How Does Windows 7 Compare to Vista? (Part 2)

I repeat: WHO CARES HOW THIS OS PERFORMS?

READ THESE GEMS FROM THE "PRIVACY" STATEMENT:

The information we collect from you will be used by Microsoft and its controlled subsidiaries and affiliates ...

... information collected through one Microsoft service may be combined with information obtained through other Microsoft services. We may also supplement the information we collect with information obtained from other companies ...

We occasionally hire other companies to provide limited services on our behalf ... We will only provide those companies the personal information they need to deliver the service ...

Microsoft may access or disclose information about you, including the content of your communications in order to: (a) comply with the law or respond to lawful requests or legal process; (b) protect the rights or property of Microsoft or our customers, including the enforcement of our agreements or policies governing your use of the services; or (c) act on a good faith belief that such access or disclosure is necessary to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, customers, or the public.

Information that is collected by or sent to Microsoft by Windows 7 (M3) may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country ...

THIS IS EVEN MORE INVASIVE THAN VISTA.

SO IT SHOULD BE SHUNNED.

PERIOD.

Don't waste your time thinking about the performance of this product until the manufacturer shows respect for you privacy.

I remember talking to some Lockheed-Martin engineers about that and they were forced to go to Linux simply because their computers contained classified data and it was not possible for them to comply with the terms of agreement legally. Obviously, Microsoft can not be privy to military secrets, so Windows was not allowed on their machines.

That makes sense for Lockheed-Martin, and i respect privacy, but doesn't it make sense that Microsoft wants to be able to stop illegal activity from happening on their operating systems, such as installing pirated software, or downloading pirated music and movies. Why wouldn't Microsoft want to stop you from installing illegal copies of say Office or the operating system itself. If you are not doing anything illegal, what do you have to worry about?

I think it is a privacy issue.

Ask yourself, would you accept that the police could simply enter your house at will looking for illegal activity with out a warrant at any time of their choosing?

What about stopping and searching your person, bags, or computer on the street with out probable cause?

I agree that Microsoft would not want their revenues and property stolen, but does that or should that give them unfettered rights to search and seizure of private property?

We do not allow the government to do that, why should a private industry have that right? If a private industry does have that right, how do you prevent the government from using a private industry as a proxy to search your home, person, or private data?

Your are right, I wouldn't want a police officer disrupting my home, looking for illegal stuff that wasn't there, or stopping me on the street and searching me. However, if there was a way for the police to only search peoples homes or search people on the street who they knew had illegal things on them, i would say why not(like what Microsoft is doing). If someone is walking around with an illegal handgun, why shouldn't an officer stop them, because it violates their privacy?

If you are going to do illegal things, you should be caught!

Is there something I am missing?

"if there was a way for the police to only search peoples homes or search people on the street who they knew had illegal things on them"

You mean a search warrant.

Yes. Without a separation of powers we will quickly fall into fascism. That is why there is Judicial oversight on the executive (law enforcement) branch. BTW our laws are founded on common law, and in common law if there is no victim, there is no crime. Possession of something "illegal" is violating code, not law.

"Yes. Without a separation of powers we will quickly fall into fascism."

Exactly right!

"BTW our laws are founded on common law, and in common law if there is no victim, there is no crime. Possession of something "illegal" is violating code, not law."

Interesting point about code versus law.

By the way, wasn't that actually 'Natural Law' instead of 'Common Law'? Are they the same? I always understood it as the former.

"By the way, wasn't that actually 'Natural Law' instead of 'Common Law'? Are they the same? I always understood it as the former."

You're right. Natural preceded Common law, but it was Common Law that was codified in the US judicial system.

Of course the founding fathers seemed more bound to natural law:

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

The statement is incorrect.

Our civil court system is based upon "tort law" which pertains to wrongs done by another.

Our criminal legal system is not based upon tort law therefore when violated an offense is termed "illegal".

I apologize for my lack of clarity, but my statement was in reference to the "illegal" possession of a handgun (example by ETOB #6) which is covered by the criminal courts not civil courts.

Thanks for the Matrix - MS link ...very funny

Yes ETOB, there are two things you are missing.

Firstly:

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law', because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

— Thomas Jefferson, 1819.

And secondly:

It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.

— Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, 1950.

I think you are missing that this is supposed to be a healthy discussion about the technical aspects of operating systems. That is what makes CR4 what it is. Privacy issues regarding the operating system may be somewhat relevant, but I think that that discussion would be best discussed elsewhere. Maybe a blog entry where privacy is being disregarded by a company that makes electronics? Maybe start your own thread?

