them primarily. I have noticed a difference with Youtube playback and the delays.I didn't want to use Adblock at first as for the name but I have been forced years ago to as it is a good element hider but don't use it to block adverts unless they are too in a fixed position that won't go awayI use Adblock to rid of oversized fixed elements that I can't close but there are extensions to manage that fixed behaviour now, Google Suggest (like talking to parrot), and the gradient shadows/spinning wheel and various other annoyances over the Youtube player like the top and bottom darkens when you hover the mouse over and all I want to do is pause the video to look at something. The only list I use is Fanboy's list of annoyances (facebook, twitter popups).Unfortunately when I click allow acceptable ads it ignores the rules to block the Google suggest lines which gets in the way but I don't use it to block ads. I do block some ad hosts on a list of dodgy advertising sites known to host malware but I see all the Google Doubleclick stuff.I disable all that telemetry stuff when customers bring me things.