'Dark' (pirate) web sites are trying to block Windows 10 users!

[thewayne]

I came across this on Slashdot a week ago. Quite interesting and it could have MAJOR effects on privacy, more specifically on whistle-blowing. If a whistleblower is secretly releasing negative information about the government, and their computer is leaking information all over the place, this could be quite bad for the whistler

Comments

[silveradept]

Ah, fantastic. So many reasons why it would be nice if we didn't have to use Windows. But I have Steam and enjoy my games...

[thewayne]

Windows 10 seems to be a very good system, but it's very leaky and chatty. If you're not very careful, it sends A LOT of information back to the Redmond mothership. If you accept the defaults on installation, it's going to leak all over the place.

Personally, I think I'd trap outbound traffic on my router and watch what it sends and to where, then do some judicious blocking. Obviously not for the faint of heart. But you'd need to repeat the analysis after every major upgrade to make sure they're not dodging around your blocks.

Another thing about 10 -- they're not giving detailed information about patches, and it is auto-patching. So you never know precisely what they're doing to your system.

[silveradept]

Probably need to see which settings to turn off then, and keep them as off as possible. Since I did go up to 10 to get 64-bit support for the future.