Government data collection agencies have always had means of stealing your data, it's not like they can say "no" if any of those anti-privacy bills are passed. They probably get more information from other sources, and would rely on Microsoft's data only if they have strong suspect.
Well you're right, Microsoft could right now be persuaded by a court order, and I can guarantee you they wouldn't say no if those anti-privacy bills passed since they're probably gettin paid by the NSA.
[citation needed]What is Microsoft going to do with all this miniscule information that you are so afraid of? Like I said, they want to stay in business and stay on the good side of the law. Any sort of misuse of data would result in pretty much a destruction of Microsoft in general, both legally and with revenue. Not to mention that also makes it extremely important for them to be secure with it, rather than have it something any old hacker can grab.
First off:
I'm not scared of anything. If I was scared of the NSA I would be huddled in a corner balling, because they're goddamn everywhere, even in Canada, look up bill C-51.too.
Second: Companies like Microsoft know very well how to keep employees in line. Ever heard of a big source code leak from microsoft? Nope. (Save for the DOS code leak, but that's a different story) Another clue to this is that most of the employees that actually code it don't get all the code: They only work on individual modules.
[citation needed, I'll get it later] Then they hire someone to build servers, and then promptly remove them, and then they hire someone to install the code, making sure with extra security that they don't take anything. Nothing's foolproof of course, this leaves plenty of room for the higher-ups or sysadmins to abuse things as they see fit. This is all just a theory of course, but my point is they have ways to keep people in line.
Contracts for hiring can be pretty scary, if you're that high up at Microsoft if you disclose anything you risk having everything you own taken away and being thrown in jail indefinitely. That's more than enough to keep the vast majority of people, malicious or not, from abusing it.
Thing is, with the amount of money Microsoft has they can cover up pretty much anything they want unless it's so utterly catastrophic that the media makes a firestorm out of it. A news station more than likely wouldn't report on a single persons data getting leaked, given that thousands of people get investigateed every day, especially if there isn't hard proof that it was due to a high-up in Microsoft abusing the data-collection system, which would more than likely be the case. The people at Microsoft more than likely aren't that stupid.
But, they would definitely cover if thousands or millions got leaked. Investors and stock holders however wouldn't care as long as they're still making money (Something I hate about them), and the general public doesn't seem to be too concerned about their privacy anyway which is highly disappointing, only 3 people in this thread that I could see are actually holding back from windows 10 because of it. If the people aren't against it, nothing will happen.
If you never take any risks, especially tiny ones like this, you will miss out on a lot. If you're truly scared of this data collection, you can turn it all off. Or miss out on all the perks Windows 10 brings out.
I do take risks, bigger ones than these, and quite clearly Microsoft has given no way to turn off the quote
. I suspect there's no way to do it.
The only real perks of Windows 10 that I can see myself really liking is that it has Cortana, which would be quite nice but the mere way it's programmed is also an invasion of privacy given that it sends all its info to Microsoft. I've lived almost 19 years without it, I can go longer. I needed an excuse to switch to Linux anyways.
Also, the information collected isn't the pictures on your hard drive or cloud, it's primarily system specifications and error reporting.
-snip-
It isn't a rumor. If you install Windows 10, Microsoft will have access to your private files.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mobile/privacy/privacy/policy/privacy-policy/They more than likely won't access it unless they're fed a court order or CISA passes, however I still don't want them to have the ability to snoop in my private data.
Poll