Cortana Is Listening

[MarkW]

Dumbest article ever - why you are not so concerned when the apple equivalent gathers the same information as well as sends voice commands to remote servers? Toms, stop writing cheap articles or if you are concerned about your readers! The level of the articles constantly drops from some time

To be fair, Toms does not generally do much reporting on Apple products. Sure some things about Apple hit the news links every now and then, but Toms is very much a PC oriented site.

 

[JonnyDough]

I already uninstalled Windows 10. It's invasive, unnecessary crapola from another mega corp.

 

[JonnyDough]

I'm not saying that Microsoft shouldn't gather some data. Even in Windows 7 some was normal, like Unolocogringo stated. The problem isn't that they are gathering data so much as the extent to which they are doing it. Some is okay.

Says you. NONE is ok. It's MY computer. Microsoft is giving it "free" for a reason. Because they want you to give up what you paid for in exchange for selling your soul. I tell you this now friend, as a 35 year old veteran and IT professional I will NEVER have Windows 10 on my home computer. Ever.

 

[ohim]

Siri stores everything you say for up to 2 years and your data will be analyzed, why are people shocked that a program that takes what you said to a remote server and analyzes your voice to know what to reply that is listening to you ?

I know privacy should not be taken away from me but for now what i do on my computer is nothing out of the ordinary some video editing, some gaming , casual net browsing ...

If i`ll ever plan to do something crazy like attacking " america`s freedom (is there any left?)" i`ll for sure use linux or use an offline computer ... till then i have nothing to complain about it. Though an EU reglementation that if MS doesn`t remove all the spy crap they won`t have the legal right to sell it might help but i doubt it since about every EU country lately is about invading your privacy also. Why i say EU ? Because in US this for sure will never happen.

PS: Google does the same.

 

[beetlejuicegr]

hahaha easiest way to disable cortana is just change region or add language . Game over .

Cortana is disabled on my pcs because simply its not supported in Greece yet. Perhaps you can do the same ^^

 

[royalcrown]

We have bigger problems people. Umbrella Corporation lives. Umbrella = Zombies, Zombies = bad. Therefore Umbrella = BAD ! ZOMG !

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/alphabet-umbrella-company-google-others,29805.html

 

[bob s]

So full disclosure I am a Network Administrator. I dare anyone to distinguish between "invasion of privacy" and "a head of it's time" Cookies were the devil of the 90's. When was the last time anyone disabled them in a browser? I haven't even seen mention of them in over a decade. Google/other search engines search metrics collection for targeted ads among other uses was the devil of the 2000's. Again, most don't care about that now. Now the devil is Personal Assistants. If you are naive enough to think no data is collected on you when you use a computer and that you can, in any way shape, or form, stop it I hate to burst your bubble but you can't. Best you can hope for is to mask it and even that requires great lengths. A VPN or Proxy service. But any time you go anywhere that site probably will log your IP and what you did there. Especially a search engine. Especially if they are concerned about user metrics. Then there are cookies. Remember all the fun things those can do? That no one probably turns off anymore...

Oh and speech data is probably one of the single most important things Cortana collects I would imagine. If you want it to be able to understand any dialect, any personal inflection, any oddity of how you speak, and still be able to function...I would imagine speech metrics are highly crucial to that development. Unless you all want to send a speech sample directly to Microsoft for analysis.

In five years no one will care and there will be a new devil to worry about that things are "going to far"

 

[surphninja]

Don't forget, this also surrenders your right to keep this information private in regards to law enforcement. Per the supreme court, any data you share with a third party, namely any data server, is no longer considered private, and so they are not required to obtain a warrant to gain access to your private data. Ergo, no probable cause required, and they have ready access to any and all information you share.

Hopefully the laws governing this kind of data are updated, now that we have a judiciary who's a bit more tech savvy and concerned with their own privacy.

 

[surphninja]

So full disclosure I am a Network Administrator. I dare anyone to distinguish between "invasion of privacy" and "a head of it's time" Cookies were the devil of the 90's. When was the last time anyone disabled them in a browser? I haven't even seen mention of them in over a decade. Google/other search engines search metrics collection for targeted ads among other uses was the devil of the 2000's. Again, most don't care about that now. Now the devil is Personal Assistants. If you are naive enough to think no data is collected on you when you use a computer and that you can, in any way shape, or form, stop it I hate to burst your bubble but you can't. Best you can hope for is to mask it and even that requires great lengths. A VPN or Proxy service. But any time you go anywhere that site probably will log your IP and what you did there. Especially a search engine. Especially if they are concerned about user metrics. Then there are cookies. Remember all the fun things those can do? That no one probably turns off anymore...

Oh and speech data is probably one of the single most important things Cortana collects I would imagine. If you want it to be able to understand any dialect, any personal inflection, any oddity of how you speak, and still be able to function...I would imagine speech metrics are highly crucial to that development. Unless you all want to send a speech sample directly to Microsoft for analysis.

