Windows 8 Will Reports Your Every Downloads to Microsoft, what dou you think?

This news very shock me and you guys using Windows, probably in near time using 8 version. What do you think about this feature, you wanna turn this feature on or off?

“The big problem is that Windows 8 is configured to immediately tell Microsoft about every app you download and install,” Kobeissi wrote. “This is a very serious privacy problem, specifically because Microsoft is the central point of authority and data collection/retention here and therefore becomes vulnerable to being served judicial subpoenas or National Security Letters intended to monitor targeted users.”

To make matters worse, the install logs are sent to Microsoft and can be snooped by third-parties, the researcher claims, since the mechanism supports the SSLv2 protocol which is known to be breakable. While it’s possible to turn off SmartScreen, it’s not easy, and the OS will remind you periodically to turn it back on.”

I just installed something the other day and wasn’t connected to the internet and Windows told me some kind of message like “you can’t install this because we can’t verify that it’s a safe program”. So I guess this explains it.

did apple OS does the same thing with its apps?

It’s not easy to disable SmartScreen? pfft… yes it is.

doru said
did apple OS does the same thing with its apps?

I think they pretty much have been doing this since the launch of MacAppStore since each download/purchase(free or paid) is directly linked to your Apple account. At least for the apps that you download from the MacAppStore. Same goes for iPhone and iPad.

Same applies to all other digital software distribution platforms which is how people mostly purchase software these days. What’s the big deal?

KamilWaheed said
What’s the big deal?

what I’m doing with my computer should not be an asset of some corporation.

doru said

KamilWaheed said
What’s the big deal?

what I’m doing with my computer should not be an asset of some corporation.

Emails. Social Networks. Cloud services. Browsers synchronization. Isn’t that enough already?

Monitoring which apps you install as well won’t really make much of a difference, in my opinion. Our computer usage is pretty much monitored already, unless, of course, you explicitly turn everything off in which case you can also stop SmartScreen.

KamilWaheed said
Monitoring which apps you install as well won’t really make much of a difference

one thing is tracking users of a social network in their activity on the social network, which you can simply avoid by not joining the network at all, but windows is (tries to be) an operating sytem and what you install or not on your machine is no microsoft freaking business.

bitfade said

KamilWaheed said
Monitoring which apps you install as well won’t really make much of a difference

and what would it be then next step ? a keylogger ? one thing is tracking users of a social network in their activity on the social network, which you can simply avoid by not joining the network at all, but windows is (tries to be) an operating sytem and what you install or not on your machine is no microsoft freaking business.

Yes, I actually agree with you that it shouldn’t be Microsoft’s business what you install on your computer and what you don’t. But given that an average user is being monitored in pretty much every other way (yes, an average user would be registered in almost all major social networks, and would like to go through official application appstores to purchase and download apps), it won’t really affect them.

People who don’t like Microsoft to monitor them, can always disable that.

HOWEVER , if Windows doesn’t ask the user whether to turn this feature on or off during the first setup, and automatically assumes that its users would love to leave it on, then this really can be a very serious issue.

I can simply answer your thread question: I think that Windows 8 will be the same ** as win vista.