I mean no offense, but I think your discussion is somewhat misplaced.

Jaxy:

This is a very healthy discussion! And all of the posts are about one topic; it's just not the topic that you were hoping for. But it is the most important aspect of Windows Se7en functionality to every poster in this thread, besides you.

So why play the censor?

Why not have the good grace to let the members talk about what interests them?

Just because I am not posting about the outrage of the privacy invasion every two seconds does not mean that I do not care about the privacy invasion that consumer electronics have been creeping on since tracking became small and affordable. I care a lot about the privacy invasion that seems impossible to stop. So please stop passing judgment on me, it is slightly rude and completely unnecessary.

Perhaps it is an extremely healthy discussion and maybe I overstepped some boundaries by saying that it wasn't, but how am I playing a 'censor'? I am not preventing anyone on this thread from expressing their thoughts on any subject in this blog entry, whether it is on topic or not. That is not for me to decide.

Jaxy:

Out of 35 posts, 2 are visible and the others are all marked off-topic, meaning that they are invisible by default and it takes extra effort to render them readable. This is like censorship in two ways. First, you are making it harder for people to see the posts you disapprove of (even if your reason is no more sinister than that you prefer to talk about something else right now). Second, you are trying to use your control over the visibility of posts to steer the thread in the direction you prefer, even though almost all the other posters obviously agree amongst themselves that there is another direction they would rather go in.

If most of the posts relate to one topic, and a few posts are completely unrelated to this topic, then marking those few off-topic is just a way of reflecting the interests of the bulk of the posters. But when the overwhelming majority of posts relate to one topic, and you mark them all off-topic except for a few that interest you, then you are trying to impose your preference on all the other posters.

It seems to me, something is not right about that.

Whatever you wanted the topic of this thread to be, the actual topic turned out to be privacy.

Okay, so the thread veered off in a direction you weren't expecting and aren't particularly interested in right now. But what of it?

As long as people are coming to your blog and enjoying themselves, engaging in interesting, stimulating, lively and civil debate, that's what matters isn't it?

I am not the one making all the comments off-topic. That is all that I wanted to point out. I am not sitting here marking every one of these comments off-topic, it would be a waste of my time.

Jaxy:

You're not? Oops, sorry. But then, who's doing it?

Jaxy:

Well, somebody is watching this thread like a hawk!

My last few posts all got marked off-topic within seconds.

Any idea who is doing it?

Moderators.

Good thread.

The topic? It's too early to tell...

Jaxy:

I thought this to be your blog. Doesn't that make you the moderator?

Or is that an overly simplistic assumption? How does stuff like that work around these parts?

I did not write this blog.

Only certain people are moderators. Just because people write blogs and post them does not mean that they are moderators.

Jaxy:

I've been criticising the wrong guy then. Sorry about that!

Moderators... teh commissars of teh interwebz...

ETOB:

Regarding your "illegal" handgun example, what part of

"the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

do you not understand?

Yeah, there's something you are missing. Haven't you ever heard of "probable cause"?

No wonder the law is able to get away with violating individual's civil rights and right to privacy.

You're perspective is skewed, one doesn't retain personal security rights on any radio device the Internet included. Imagine if one announced their private information on a citizens band radio broadcast

You believe these practices are only now occurring? I believe these type practices have been on going and are only now being announced.

bwire:

No, I think it's your perspective that's skewed.

Firstly, the internet is not primarily a broadcast medium. You have to specifically set out to intercept someone's transmissions by actively selecting packets to or from their IP address. This is in marked contrast to radio communications, where it is difficult not to overhear the transmissions of others, whether you want to or not.

Secondly, you can always encrypt your transmissions, precisely to guard against deliberate or inadvertent eavesdropping. Transmitting plain text is like leaving your curtains open; some people don't mind if others look in their windows during some parts of the day.

Even so, eavesdropping on someone else's plain text communications is like finding their door open and walking into their house unannounced; it's equivalent to trespassing. Breaking the encryption on someone else's communication is like picking the lock or breaking the window to get into their house; it's equivalent to breaking and entering.

However, spyware escalates the whole issue to yet another level. This is not a question of intercepting communications, encrypted or otherwise.

Spyware spies on you in the privacy of your own computer, located in the privacy of your own home.

This is equivalent to some stranger installing hidden surveillance devices in the most private spaces of your private property.

This is abhorrent beyond words!

It is both illegal and morally wrong.