In five years no one will care and there will be a new devil to worry about that things are "going to far"

Plenty of people still care about all of those things. The difference is that now the workarounds are built in and easily accessible, due to the initial outrage and demand for privacy. Incognito mode is a built in function of pretty much every browser now. Google has released instructions for disabling their collection of your searches. The tor browser is pretty well known and widely used, as are proxies and vpns.

Maybe you haven't heard much about them lately because the opt-out options have become standard practice for the people who want them. Hopefully the current outrage produces similar results and encourages Microsoft to develop better options for opting out.

 

[Math Geek]

Don't forget, this also surrenders your right to keep this information private in regards to law enforcement. Per the supreme court, any data you share with a third party, namely any data server, is no longer considered private, and so they are not required to obtain a warrant to gain access to your private data. Ergo, no probable cause required, and they have ready access to any and all information you share.

Hopefully the laws governing this kind of data are updated, now that we have a judiciary who's a bit more tech savvy and concerned with their own privacy.

it is not exactly that wide open but it is troubling all the same. a court still has to grant a warrant to force the third party to share the info. they can ask for it but the company can deny the request. it's not like they have a guy at a desk in MS HQ from the gov reading and skimming at will. MS/Apple/Google want money for that info so they want to keep it private until someone PAYS to sit there skimming at their leisure. pay the money though and you can surf their database all you want

 

[Dyseman]

I'm not for this or think I/we have any control over it but...

Man, if I were most of you guys, I'd just disconnect from the internet for good. There is almost NOTHING out there that doesn't gather information anymore. Go back to Windows 98SE... or 95.. Oh wait, they took snaps too. So go back to DOS 6 and just Dial up your local BBS after telling your modem to hide your caller ID. Throw away any cell phone device you have and get some scrambled walkie talkies. Throw away any Digital TV you have and go Analog... There's sure to be a Gospel channel if any station, which is about the ONLY analog signal in your area. But don't call their prayer line or your $$ and secret prayer will go straight to God.

You might just move to a deep forest in Alaska where the internet and maybe 110v power can be had for a commodore Vic 20 that you can do whatever you do without any cloud based anything snoops in on you. Then you can Poke and Peek your super secret information.

You have been defeated by the internet for no other reason than you are scared of it.

Ooooh, it's Ad's you fear that target you. So, ok, get the tampon ads instead of motherboard ads. Shampoo ads instead of graphic card ads.

That's not it either? Well, I'm sure out of over a billion people online, they are going to Zero straight down on you alone! Or everyone that has posted or viewed this website. Not likely.

But seriously. Unplug yourself from the internet. It is Zero Privacy and those who can't accept it... Well... The future must suck for you.

 

[surphninja]

it is not exactly that wide open but it is troubling all the same. a court still has to grant a warrant to force the third party to share the info. they can ask for it but the company can deny the request. it's not like they have a guy at a desk in MS HQ from the gov reading and skimming at will. MS/Apple/Google want money for that info so they want to keep it private until someone PAYS to sit there skimming at their leisure. pay the money though and you can surf their database all you want

They don't have to get a warrant. Once you've shared the information with their servers, all they need is a subpoena, which is not difficult to get nor does it require probable cause.

Of course, if Snowden is to be believed, they do have ready access and a guy at a desk just skimming it at will.

 

[surphninja]

Ooooh, it's Ad's you fear that target you. So, ok, get the tampon ads instead of motherboard ads. Shampoo ads instead of graphic card ads.

I'll opt into targeted ads when they allow better control/transparency over what is shared, the OS is completely free (not just free is you've already paid for another OS), and/or they want to cut me in on the profit from the targeted ads.

The biggest issue is that they expect people to pay for the OS and then on top of that they're looking to make money by selling your data. Either the OS is free with ads or it's paid and ad free. You don't get to double dip.

I think they just believe most people are so used to ads that they won't notice or care (and they're probably right).

 

[plasmastorm]

Well no Cortana for me, Win 10 enterprise edition

 

[bytemaster]

There are valid reasons for scanning email, messages, etc. This includes Cortana's ability to automatically detect and remind you about flight information and changes to flight information, package tracking, etc. There are more, personal reminders available to enable your reminders for the "next time you talk to person x". These work well on phone for voice and text message, and I am sure they will expand it to email messages as well.

Whether you want this functionality or not is a different story, but there are valid reasons to request to do so.

 

[bytemaster]

They need to give Cortana a push to talk function as an option, so that it knows exactly when to listen.

It does, by default, only activate when you push the button. You have to turn on the "Hey, Cortana" functionality to have it listen all the time. That feature is off by default because it will drain the battery on most mobile devices.

 

[bytemaster]

Well no Cortana for me, Win 10 enterprise edition

Not using the Enterprise Cortana features yet? Right now it is only useful if you store data in Azure, but in the future it should do a lot more. If you do have it integrated with your Azure data, you can ask Cortana questions based on your company's data such as "How much of X did we sell last month", and it will query your data and give you a result.

Just the beginning, and not automatic to set up, but it could become very powerful in the future.

 

[zthomas]

I haven't activatied the robot as yet..

 

[The_Trutherizer]

Lets hope its something that businesses can use content in the knowledge that MS is not passing their confidential info around.

