Disable windows 10 spying on a router level

This is the version where if you browse topics such as Liberty and Human Rights, it notifies the Secret Police to come arrest you at 0430 in the night?

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Well that is what I am afraid of :smiley:

Currently mostly things need for University like Matlab, AutoCad etc. and also I am a light gamer. CS:GO, Portal, etc.

Those two have native support in Linux. Essentially all games made by valve will work in Linux. I don't know about Matlab and AutoCad.

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MATLAB also works in Linux. I even got my free university version (has to activate in a weird way) working with some fiddling in code.

I have to use SolidWorks, AutoCAD, and CATIA V5 for my school, and Photoshop Lightroom for hobbies, so I understand the need for Windows. But as some people mentioned, you can run those in a VM inside Linux so you get to play doorman.

You just have to decide whether or not you really care. If you don't really care about Windows spying then roll on as-is, but there are some sort-of solutions if you're willing to set it up. You could also bounce back to Windows 8.1, or VM 8.1. The spying there was only sort of egregious.

What about corrupting the data on its way out? I mean, instead of identifying the destination an blocking it, identifying the process generating the traffic and turning the content into garbage before letting it out? If you want updates, you would need to be able to let Windows update to send clean data, in which case they could move all data collection to Windows update, so that's still a problem.
Anyway, I don't even know if such thing is feasible or reasonable.

I think it is too much baked into windows now. And turning data into garbage seems like a really hard stuff for me. Reversing the roles and having Linux as a host OS and Windows in a VM seems like the most feasible solution to me, but that is not the solution to the problem that is keep windows but disable spying. Also, I am yet too much attached to the four squares and not comfortable enough in penguin land :confused:

Is it feasible to just list the processes that communicate on the network, white list all of the known ones, disable all of the "bad looking" processes, and if it breaks windows updates, then just start them on demand when we want to check for an update? Then disable again. I wonder if windows caches/stores the collected data for it to send later if it does not have access to the internet.

Back the original question, Quidsup has made a network level blocker called NoTrack it's on github

Run it on a Raspberry Pi block all the things.

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Wouldn't this be a running battle with every Windows update, as the erm... attack from Microsoft is open ended.

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I wish there was a bulletproof way to take control of windows.

On the other hand refusing to submit to microsoft allowed me to realized my love for freedom in Linux.

Still dual boot win7 for Photoshop and a couple dying games. Pretty rare that I use this even. Excited for Ubuntu 18.

I see one way around windows spying.
Install windows on your main machine update it and get everything running the way you like. Unplug all access the internet.
Get a cheap office PC and install you fav Linux version get it up and running the way you like. The Linux PC with be your internet viewing facebook and so on.
Get a external USB hard drive format to fat 32 when ever you need files on the windows machine download for the internet with the linux machine save them to the usb hd, unplug from the linux machine and plug into windows. download.
You would just need a fast enough machine to play CS GO and portal.
Windows will be cut off and if it ever gets an update again who cares no virus will ever get to it. And if you ever need to update see if you can just download the update and transfer it over via the hard drive.

The way I deal with it is to dual boot. I use local login, I have removed as much as windows will allow without digging into the command line. I have used Spybot Anti-Beacon to kill off as many services as possible. I have only installed the software I need Windows for. A couple of games and Teamspeak. Most importantly I do not use Windows for anything other than play those games. I do not surf the web, read emails do anything other than play the games I want to play that can only run on Windows. That is it, it can only steal what you give it. If you give it nothing it has nothing. 95% of my time is spent using the Linux partitions, I boot into Windows around once a week to play Battlefield with my old clan mates on a Sunday evening.

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These are all good ideas, but sadly it seems like the best way is to leave the platform. If you guys think it is worth it, there is a petition you can sign. Spread the word if you agree :slight_smile:

windows 10 enterprise has a "disable telemetry"

I'm thinking to experiment with Windows Server 2016, it's free to try for 6 months. I will still run Windows virtualized under KVM for gaming purposes, but I don't want any of the default junk apps Windows 10 comes with. As far as I know, with the server version, all you're getting is just a shell based environment with the option of installing the GUI and nothing else. I'm not sure how different the telemetry situation is though.

The problem with the server version is that sometimes (I have no idea why) there are compatibility issues, or a program simply refuses to install. It is a different world altogether. You can run games on it, and it was tried on the LTT YouTube channel, but sometimes it is a little bit finicky.

True, that is why we would like to see it in the consumer version too :slight_smile:

I noticed while I was playing with PfBlockerNG in pfsense that there is a ruleset for blocking Windows telemetry that you can turn on if anyone is looking for the "Easy" button.

I have to ask this; now that in the US legislators are moving to allow our ISP to legally sell all our browsing history, other than using our machines as an update server, does Win10 even matter anymore?

ISP only have access to your internet traffic, as opposed to an OS, which has access to everything you do both on- and off-line. Moreover, using an encrypted VPN hides your activity from the ISP, but not from the OS.