Windows Se7en is a festering mass of Trojan spyware – it is infested with spyware by design – right down into the kernel. It collects information about what you do with your computer, even when you are not connected to the internet. Then it transmits that information to Microsoft next time you connect – without your knowledge or permission.

There is no possible justification for this kind of abuse. Ever.

Any company that behaves this way deserves nothing but boycott and contempt.

It deserves to go bankrupt.

And its principals deserve to go to jail.

Is the problem that they're telling you or that they've always done it and are only now just telling you.

Where in industry is it you think this doesn't occur?

Ya see it's not MS it's your use of the Internet because otherwise how could your privacy be in question.

How many ways do you need to hear the same thing?

APPLE Privacy Statement:

Publicly displayed information is public

If you use a bulletin board or chat room on an Apple website you should be aware that any information you share is visible to other users. Personally identifiable information you submit to one of these forums can be read, collected, or used by other individuals to send you unsolicited messages. Apple is not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums. For example, if you choose to make information, which was previously non-public, available by enabling certain user features, Apple will collect that information from your interaction and the information will become publicly available.

Linux Privacy Statement:

Web Site Use Information
Similar to other commercial Web sites, our Web site utilizes a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server log files to collect information about how our Web site is used. Information gathered through cookies and Web server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our Web site, and the Web sites visited just before and just after our Web site.

How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us?

Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing the products and services you requested, to process your payment, to monitor the use of the service, our marketing and promotional efforts and improve our content and service offerings, and customize our site's content, layout, services and for other lawful purposes. These uses improve our site and better tailor it to meet your needs.

Furthermore, such information may be shared with others on an aggregate basis. Personally identifiable information or business information will not be shared with parties except as required by law.

bwire:

You missd my point completely. This isn't about internet privacy. Websites are more-or-less public places. We all know that.

This is about introducing Trojan spyware into the privacy of your personal computer system.

Unauthorized entry into a private computer system is a crime.

That's why Microsoft goes to such lengths to fool people into authorizing the spying.

Just take the computer off the Internet and have as much privacy as you desire but if entering the public square?

There is no law against allowing oneself to be taken advantage of, or of giving another permission to take advantage of oneself. We do have institutions to avail one of tools to prevent oneself from allowing another to take advantage of ourselves. Many are the trials we bring upon ourselves by not paying attention to those tick boxes.

Are you proposing we legislate, common sense?

There are inherent risks in everything, cause and effect, a disadvantage to every advantage; if you want to win the lottery you need to but a ticket and it costs you something either tangible or not.

Privacy has been an illusion to many, do you want you retina scanned; use an ATM, have drivers license photo, you're mapped, wrapped and tagged.

If you should forget something about yourself just google it

Ah at last you've revealed the preemption of your will.

Good day...

The language is English...what is it you're questioning?

I think the Fed has greater reach concerning gathering of your data than does MS, think about it. For instance, electronic tax filings are almost mandatory and when a filing is transmitted electronically the receptor scans the entire computer of the sender as SOP this is written in the disclosure agreement.

Are there other times when your computer is scanned by the authorities?? It's good you are paying attention and put a few quarters in the meter for me too...

I think this is not news, you're about ten or more years behind the eight-ball, what's you're point?

So I guess you don't mind if we mount web-cams in your bathroom and your bedroom, right? I mean, if you're not doing anything illegal in there, you have no reason to object, right?

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you

ETOB:

You write

"... Microsoft wants to be able to stop illegal activity from happening on their operating systems ..."

Once you buy it, it is your operating system, and what you do with it after that is nobody's business but your own – and if Microsoft wants to use a tick in a checkbox to pretend otherwise, well, that's just one more reason to give them a few particularly rude suggestions as to what they can do with their "agreement" and their product!

I always thought that one purchased a license to use Microsoft software with the ownership remaining with Microsoft.

Tony

Tony:

Just because that's what it says in the EULA-checkbox-clicky-thingy doesn't necessarily mean it's so.

That's what I was getting at with my quip about Microsoft wanting to use a tick in a checkbox to pretend they can make you agree to something.

But, you see, when I take an action – like placing a tick in a checkbox – that action means what I say it means; it isn't up to Microsoft or any other entity to define the meaning of my actions.

How about you? Do you decide what your actions mean, or does Microsoft?

Keep on thinking Tony it sets you apart

Good point, A.H., but I think you don't take it far enough. The military has no reason to exist other than to protect the freedom and rights of the people. Therefore the military has no more – and arguably, less – right to privacy than you or I.

In part I would agree. That is, I agree that the military serves the people.

