windows 10 to be free

[Tutonic]

As someone who works in the 'Big Data' & Analytics sector, I can assure you that Microsoft could easily keep everyone's WiFi details stored.

[smilodon]

As someone who works in the 'Big Data' & Analytics sector, I can assure you that Microsoft could easily keep everyone's WiFi details stored.

They say that Google has mapped most of the world and Google Maps is 20 petabytes (21 million gigabytes of data)! I have Google Maps on my Nexus 5. God knows how I've managed to fit all that on my mobile phone :blink:

[Tutonic]

You're talking volumes of data so large, that things like Hadoop are being invented almost on the fly to cope with it all.

[Sneakytiger]

i think u failed to sense my sarcasm smilo.
now i've looked into this and come up with what i can see being a safe solution:
first off wifi sense is disabled by default,and you can completly disable it if u wish.
i can see where MS are coming from they want to make it easier for people do be able to share a wifi connection.
i'm sure this has been looked into,lets stop panicing and let cooler heads prevail,btw i read that wifi sense was orginally planned for win 8.1

[kregoron]

Sarcasm!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3280[/ATTACH]

[smilodon]

first off wifi sense is disabled by default,and you can completly disable it if u wish.

No it is not. The crucial point I'm making is that it's effectively not in the control of the WiFi owner. This is not about a person who connect to their own home WiFi network and chooses whether to enable WiFi Sense and share it with Facebook etc. Of course that is up to them and perfectly Ok if they, as the WiFi Owner, choose to share their connection.

What I have a concern about is what happens when I as a person who does not use WiFi Sense allows another person (friend, family member, client) to temporarily use my WiFi Network. If that other person enables WiFi Sense they can now share MY WiFi details with all their friends and contact. And there is no way I can stop that or have it set to off by default, without hacking my SSID name. I am reliant on the other person to not share my WiFi details.

A perfect example of this happened on Friday. I was visiting TeaLeaf and he kindly connected me to his home WiFi. I gave him my phone and he typed in the password. His WiFi details are now saved into my phone but I have no way of either seeing the password or sharing his WiFi details with any 3rd party. He gave me access and only me. Had I been using a Windows 10 phone..... Ok that's obviously completely ridiculous...... had I been using a W10 laptop, I would now be able to share TL's wifi with everyone on Outlook assuming I was stupid enough to use that as my primary email provider. Unless TL starts messing about renaming his SSID his WiFi privacy is compromised.

You say it's about Microsoft letting people share a wifi connection. I'm happy and delighted for people to be able to share 'their own' WiFi connections with the whole world if they like. What I'm not happy about is Microsoft creating a system that allows people to share 'other people's' wifi connections. There really aren't too many 'cooler heads' at Microsoft and it seems the decision has already been made.

I do have a simple solution though. If you're running W10 I just won't let you log into my WiFi. Simple solution for me but a bit of a bummer for you.

[Sneakytiger]

simple answer dont use windows 10, use linux.

[smilodon]

And so it begins

Windows forced driver updates conflict with Hardware vendors own update software.

I do like the idea of Automatic Updates, it's fine for the 90% of PC users who are computer illiterate. But as with most things 'Microsoft' it should have been thought out more carefully. Driver clashes like this were always going to be an issue and they really should have been moved to an 'install if you like' or 'use your hardware manufacturers update application' choice. With this system we seem to be stuck with both. I wouldn't mind dumping my Nvidia and Razer updates and sticking with Microsoft Update except those apps also come with other useful features. I'm not sure if Microsoft is any more or less likely to send out crappy driver updates that the manufacturer. Nvidia has been known to release drivers that completely break games etc. But a lot of users will have both the hardware manufacturer utility app and the forced updates running at the same time and are then in line for messy crashes like the one described in the article.

I'm guessing that Microsoft will just push ahead, effectively making driver updates a Microsoft only option and force hardware vendors to change their apps and just offer the utilities but not the driver updates on Windows 10 machines. I imagine the manufaturers won't be chuffed about loosing control of the release of drivers for their own products.

