 DID YOU KNOW THAT WINDOWS 10 TRACKS EVERYTHING YOU DO... There is a report that details the myriad of ways that Windows 10 tracks users, and shows that unless you have the enterprise version of Windows, the various privacy settings make almost no difference. Only in the Enterprise Versions of Windows 10 can the telemetry data be shut off... You see normal versions of Windows only have three different levels of telemetry. We found that the difference between basic and full tracking is 503 and 534 tracking processes. The only real reduction in telemetry comes from the Enterprise Versions of Windows 10 which can use an additional setting, “security” for their telemetry, which reduces the number of active trackers to 13. Taking a deep dive into the processes and the registry for telemetry tells us how Windows stores the telemetry data, how and when the data is uploaded to Microsoft servers, and the difference in the various levels of telemetry settings. It also goes as far as to show where the settings to modify the individual logging components are controlled in the Windows registry, and how they initialize in Windows. Windows pushes your data to Microsoft servers every 30 minutes. The size of the logging equates 12KB to 16KB per hour on an idle computer. For context, it is roughly a copy Ernest Hemingway’s “Old Man and the Sea” every day, in data. It sends information to seven different locations. Including Ireland, Wyoming, and the small town of Boston, Virginia and near another famous IT place which we will not mention. There are endless discussions on Windows Telemetry and multiple guides on methods to fully disable it. As always, the best defense is to not use Windows. The second best defense seems to be to use Windows Enterprise where you can manually disable telemetry in an official way. The third best is to try blocking it by changing settings, registry keys, and modifying your firewalls outside of Windows, because Windows firewall will ignore filters that block Microsoft Telemetry IPs. Also, consider that it all will get switched back on with every major Windows Update. You can try it yourself. Pull up Windows 10's Settings, go to the Privacy section, and disable everything in your Activity History. Give it a few days. Visit the Windows Privacy Dashboard online, and you’ll find that some applications, media, and even browsing history still shows up. Application data found on the Windows Privacy Dashboard website. Sure, this data can be manually deleted. We have found an effective workaround worth sharing for those who want to limit Microsoft’s activity-tracking for good. It’s a simple process that only requires you to download and open some files, but we’ll guide you through the steps... How to disable the activity tracker under Windows 10 The method works by editing values in your Window Registry to block the Activity Tracker (via a .REG file). For transparency, here’s what changes the file makes:
Note: The above shuts down the task list history but does not totally shut down the CryptnetUrlCache located * C:\Users\USER NAME\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\CryptnetUrlCache nor does it shut down your search history located * C:\Users\USER NAME\Searches you can however manually delete these but keep in mind Microsoft probably already has received this data. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE! As for the online 'Bing Search History' you can login at this address below and specify that you don't want Microsoft to track your searches anymore... https://www.bing.com/profile/history Microsoft has released a statement to MADgeek about the aforementioned “Activity History.” Here’s the statement from Windows & devices group privacy officer Marisa Rogers: “Microsoft is committed to customer privacy, being transparent about the data we collect and use for your benefit, and we give you controls to manage your data. In this case, the same term ‘Activity History’ is used in both Windows 10 and the Microsoft Privacy Dashboard. Windows 10 Activity History data is only a subset of the data displayed in the Microsoft Privacy Dashboard. We are working to address this naming issue in a future update.” Microsoft says there are two settings you should look into if you want to keep your PC from uploading your activity data: “One is to go to Settings -> Privacy -> Activity history, and make sure that ‘Let Windows sync my activities from this PC to the cloud’ is unchecked. Also, you can go to Settings -> Privacy -> Diagnostics & feedback, and make sure that it’s set to basic.” |
| Copyright Disclaimer |