That... Would be tragic for Microsoft.

 

[palladin9479]

it is not exactly that wide open but it is troubling all the same. a court still has to grant a warrant to force the third party to share the info. they can ask for it but the company can deny the request. it's not like they have a guy at a desk in MS HQ from the gov reading and skimming at will. MS/Apple/Google want money for that info so they want to keep it private until someone PAYS to sit there skimming at their leisure. pay the money though and you can surf their database all you want

They don't have to get a warrant. Once you've shared the information with their servers, all they need is a subpoena, which is not difficult to get nor does it require probable cause.

Of course, if Snowden is to be believed, they do have ready access and a guy at a desk just skimming it at will.

Pretty much most federal agencies already have data sharing agreements, under NDA, with all major software collectors. The FBI doesn't even need to subpoena Google, they just have their guy go through the data directly and pull out what they want. It's full access for them to anything Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo or any other entity collects.

That is what makes this extremely unsettling. Cortana shouldn't be storing all these data at MS, it should be stored locally. There is absolutely zero need to send the data to MS, everything can be analyzed locally, it's at least an order of magnitude easier then sending everything to MS to be analyzed and returned. They are doing it centrally as an excuse for massive data collection. And Cortana is just one part of it, most of the really crazy collection isn't even from Cortana. By default, once you link your PC with a MS account, every application you open, every tab on a browser, every site you access, every file you play, everything you do is sent off to MS for analysis and long term storage. You might as well have a MS employee sitting next to your computer 24/7/365. Their reason for doing this is to get data on how people are using their computers, yet this data can be used for far more nefarious things.

 

[Azurumi Shinji]

You can disable cortana and even IF she still collected data on you while turned off, you can clear all her data even in the cloud and since millions of people will have cortana, the odds would be like winning the lottery if they caught you doing something "bad" just wipe your data from the cloud right before you get off your pc ( if you did something "bad")....so everyone wins.
Just google "you can disable cortana".
To lazy to do that? Here is a link for ya...
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2949759/windows/killing-cortana-how-to-disable-windows-10s-info-hungry-digital-assistant.html

Or just use a different device for your guilty pleasures.
If that isn't good enough for you , your either lazy or a irrational paranoid person and might miss out on a amazing feature.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm not an Apple guy, so I don't frequent any Apple based forums.
I wonder if this same freakout was as prevalent when Siri was launched.

 

[MarkW]

You can disable cortana and even IF she still collected data on you while turned off, you can clear all her data even in the cloud and since millions of people will have cortana, the odds would be like winning the lottery if they caught you doing something "bad" just wipe your data from the cloud right before you get off your pc ( if you did something "bad")....so everyone wins.

I am a programmer. And have been since the 1970's. If you believe that they delete the data from their system when you tell them to, you are living in a fantasy world.

They instead do what they do when you delete a file on your hard drive. They simply change a single byte somewhere that tells the system that you have asked for the item to be deleted. This stops the system from showing you anything about the file again. But it is still there. As a programmer, you simply have to change a single parameter on the command to search for the file to be able to see and access the "deleted" file. And that is on something stored in your own home or business. When something is stored on the cloud, as a customer, you cannot just change one parameter on a search to see the files. They just are not available to you. But never believe that those files are gone. They may well be gone from your view. But they will remain there. Until some hacker figures out how to get into them.

 

[Unolocogringo]

I'm not an Apple guy, so I don't frequent any Apple based forums.
I wonder if this same freakout was as prevalent when Siri was launched.

It is not just Cortana, even with cortana turned off(default) all of your information will still be uploaded.
If it was as simple as turning cortana off or uninstalling it ,it would not be such an issue.

 

[Azurumi Shinji]

You can disable cortana and even IF she still collected data on you while turned off, you can clear all her data even in the cloud and since millions of people will have cortana, the odds would be like winning the lottery if they caught you doing something "bad" just wipe your data from the cloud right before you get off your pc ( if you did something "bad")....so everyone wins.

I am a programmer. And have been since the 1970's. If you believe that they delete the data from their system when you tell them to, you are living in a fantasy world.

They instead do what they do when you delete a file on your hard drive. They simply change a single byte somewhere that tells the system that you have asked for the item to be deleted. This stops the system from showing you anything about the file again. But it is still there. As a programmer, you simply have to change a single parameter on the command to search for the file to be able to see and access the "deleted" file. And that is on something stored in your own home or business. When something is stored on the cloud, as a customer, you cannot just change one parameter on a search to see the files. They just are not available to you. But never believe that those files are gone. They may well be gone from your view. But they will remain there. Until some hacker figures out how to get into them.

Yea that is true, but... it is highly unlikely that it will meet all three required stages for that to matter in a negative way. That some one will hack them (Microsoft), you happen to be one of the unfortunate victims who had there info stolen AND they got some information that is worth something. That would be some serious bad luck and i do not think MS would look at the files that are deleted since they have PLENTY of other data to sort through.

Its a very small risk and life is all about taking risks. You probably have a higher chance of getting into a car accident than having a hacker steal IMPORTANT information about you from Microsoft.