[Sneakytiger]

to be honest i prefer to wait to update my drivers, i've had trouble before, so i'll only update when i have to.
so will we only get certified MS drivers then?,i mean i'd actully prefer to only have to get my driver updates from 1 place instead of nvidea,acer,gigabyte etc.

[albert]

I never update any driver through WUpdate. It's caused so many issues in the past. Only OS and MS Application specific updates will I accept.

I just bought a Pro version of Windows 8 for a tenner off G2Play so my Home edition on my main PC isn't subject to this tomfoolery!

[Gorion]

That G2a key is probably an MSDN key mate.

[albert]

Nope it was a retail key and applied perfectly.

[ReddFour]

Well my home pc is hard wired to the network so personally I'm not too fussed about this WiFi sharing stuff. If I did use WiFi then I would be so I can understand the concern.

With all the data mining rumours of win 10, I'm tempted to permanently run peerblock with the MS blocklist on my machine.

I will probably update to 10 asap. I'm a software developer so was never interested in developing windows store apps with win8 as there was never any demand but with win 10 being free that might change this time. My home pc is for work first and foremost and gaming secondary.

[Twyst]

No it is not. The crucial point I'm making is that it's effectively not in the control of the WiFi owner. This is not about a person who connect to their own home WiFi network and chooses whether to enable WiFi Sense and share it with Facebook etc. Of course that is up to them and perfectly Ok if they, as the WiFi Owner, choose to share their connection.

What I have a concern about is what happens when I as a person who does not use WiFi Sense allows another person (friend, family member, client) to temporarily use my WiFi Network. If that other person enables WiFi Sense they can now share MY WiFi details with all their friends and contact. And there is no way I can stop that or have it set to off by default, without hacking my SSID name. I am reliant on the other person to not share my WiFi details.

A perfect example of this happened on Friday. I was visiting TeaLeaf and he kindly connected me to his home WiFi. I gave him my phone and he typed in the password. His WiFi details are now saved into my phone but I have no way of either seeing the password or sharing his WiFi details with any 3rd party. He gave me access and only me.

Some mis-information here

1) Once a WiFi password is shared, the WiFi is no longer exclusively yours by the simple definition of sharing.
2) You gave TeaLeaf you're phone and as such your phone can no longer be entirely trusted. I know TL is a nice guy, but he could have also installed some malware.
Root the phone, anyone can read the WiFi passphrase.

If you really want to own the WiFi then apply MAC or IP address filtering on it, or secure it through some other means like the WiFi itself goes nowhere and run a VPN over it.

Well my home pc is hard wired to the network so personally I'm not too fussed about this WiFi sharing stuff

Anyone these days could get a micro computer (like say a RPi) and plug it in.
A friend of mine laughed at my WiFi saying his CAT5 was secure, I soon proved him wrong.

A physical cable should be treated the same as a WiFi passphrase.

Now while I don't agree with what Windows 10 is doing by default, it does have the rather nice side effect about teaching people real security.

[smilodon]

1) Once a WiFi password is shared, the WiFi is no longer exclusively yours by the simple definition of sharing.
2) You gave TeaLeaf you're phone and as such your phone can no longer be entirely trusted. I know TL is a nice guy, but he could have also installed some malware.
Root the phone, anyone can read the WiFi passphrase.

Fair point. I'd still maintain there's a clear real world, practical difference in adding your WiFi login to one friends device and that same friend sharing the log in with 1000+ Facebook friends. My neighbour has given me the code to their home alarm so I can pop over and let their dog out for a walk if they are ever away. They in turn know where we hide our spare front door key. I'd argue we would both be less than chuffed if I posted their code to Facebook or they did likewise with our key location.

My concern really is only that Microsoft seem to think that the only devices connected to my WiFi are my own. I can decide to use WiFi Sense or not so there should be no problem, right? What they don't seems to have considered or care about is the fact that I might want to give a friend access to my WiFi but not have them share the login credentials with the whole world and store them on Microsoft's servers. That's really my concern.