Vista - WGA 20+ Apps Harvesting the Users Data - Where is Privacy ?

[infra_red_dude]

People seem to be talking of privacy and accusing a company of "leeching" sensitive data from their research documents, without an aorta of proof of any kind, but are absolutely fine with the EULA of other services/products.

I dunno about others, but I am ABSOLUTELY NOT! Neither with MS nor with Google. MS is no satan and Google is no angel!

 

[goobimama]

Well in that case car manufacturers could choose to provide no safety measures, banks could choose to make all your financial details public, and hotels could install video cameras in every room. But can they do that? No. Cause these are rules that need to be in place to have any sanity in society. And this is more so in case of Microsoft cause let's face it, MS is a monopoly. Cause its not just the operating system that people choose, its also the third party applications that are crucial to businesses and home users alike and you cannot stop them from using those applications cause the Operating System is snooping around.

Now I have no idea what kind of data Microsoft is gathering and I'm sure they are keeping it private and confidential, but still, to have them gathering it without permission is a little scary. I personally like to help out by providing such information (I always submit error reports, and accept that customer something program that MSN messenger used to throw up) cause I know it helps the company make better software. But I would like to have the option of not doing this. And Microsoft should respect that. And so should Apple. And so should Google.

Thankfully I have Little Snitch installed telling me if an internal application is connecting with the outside world. Its safe for me to do criminal activities!

 

[kumarmohit]

[Good Fun]Alright... How many of you nancies, do not use outbound firewalls?[/Good Fun]

Seriously I do not like the idea of giving even a single bit of personally identifiable information unless it is not a matter of life, death or money (Where money only means banks) I do not purchase anything online, The only netbanking account i ever use is my running account where balance is only 1000 Rs. The salary cheque goes in the account and the money comes promptly out of th ATM. There is nothing in my emails which is personal. I prefer calling up ppl. (Take it from me, girls like it way better!) all my photographs are promptly burnt onto optical discs with HDD copies discarded. I do not say that I am all safe but I do know what my computer is doing on the internet and if I see some program communicating out of the system without my permission, I pormptly kill the process.

At the end of the day it boils down to your own ability to do intelligent computing!

 

[goobimama]

You may not. I may not. But there are a lot of people who do. So what about them? Being paranoid about security is justified in many cases.

 

[chandru.in]

Best way to avoid such confusions is not accepting EULA blindly. Read it well before accepting. If you are buying from OEM store read EULA and reject the h/w right away or ask for hardware in which software with spying features like this are not bundled.

If you are not able to understand the EULA (not all of us can understand legal language ) ask someone at the OEM store to explain and if they don't, say that you'll accept the h/w after someone else can explain the terms clearly to you.

Finallly, if you have to use a spyware embedded software, ensure that any sensitive data you have on your system cannot be accessed by it. If it is an OS itself, using an encrypted filesystem created with another trustworthy OS should help.

 

[gxsaurav]

PThe list can go on and on and on. Please understand that it is NOT only Microsoft. People here have a tendency to always go anti-MS for anything. Thread starter, what do you have to say about the above quoted EULAs? Why is that you have not posted ever since? Why do I smell something fishy about the thread starter?

+1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

 

[kumarmohit]

If you are not able to understand the EULA (not all of us can understand legal language ) ask someone at the OEM store to explain and if they don't, say that you'll accept the h/w after someone else can explain the terms clearly to you.

Ow come on chandru my boy, do you really expeact this to happen in India where installation of any software, purchased ro not means Next next next finish

 

[praka123]

so those accepting EULA are happy to loss their privacy? even with OS too

 

[FilledVoid]

Ow come on chandru my boy, do you really expeact this to happen in India where installation of any software, purchased ro not means Next next next finish

I think that most company outlets (Not your local assemblers) will actually explain it for you if you ask. But I might be wrong.

 

[kumarmohit]

Woah I got 2 laptops. In no case was there anyone to explain anything. Niether Compaq, Nor lenovo. I just wanted to check where they were installing some stuff, coz they were installing NIS 2006, and they were like, "Sir tension mat lo, yeh hamara kam hai hum dekh lenge!"

 

[chandru.in]

Ow come on chandru my boy, do you really expeact this to happen in India where installation of any software, purchased ro not means Next next next finish

It should happen. If not, the woes of software cosumers will not end. At least if people demand for explanation from OEMs we may finally be offered a choice in the OS (whatever one's choice may be) bundled with our hardware. I'm sure many users will not be happy with the terms of several proprietary EULAs if they read and understand them once.

And this next, next, next syndrome is not only in India, it is spread across the globe among all brain-washed software users.

Woah I got 2 laptops. In no case was there anyone to explain anything. Niether Compaq, Nor lenovo. I just wanted to check where they were installing some stuff, coz they were installing NIS 2006, and they were like, "Sir tension mat lo, yeh hamara kam hai hum dekh lenge!"

If I was in your place I'd have either got the explanation or moved out of the store rejecting their lappy.

 

[kumarmohit]

Why bother, I negotiated a good price. In fact the Lenovo came at 21000 only. Anywway I formatted both computers the moment I took them out of box at home!