The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: August 9, 2015

Fed2 Star: Official News page 10

WINDING DOWN

An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton

This issue takes a look again at Windows 10, and draws a perhaps rather unwelcome conclusion about what it means for the future... Mac users need go no further!

Analysis 2: The arrival of Windows 10

Well it’s here, Windows 10. Been around for 10 days now... So what’s the verdict?

Definitely a curate’s egg, in my opinion. I have a number of issues with it, but first the important news: I’m informed by one of the Federation 2 players, who was on the Insider program, that FedTerm, the semi-graphical front end I wrote 10 years ago for Windows XP, runs under Windows 10 with no problems!

I attribute this to my self-discipline in sticking to Microsoft’s programming rules, and Microsoft’s care in maintaining compatibility over the successive versions since XP. A gold star and ten house points to both of us for that!

The rest is not so good...

Issue 1: Collection of personal information.

Windows 10 collects far more personal information about its users that any previous version of Windows, and returns it to Microsoft. Furthermore, its terms and conditions make it crystal clear (assuming you read all 25 pages of the terms and conditions, that is) that they will share that information with whoever they damn well want to.

Issue 2: Compulsory updates

As I mentioned in the last discussion on Windows 10, security, bug fix and ‘enhancement’ updates will be compulsory. The danger of this cavalier attitude was demonstrated just a few days before the official launch when they pushed a flawed ‘upgrade’ of Nvidea drivers out to their Insider program. Is that the sound of crashing computers I hear in the background?

One has to wonder what would happen if they issued a patch that made millions of computers unbootable. What are they planning to do? Send out 100s of millions of USB sticks with a bootable version on? The mind boggles. (See also ‘The Killer’ at the end of this piece.)

Issue 3: Bandwidth theft

Not content with forcing updates on you, Windows 10, by default, and without asking, turns your computer into the equivalent of a torrent engine to help distribute its compulsory upgrades! In other words it’s hijacking your computer bandwidth and using it to distribute Microsoft products (and possibly advertising – see further down). You can turn this off, but to do so you have to know that it’s doing this, and locate the correct bit of Windows 10’s labyrinthine settings mechanism. If you are on limited bandwidth, you could have a nasty surprise here, but even if you are not, it’s still theft of a resource you are paying for.

Issue 4: Enabling the stealing of other people’s bandwidth

Not only does Microsoft steal your bandwidth, but through the default settings of its Wi-Fi sense, it can cause you to steal bandwidth from your friends. If you are near the wireless router of a friend that Microsoft’s server knows about ,and if it knows the router password (see what I mean about collecting personal information?), then it will log you on to their router. Without of course asking for permission...

Issue 5: Operating Systems as an advertising platform

The furore about paying for the solitaire game or having adverts with it, could be seen as part of the same mind-set that failed to pay the person who coded the game. (His name is Wes Cherry, by the way.) Alternatively it might be seen as a cunning way of drawing press attention away from other failings by adding something so crass that everyone concentrates on it. I don’t think so though. Microsoft does arrogance, not pure crass.

Actually I think it’s an attempt by Microsoft to see how much they can get away with using the operating system as an advertising platform. They already got off scot-free with one attempt when they used existing customers’ system tray to carry advertising for Windows 10. This links in with all that personal information they want to collect. They will be able to push valuable targeted advertising via their unstoppable update system.

Surely you didn’t think Microsoft were really going to give away their new operating system version for nothing? And remember, this is the operating system. How do you think you are going to be able to stop them eventually placing ads anywhere they want? How about in your browser? In your music? TV? Movies? Games even? (That’s probably a bit more difficult.)

Of course, you already trust Google with that sort of personal info, do you think Microsoft are as trustworthy as Google currently are? An interesting question, to which you have to decide your own answer!

The rest of the issues

Of course none of this looks at things like the destruction of your settings (and your child protection settings if you are a parent) when you update to Windows 10. That’s because you can, at least if you have some techie knowledge, fix those problems after the event.

Incidentally, for all that the return of the Windows Start Menu has been trumpeted around, it seems that users are rushing out in their tens of thousands a day to buy a ‘proper’ start menu. Now there’s something for my readers with a sense of irony – the operating system is free, but the first thing you do is to rush out and pay money for a third party start menu that works the way you think!

The killer

Of these issues, I could probably cope with issues one, three, and four and also the settings issues. For me the killer, the break issue, if you like, is issue two. Compulsory updates is the enabler for issue five. Everyone goes on about the dangers of a bad update bricking everyone’s computer. That’s important, but it’s not the real issue.

With compulsory updates, you have no control over your computer; even if you like what you are getting now, you do not know what the operating system will be like in a year or two’s time. It could be completely different, whether you like or want it or not.

Think about it. If Microsoft had put compulsory updates into Windows 7, everyone would have ended up with Windows 8, like it or not. Yes. Really.

And on that thought, I’ll leave you for this week – normal service will be resumed next week...

Acknowledgements

Thanks to readers Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.

Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...

Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
9 August 2015

Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.

Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.

The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames