EFF report on Windows 10's privacy & security flaws finally getting the attention it deserves

After several days of freaking out over the Anniversary Update's webcam bug, Windows 10's more serious issues are finally getting some more attention.

Offered without comment, a sampling of today's coverage of the topic:

The EFF Calls Out Microsoft's Ongoing Bullshit On Windows 10 ...

Techdirt-2 hours ago

While Windows 10 is generally well-liked by reviewers and users, it's relatively clear that it's not the OS to choose if you actually want to control how much ...

Windows 10 lack of user choice, poor privacy slammed

iTWire-3 hours ago

EFF staffer Amul Kalia wrote in a blog post that the tactics employed to get users to upgrade to Windows 10 had ranged from annoying to malicious.

Windows 10 privacy concerns accused by EFF

News4C-8 hours ago

EFF, which stands for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has recently made some accusations that Microsoft is not careful with user privacy and user choice in ...

Microsoft (MSFT) Slammed by the EFF for Privacy Issues

Wall Street Pit-9 hours ago

The EFF released a strong worded editorial, putting Windows 10 on blast for compromising ... The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) slammed Redmond tech ...

Windows 'blatantly' disregard privacy

Bitterwallet-12 hours ago

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says: "The tactics Microsoft employed to get users of earlier versions of Windows to upgrade to Windows 10 went from ...

Microsoft blasted over Windows 10's 'blatant disregard' for user privacy

Computing-14 hours ago

As a result the EFF has called on Microsoft to listen to its customers, of which more than 6,000 signed the online petition, and amend how Windows 10 operates ...

Windows 10: Microsoft slammed by EFF for gathering ...

International Business Times UK-14 hours ago

In a damning editorial published on 17 August, EFF staff member Amul Kalia blasts Microsoft for misguiding users as part of its attempt to push Windows 10 to ...

Microsoft has been 'downright malicious' with Windows 10, blasts ...

Express.co.uk-15 hours ago

WINDOWS 10 has been criticised for its overly aggressive upgrade tactics, ... dubbed EFF – has criticised Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 10.

Microsoft slammed over 'blatant disregard' for user privacy with ...

V3.co.uk-15 hours ago

The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) has attacked Microsoft for its "blatant disregard" for user privacy in the Windows 10 operating system. The rights group ...

Microsoft is in trouble again over Windows 10 upgrade and privacy ...

SiliconANGLE (blog)-16 hours ago

Relating to User Choice EFF made Microsoft's aggressive Windows 10 upgrade push a big issue, something that took various forms, each not without attendant

Microsoft a utilisé des pratiques malveillantes pour imposer ...

TelerouteNewsAgency-18 hours ago

C'est sur son site que l'EFF a publié un article intitulé "With Windows 10, Microsoft Blatantly Disregards User Choice and Privacy: A Deep Dive " ("Avec Windows ...

Microsoft blasted over Windows 10 privacy concerns

ThaiVisa News-19 hours ago

Microsoft is once again being criticised for the way in which Windows 10 ... of usage data back to Microsoft,” writes Amul Kalia from EFF, who notes that by ...

The EFF calls for Microsoft to address Windows 10 privacy concerns

KitGuru-Aug 22, 2016

In a lengthy editorial, the EFF claims that Windows 10 is sending an “unprecedented amount of usage data back to Microsoft”, and Cortana integration increases ...

EFF condemns Windows 10 data collection

Computerworld-Aug 22, 2016

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is lambasting Microsoft over Windows 10'stelemetry technology, urging it to "come clean" with customers. In a piece ...

Microsoft Slammed for Trampling User Choice and Privacy with ...

WCCFtech-Aug 22, 2016

If we thought all the debate around Windows 10 privacy concerns was over since the ... The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has accused Microsoft of ...

EFF slams Microsoft's 'blatant disregard' for user privacy with ...

Inquirer-Aug 22, 2016

First on EFF's radar is Microsoft's backhanded tactics to get people to upgrade to Windows 10, which we here at the INQUIRER know about all too well.

EFF takes a deep dive into Windows 10's brutal privacy breaches

Boing Boing-Aug 22, 2016

Microsoft's deceptive hard-sell to gets users to "upgrade" to Windows 10 (the most control-freaky OS to ever come out of Redmond) is made all the more awful by ...

EFF blasts Microsoft over Windows 10 privacy concerns

The Verge-Aug 22, 2016

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has accused Microsoft of disregarding user choice and privacy with Windows 10. In a scathing editorial, EFF employee Amul ...

It looks like quite a few of them are just reblogging from BetaNews, but still... it's progress. Faith in humanity: restored.