However, if there is information or property of the military that were to be disclosed (publicly or otherwise) that would compromise the military or the freedom and rights of the people, those secrets and property could be held in higher regard than an individuals right to privacy. I am not saying necessarily trump the Bill of Rights.

Crimes of High Treason would come to mind. This would be a case where the freedom of the many would be held in higher regard to that of an individual.

Of late we have the proposal by the President that he should wield a "Kill Switch" for the internet that could be used at his discretion. This would clearly infringe on the right of Free Speech in my mind unless there was a declaration of Martial Law and a just cause to do so.

A kill switch for the entire internet...

Oh... my... God.

Next, he will want the be able to lock everyone's front door from the oval office with the flick of a single switch.

But only if there was a declaration of Martial Law and a just cause to do so, of course.

Remain in your cells! I mean, your homes. It's for your own safety.

No talking! I mean, electronic communications have been disabled for your own safety.

End well, this will not.

trying to prove the point a little knowledge is dangerous?

bwire:

Are you trying to make a point with that cryptic rhetorical question?

If so, what's your point?

Oh you don't actually know who holds the keys to the Internet?

Where did the Internet come from or from whom? Rand?

Members of the US Military are only secondarily subject to the Constitution and civil law. They are primarily subject to the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice). Regulations in the UCMJ trumph many Constitutional and civil rights.

It's a different world for them.

Hooker

Hooker:

Soldiers are, as you say, subject to the UCMJ. But private citizens are not. Therefore private citizens have more rights than soldiers. You are very right about this, but it doesn't contradict my point.

The President of the United States is the Commander in Chief of all branches of the U.S. military, and the President is subject to the Constitution and is therefore the servant of the people.

The U.S. military, in other words, is subservient to the civil government, and the civil government serves the people.

The United States of America is a republic. Therefore the people have rights, but the government and the military have only responsibilities. Namely, those responsibilities delegated to them by the people.

And when we say "the people," we mean "private citizens." Thus, in every case, the citizen comes first, the government comes second, and the military comes last.

Of course, this is something the statists on Capitol Hill, and especially the REMFs in the pentagon, would dearly like the people to forget.

off topic, out of context and completely ludicrous.

So, bwire...

I take it you welcome our new self-styled overlords...

The country voted for change, there have been warnings of this coming about for centuries; actually from the very beginning.

NOW WHAT...excuse me...this change has been in process a long time and the warnings were ignored.

A wise man once told me to except change as it happens and now I'm digesting it.

Sharpen your point and carry on...

bwire:

Interesting site. But personally, I don't buy the alarmism. There is enough oil still in the ground to last another century. If we haven't figured out nuclear fusion by then, we can always fall back on fission. There is enough uranium and thorium in the ground to last for several thousand years.

The problem is not what these alarmists want you to think it is.

The problem is the globalists.

By which I mean a global oligopoly / oligarchy in which there no clear distinction between private sector and public sector, and no real rivalry based on religion or political ideology. The only issue is who will be master.

It's not peak oil and it's not global warming and it's not us vs. them and it's not left vs. right.

It's the state vs. you.

There is oil yet yes but it is not easily accessible nor economically feasible to extract.

We as a planet have surpassed peak uranium also. Thorium is still very interesting but far from placement.

The picture is certainly unclear, get your resource facts straightened out into a usable form projection.

I'm not alarmed, I favor preparation over reaction.

I think the debt flag is waved by the clueless as our currency and the Dollar monetary system is based upon debt.

It is a very pervasive irritant indeed that undercurrent of convention which having no basis in truth has been repeated often enough to be thought so.

Many are the like which three previous generations have bought into whom are now strutting and crowing about nothing, making mountains of mole hills due to ignorance and trusting government, many members of which are clueless.

Fractal interest is a financial woe.

Peak oil as you said is a "myth" an I stand corrected.

Thank you!

Hooker

At least they are admitting that they are going to be using your information. Do you own a cell phone, GPS system, etc? It is likely that if you own any electronic device that you can connect to the internet, you are being monitored in some way. Unfortunately, privacy is starting to become neither a right nor a privilege.

Regardless of your warning, people are going to download this OS because it is faster and possibly more efficient.

No, I refuse to get a cell phone and I would never buy a car with a GPS unit in it -- precisely for the reasons you mention. That would be tantamount to paying for the means of my own enslavement.

I'm neither stupid enough nor craven enough to do any such thing.

I love topics that bring out heated conversations, and thanks to all of you for your opinions and ideas. I would like to take out of the "legal" arena and be a little more objective.

