
Destroy Windows Spying tool - walterbell
https://github.com/Nummer/Destroy-Windows-10-Spying
======
quickben
See, all this is a very sad state of affairs.

We need an operating system, paid for it, and we just can't use it without
going through regular troubles to ensure some sort of sanity.

Any attempt to have it the normal, guaranteed by law, way, are countered from
Microsoft with either no reasons why, or very shallow explanations.

Looking at the boarder picture, at other windows products, licensing is
becoming more expensive. At the same time, attempts that look like MS is
opening itself to the world, are just a curtain that ensures user entrenchment
on windows platforms.

This, so far benign behavior, is just becoming outright hostile at the moment
(auto updates going against what we changed, and having new code to hard reset
user changes, etc etc).

I get that this will sound like a sad rant, but that's how I feel about this
whole windows 10 thing: It's just a really sad sad state of affairs.

Decades of progress, is this supposed to be it?

~~~
tajen
On the one hand, it would really help if we all switched to Linux and paid for
it (but I wouldn't know which B2C-oriented companies provides a good Linux
support, plus I'm afraid that the recent multiplication of Linux distributions
will harm the image of the OS).

On the other hand, OEM versions of Windows have done lot worse. First of all,
you are not supposed to alter the OS provided by your OEM if you want to keep
the license. Second, there are all those drivers that are supposedly necessary
and which installed the Ask toolbar, IE skins, and even a root CA certificates
in the case of HP! They take away up to 40% of the power of your computer in
average (yes, when it's the OEM's supposedly antivirus), they display
advertising, they communicate your personal information and open breaches.
Actually I kind of wish Microsoft provided OEMs with a set of APIs where they
can do their harm, but forbade them from going further.

So your Windows PC has been full of malware way before Windows 10 added spy
tools. I'm just happy it's official now - Hope it will help more people switch
to other OSes.

~~~
oblio
> recent multiplication of Linux distributions

Recent? There were 500 distributions 10 years ago! :)

------
wslh
I don't know how organizations are running Windows 10 with all the information
Microsoft is getting from the OS. I checked with the resource monitor and even
Explorer.exe is opening network connections beyond my company.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Depends on your organization. If you're government, the possibility of the
government spying on your data isn't shockingly worrisome. A lot of types of
businesses also would have no reason to care about privacy concerns, where a
lot of reporting and accountability is already required, or where there's
almost no contention for need for privacy.

~~~
amluto
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, you seem to be confusing Microsoft with "the
government". I think you meant:

> If you're government, the possibility of the government spying on your data
> isn't shockingly worrisome.

which makes little sense to me. If you're government, you should be quite
concerned about the possibility of Microsoft spying on your data.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Depends what branch of government, I suppose. For the NSA, sure. For anyone
who works where most data is public or FOIA-able... I guess your biggest
concern would be if Microsoft's spying managed to compromise the security of
the network itself, which one would hope Microsoft is supremely motivated to
not do, because they want you to use their products.

Nor am I confusing Microsoft with the government, but merely recognizing that
in a backdoor model, the most interested party is probably the government.

------
STRiDEX
There's a few applications that do this from producers like O&O and Spybot.

A mixed list of some of them can downloaded from
[http://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/sortname/windows_10_fixes.html](http://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/sortname/windows_10_fixes.html)

------
busterarm
Careful...

[https://github.com/Nummer/Destroy-
Windows-10-Spying/issues](https://github.com/Nummer/Destroy-
Windows-10-Spying/issues)

~~~
quickben
eh, I went through the source code, seemed okay.

~~~
asuffield
I also went through some of the source code. That "adds things to hosts file"
code has some rather questionable entries in it.

m.hotmail.com

watson.microsoft.com

Assorted *.msn.com domains

apps.skype.com

msftncsi.com

"Add spying domains to hosts file" is dishonest, at best. This appears to be a
determined effort to break random services for the user which happen to be run
by Microsoft. Hotmail, Skype and the NCSI detection are particularly
inexcusable things to block under the guise of "destroy spying".

~~~
exadeci
I used the software, skype works fine it just doesn't have ads anymore and
skype home whatever that is.

