Microsoft Updates Spy On MS-Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 Users!   Just When You Thought It Was Safe... Arstechnica's viewpoint on the issue. Hackbusters reports Microsoft releases updates to spy On Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 Users Infoworld: Windows 7, 8, and 10: Now all collecting user data for Microsoft. TechWorm reports new Windows 7/8/8.1 updates spy on you just like Windows 10  What Can Be Done To Protect or Restore Privacy? Extreme Tech - Uninstall Microsoft backported privacy-invading Windows 10 features in Windows 7 and 8. Hackread's solution offering a list of updates to avoid and uninstall. Disable automatic Windows updates. Your old OS already has the important ones!

MS-Windows 10 - It's no longer the OS you know & love! Microsoft Has A New Product For Sale → Your Personal Information MS-Windows 10 is a tool for Microsoft to gather your personal data for resale. Read how Google motivated Microsoft into changing it's business model. Opinion: I think Google's Android OS is great. However, I use my tablet almost exclusively for ham radio & photographic applications. It's an unsafe platform when intellectual property or personal data must be protected. Microsoft may alienate much of it's traditional MS-Windows customer base using a similar business model. Here's a good overview of what's happening: Microsoft's multiple deceptive tactics push customers to Mac OS (UNIX) and Linux. Also, what does Microsoft have against ASUS and it's customers? Information You Need To Know Learn about the dirty tactic Microsoft used to trick customers into "agreeing" to an unwanted change to MS-Windows 10. (known to break some applications) Why? Microsoft's new business model doesn't care about you. It only wants to harvest and sell your personal data! When I first learned of this deception, I began to wonder if the "privacy" settings scattered around MS-Windows 10 really did anything. Were they added only to placate the trusting user? It didn't take long to find out. Windows 10 ignores your privacy settings and sends some personal data to Microsoft anyway. Further reading revealed that locking down the MS-Windows 10 privacy settings will not actually reduce the amount of personal information sent to Microsoft. According to one report, the only effect is that doing so will take longer for Microsoft to acquire your private data! (...wish I had bookmarked that article for you!) According to the MS-Windows 10 user agreement, one that few read but everyone must agree to, you now share ownership rights to everything on your MS-Windows 10 computer with Microsoft, who then has the legal right to redistribute your work files as they see fit. Are you unhappy about that? You should be. However... You agreed to it! MS-Windows 10 steals bandwidth by using your PC to deliver MS-Windows 10, other Microsoft products and their updates to computers around the world! Here's how to Opt Out. Since Microsoft is now storing your personal data on it's servers, it apparently needs to store it's software products on your PC. According to SoftOrbits, MS-Windows 10 collects the following information and sends it to Microsoft: Everything you type on the keyboard. MS-Windows 10 comes with a built-in keylogger. MS-Windows 10 can listen to your microphone and engage your web cam in the background without you even knowing. Creepy! Logins and passwords to Web sites (includes banking and investment accounts), social networks, fragments of email messages, chats and text messages Your geolocation coordinates - GPS or approximate IP-based coordinates Your web browsing history, including search queries Wi-Fi access points and their passwords List of installed applications The names of music tracks you’re listening to. Why is this important for homeland security? Call logs Your calendar entries, events and meetings Your address book  Really? If you encrypt your hard drive or eMMC memory with BitLocker, recovery keys are automatically uploaded to Microsoft OneDrive. Microsoft Privacy Policy allows disclosing those keys to government agencies without a court order. The How-To Geek shows how to Uninstall Windows 10 and restore Windows 7 or 8.1! Are you now using MS-Windows 10 and wish to reclaim as much privacy as possible? Some excellent thoughts on Microsoft's Windows 10 and how to protect yourself. This information comes from a former Microsoft employee. This is a "must watch" for anyone considering MS-Windows 10. Be sure to view the entire video. It's a shame one must do all this without achieving the level of privacy Linux has right out of the box! Is MS-Windows 10 really free?  There is no free lunch. The real price of MS-Windows 10. "Microsoft’s Windows 10 is a privacy nightmare." Here's how to protect yourself. The Windows 10 privacy issues you should know about. "Windows 10 doesn’t offer much privacy by default." Here’s how to fix most of it. More about Windows 10 built-in spyware Here's a final thought for your consideration: How long will it be before identity thieves exploit the numerous back doors put into MS-Windows 10 by Microsoft? What, if anything, can be done about it?

Potential Solutions To Modern Privacy Problems    July 23, 2016 Android (Google) Not the best choice. Here is a guide to Android's security risks. A few examples of the dubious behavior common in the Android world: Why does a simple game require permission to access your address book before it will run? Why do some Android software makers pay for expensive TV ads to promote their free applications? Chromium & Google Chrome OS Here's a tour of Google Chrome OS. The affordable Chrome netbooks perform most tasks people want. (limited privacy)   Chromium OS provides a more secure experience for people who spend a lot of time on-line. Chromium OS is open source and not the same as Google's proprietary Chrome OS. A similar distinction exists between Chromium and Google Chrome web browsers. Both Chromium and Google Chrome are reported to work well on slower hardware. FreeBSD FreeBSD is a high performance UNIX─like open source OS for desktop and server use that will do the job. FreeBSD runs on many hardware platforms. (A whole lot, really!) Over 25 years in development with over 20,000 applications available. More information about FreeBSD can be found here. GNU/Linux Another excellent option. The open source nature of GNU/Linux allows anyone to inspect source code for malware. From Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth: "No Back Doors; No Weakening of Encryption." This level of privacy and security is common to all open source operating systems. The world's most private and secure Linux OS and web browser! It's used globally by diplomats, journalists, military organizations, businesses and individuals seeking anonymity. Security is extended beyond the CPU box to the web. MAC OS This UNIX based OS is now very questionable. Read these articles and decide for yourself. Microsoft Windows Just kidding! ...ducking, running and hiding now. ➙ George UNIX Can be expensive, but will easily do the job. Learn more.

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