When someone enters into your home or car and goes through your things with out your permission or knowledge. Whether it is legal or illegal you have a natural instinct to feel violated or uncomfortable. Its not a mater of personal rights, it a matter of personal privacy.

If in fact someone or some corporation or some government feels that they have a right to investigate any part of your private life, then shouldn't some one be able to investigate them or the life of say Bill Gates or Bill Allen? Would they allow that to happen? If they objected wouldn't the same argument of "What do you have to hide?" apply?

I think it boils down to mutual respect for each other, and not violating the rights of all to try to dig out the few guilty parties.

Just in case it comes up, I have nothing to hide, I have and will continue to submit to Drug screens, back ground checks, and you can even come over and look through my things, but not without my permission and I will not sign off on a blanket policy of "its our property so we have a right to use it to investigate your private life". I bought it its mine, and I will respect the copyright laws that protect it.

Yes indeed sir. You are so right!

Bill gates wanted to be on top of a platform he designed in competition with VMware etc.. VMware was pushing their VISion ware and Gates announced the Windows product before the design team had it on the table, it's business tactic and widely used by many, hence the term "vaporware". Yes Windows was released prematurely to be first out of the gate. If you want to win the lottery you have to buy a ticket.

Apple is the winner of their class of course is no competitor there either for 4% of the market.

Are your sure of your timeframes? Vmware is circa 1998-99 and Windows is circa 1985.

There were a few "Windows" like products floating around before Gates got to it. I remember playing with GEM by Digital Research in the mid 80's. It ran on PC-Dos and MS-Dos but was truly multi-tasking only on CP/M. Apple went after them in court for being too similar to the Mac OS. They changed it to suit and then seemed to lose interest in it.

I still have a copy of Windows 2.x somewhere around. I tried it and trashed it quickly in favor of GEM. If Apple hadn't been so closed on their hardware they would've trounced Windows early on and would probably be "the" global OS today.

I gave up on Apple when they dropped the ][ line, though I still have mine packed away.

Hooker

Vmware is circa 1998-99 and Windows is circa 1985.

DUh correct to Visicorp

Thanks

Ah, kewl. VisiOn and VisiCalc. Two of my early favorites.

Hooker

Fascinating... every post in this thread is off-topic.

What does that tell you?

That most are honoring conduct expected on the forum and are engaged in a conversation coincident to the main topic; we're behaving

It tells me that every single poster in this tread (except Jaxy, I guess) is so much more concerned about the wholesale invasion of privacy made possible by technologies like Windows Se7en – multiplied by the arrogance of big business and big government run amok – that performance is of no concern to them at all.

And it tells me that the members here at CR4 know a truly important issue when they see one, and refuse to be side-tracked with geeky tech-talk.

And that is the hallmark of a first-rate engineer!

Stop singling me out just because I wanted to discuss the technical qualities of Windows 7. I don't appreciate other people judging me. As I have said before, I am concerned with the invasion of privacy on all fronts, not just through the internet. Just because I wanted to talk about technical aspects of the operating system does not mean that I condone discussion of other somewhat related topics. I actually believe that this could be a good topic for a thread and I am sure a lot more people would be willing to voice their opinion on the privacy matter that are not drawn to this blog as it does not discuss the privacy issue at all (although the comments do).

Might I suggest that you join CR4? I am sure this community would love to have your vigor permanently.

Jaxy:

It wasn't my intent to single you out in any sneaky negative way. But it wouldn't have been correct to say the everyone was much more concerned with privacy than performance, because there was one notable exception to that trend -- namely, you. I thought it would seem weird if I didn't acknowledge that fact.

My only criticism was meant to be a constructive one, and that was the one about playing the censor. And I was right up front about that. No innuendos, hidden meanings or unspoken put-downs. I wasn't judging you; I just disagreed with the way you handled the fact that the majority of posters were concerned with something other than what you were interested in, and I said so.

Check out my reply to your post number 34 for some more detail about what I was trying to say.

Thanks for the invitation, by the way, but since you don't accept anonymous members, I'll have to remain content to post as "Guest" from time to time.

But oif you are anonymous, how do we know when we are talking to you or if you are replying?

BTW, some degree of censorship, when used in moderation, is a good thing. But so is my privacy and right to free speech. Even my right to bear arms (even though I choose not to exercise that right at this point in time).

That makes the the last 50 years a comewhat scary time because these rights are being traded in for security, and yet we are even less secure!

And I allowed this to be posted off-topic, not some censor!

Boy,

I like this thread.

I'm happy I switched out of Windows a long time ago. But my NT on the Dec Alpha still runs great.

Cheers to all

:)