Msn domains are only subdomains that are most likely ads related

Watson is Microsoft report tool so "spying"

Hotmail no idea but I don't think you'd use the mobile website on desktop
anyway and the domain is live.com now

Add to that, in the software there is a Open hosts file to see/edit it so you
can remove whatever you don't want to block

------
walterbell
If you plan to buy a new laptop soon: Oct 31, 2016 is the last date that OEMs
can sell Win 7 (or downgrade rights from Win 10) bundled with hardware.

~~~
0x0
Sounds like a bad idea buying a machine designed for an obsolete OS. Sad but
true; I agree that win7 is nicer than win10. Consider switching to Linux or
MacOS, because Windows isn't reversing direction any time soon.

~~~
walterbell
The machines are all current generation (Skylake) and support both Windows 7
and Windows 10. If your professional workflow depends on a Windows app, this
is your last chance to buy a Win7-compatible machine that will be supported
until 2020. At any time, you can upgrade to Win10 with the included OEM
license.

~~~
CamperBob2
Isn't Microsoft backporting all the same crap -- forced updates, forced
reboots, telemetry, and other assorted asshattery -- to Windows 7 and Windows
8?

It seems like the first thing you'd have to do with a new Windows 7 system is
turn off Windows Update, to keep the camel's nose, head, humps, legs, tail,
and extended family out of the proverbial tent.

~~~
walterbell
Yes, there's a list of KB updates which need to be uninstalled manually.

------
gnud
I've been using mostly windows (7) for the past years, with a sprinkle of
linux VMs for running databases and such.

Now, when upgrading, I think I'll buy a mac. I can't be bothered to deal with
this crap any more.

But on the mac side, there's a lot of blocking of non-store apps and general
walled garden-ness? Or is this just something I've conjured up in my paranoid
mind?

~~~
azimuth11
As a developer, I would buy a Mac. Everything "just works" on it. Apps are
sometimes blocked from the App store (Famous example, Flux perhaps?
[https://justgetflux.com/](https://justgetflux.com/)), but that doesn't mean
you can't/shouldn't use them.

That said, I'll be checking this out for my Windows 10 rig (for gaming).

~~~
serge2k
> Everything "just works" on it.

Except the maximize button.

And scrolling.

~~~
WayneBro
And window management.

And display management.

And file management.

And you can only launch one instance of an app at a time.

And you have to wait forever for Apple to update your hardware.

And they are so, so, so many other problems with macOS. It's laughable how
much is broken.

------
agentdrtran
> Remove Windows 10 Metro Apps

So you can't use any UWP apps with this? Why is this something that happens?

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Their readme doesn't specify, but from a brief investigation, it seems like
their application has options for what to do and not do.

As more and more critical parts of the Windows system is moved over to the UWP
model, though, disabling UWP apps would just be silly. And UWP doesn't require
the Windows Store to work.

------
curt15
What are domains like adnexus.net and ad.doubleclick.net doing in that list of
blacklisted hosts? Has MS ever disclosed what information is being sent there?

~~~
benjarrell
I think it is from apps like Solitaire and News having ads in them.

------
ape4
Expect a counterattack from Microsoft. Just like when people figured out how
to remove the Windows 10 installer (GWX).

~~~
quickben
Well they are labeling the tool as spyware through windows defender.

Edit: Why the downmoding? The above is just stating the fact.

~~~
detaro
In all likelihood they aren't targeting this specifically, software messing
with system internals, turning off Antivirus, ... is going to trigger rules
looking for malware doing that.

------
AdmiralAsshat
I've wondered how these apps go about stopping this stuff, given that Windows
is closed source. Do they somehow get their hands on the source? Or is it all
Reverse-Engineering?

~~~
tdicola
If something has to phone home to the mothership over the internet it's easy
to hook into Windows networking stack at a very low level and see all the
network traffic (just run Wireshark, it's using all public APIs). And even if
they don't let you get that low into the network stack on the machine you can
always put it behind another machine as a proxy and watch everything going by
on the wire, even using SSL mitm and such to crack that open.

------
serge2k
I'll install this when it includes stuff to stop every other damn company from
collecting their data.

~~~
walterbell
How do other companies collect OS-level data?

~~~
serge2k
Oh right, it's in the OS so it's a tragedy now.

Facebook and Google obsessively hoarding data about me is all good. Microsoft
trying to collect usage data, horrible nasty evil no good rotten scoundrels.

~~~
jjnoakes
You don't see a difference between companies which you give your data to over
the internet and companies which produce the operating system of your computer
exfiltrating information?