Anniversary Update Webcam Bug continues to be the big story

I still think that the webcam bug is the very least of Windows 10's issues, but tech writers continue to be laser focused on it, with speculation now being that this issue could kill Windows 10 for Enterprise before it's even properly launched.

From Forbes:

Windows 10 is in a dangerous moment. It has missed sales expectations, is no longer free and now the troubled ‘Anniversary Update’ – the biggest upgrade Windows 10 has received to date – is causing new problems…

Discovered by Microsoft MSFT +0.00%-centric blog Thurrott, the Windows 10 Anniversary Update has been found to break “millions” of web cameras for upgraders. The bug affects web cameras of all brands and is even breaking Skype – Microsoft’s own audio and video chat service.

As Thurrott writer Brad Sams notes, of particular concern is a Microsoft support thread where it is clear that customers of substantial enterprise clients are being hit hard.

One user writes: “We have a working product running for years and millions of unhappy users that are unable to use it at all after this update” with another explaining: “We have millions of users and we are in situation now where we have to tell them not to update the Windows anymore or switch to Mac OS.”

[...]

Ultimately the whole situation is highly regrettable for Microsoft given the Anniversary Update does also contain some significant upgrades and great secret features.

But as it stands the Anniversary Update is doing more harm than good to the reputation of Windows 10 and it is hard to see how it will convince Windows 7 and Windows 8 users, who declined to upgrade to Windows 10 when it was free, to upgrade now they have to pay.

Then again, this is why Microsoft has a mischievous plan to transform Windows 7 and Windows 8 into Windows 10…

I covered the Monthly Rollup thing yesterday (Microsoft's "mischievous plan to transform Windows 7 and Windows 8 into Windows 10"), but the fact that Windows 10's Anniversary Update has "great secret features" is another ridiculous thing: why are they secret? Considering how much resistance has been developing to Windows 10, why wouldn't Microsoft be advertising all of its great features, in an effort to convince people to switch?

Windows 10 is undeniably failing to catch on with businesses, but is this newly-discovered webcam bug to blame? Somehow, I don't think so. The webcam issue only came to light this week, but the failure of Windows 10 to make business converts has been happening all month. Something more fundamental has to be at the root of Windows 10's popularity problems.

Win10's Anniversary Update has broken millions of tech writers' webcams, and wow, are they ever pissed about it

Windows 10's Anniversary Update is a shit show. As already documented by Woody Leonhard at InfoWorld, Mauro Huculak at Windows Central, and others, the A.U. has reliably been reported to make entire volumes/drives invisible, make the entire Group Policy setting for Configure Automatic Updates useless, make Win10 lock up completely after installing the update, all while also turning off System Restore at the same time, and so on. Several of these reported problems can be "fixed" by rolling back to Win10's pre-update build, but the A.U. also changed the way rollbacks work, reducing the rollback window from 30 days to ten -- unilaterally, of course, and without prior notice to anyone.

All of that, apparently, was deemed to be acceptable growing pains for a new OS by the tech press. They noticed, and they noted how odd it was for an update that followed such a massive testing and refinement process to still roll out with so many debilitating issues, but there wasn't really an outcry about it all.

That is, until now. Because now that Anniversary Update is being installed on their machines by default, rather than being run on a virtual machine (because the tech reporters are all on the Insider fast track, and can all do things like that); and that has forced them to realize that the A.U. also breaks their webcams.

From Thurrot.com:

On August 2nd, Microsoft released the Anniversary Update for Windows 10 and when the bits arrived on computers around the globe, it brought with it new features and also broke webcams for millions of consumers. If your webcam has stopped functioning since the release of the Anniversary update, you are not alone but the good news is a fix is coming, hopefully in September.

Microsoft made a significant change with the release of Windows 10 and support for webcams that is causing serious problems for not only consumers but also the enterprise. The problem is that after installing the update, Windows no longer allows USB webcams to use MJPEG or H264 encoded streams and is only allowing YUY2 encoding.

Why did the company remove these options? The short answer is that with the Anniversary update there are new scenarios for applications to be able to access the webcam and the MJPEG or H264 encoding processes could have resulted in duplication of encoding the stream (poor performance) so the company limited the input methods to stop this from happening.

Because of this change, which Microsoft tried to defend but then realized the scale of the impact this change has caused, means that when a webcam tries to use MJPEG or H264, the device will freeze. If you use Skype and your webcam freezes after about a minute, this is the reason.

People have been complaining about Skype being crap forever, and prominent streamers and YouTubers like Totalbiscuit have already rolled back to Windows 7 because Win10 broke video streaming and conferencing on their machines, but the Tech press didn't take much notice... until it affected them, personally. And make no mistake, that is why this one bug is getting so much attention. 

And, boy, oh boy, it is ever getting a ton of attention.