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Ask Slashdot: Can You Disable Windows 10's Privacy-Invading Features? 492

An anonymous reader writes: I really want to upgrade to Windows 10, but have begun seeing stories come out about the new Terms and how they affect your privacy. It looks like the default Windows 10 system puts copies of your data out on the "cloud", gives your passwords out, and targets advertising to you. The main reason I am looking to upgrade is that Bitlocker is not available on Windows 7 Pro, but is on Windows 10 Pro, and Microsoft no longer offers Anytime Upgrades to Windows 7 Ultimate. However, I don't want to give away my privacy for security. The other option is to wait until October to see what the Windows 10 Enterprise version offers, but it may not be available through retail. Are the privacy minded Slashdot readers not going with Windows 10?

For reference, I am referring to these articles.
(Not to mention claims that it steals your bandwidth.)

Comment Re:Invasion of the DMCA trolls? (Score 1) 183

The artist created the work so he owns it just like you own your body and mind, no one else does.

By your logic, every artist should have the right to erase the memories of every person that ever heard one of their songs, because there is a copy of the song in those peoples' brains. Is that what you are asserting? That the songwriter owns my brain because his song is in it?

Next think you know, you'll be asking your neighbors to help pay for your porch light, because it reaches their yards and they are using your light.

Just because to AGREE to steal/seize someone's work after a set amount of time, does not absolve you from theft.

So ... you are claiming copyright expiration is a seizure. How does that happen? Do jack-booted thugs show up at your house to take it away from you? No - you still have it. In fact, you can still sell copies. But you can no longer decide that the 2 dozen people that already have copies of your work cannot make more copies. Now there are 25 copies. Did you lose anything? NO. In fact, you were already paid by 24 people that were stupid enough to think a copy of your crap is worth paying for.

Comment Re: Mickey Mouse copyirght extenstions... (Score 1) 183

Exclusive right to a work is not a god given right

It may not be god-given, but it should be the ethical and legal right.

It already is. You have exclusive right to anything you create. Now, if you want to distribute it for a fee, then you are given a monopoly on the ability to make copies of that work. The only copy any owners of a copy of your work may create is the one in his/her brain. I have exclusive control of all the books on my bookshelf. Some of them I can scan into my computer and print all the copies I want. Some, however, I am forbidden from doing so by federal law. If I do so, the grantee of the exclusive right to make copies may sue me for infringement. If you create something and you don't want anyone from accessing it, you have a [god-given][inherent][whatever] right to keep it to yourself. When you make a copy for me, it is governed by "first sale doctrine" and I own that copy - exclusively - and may do with it what I want. See - it's not yours any more. That copy is mine.

You paid exactly squat for the talent of the artist, his training and the hard work that went into creating his/her copyrighted works.

That has nothing to do with anything. If the artist releases his work, it's done by creating copies. Those are paid for and owned by the purchasers. I have created MANY works using my brilliance and talent that I have never received any payment for. You do not have a right to be paid for everything you do. Nobody gives a shit about your time or talent if none of it is marketable.

Don't you have a legal government provided right to be safe from physical harm by malicious people, to have protection from thieves who would happily steal your money and property? You do. Well, this is the same exact right that should be provided to artists (from pirates and the freeloading, anti-copyright masses).

Nope, that is incorrect. Property is tangible, and when stolen, you no longer have it. Copyright is not property. It is a right to make copies. A more rational analogy would be that corporations are stealing from people that buy copies of CDs with music on them, by manufacturing them with a limited lifespan. Without the right to make copies of that CD, purchasers are at some point deprived of their property (a copy of some musical bits) without compensation.

My point, it's not a favor provided by the government. It's more like their duty to protect their copyright-holding citizens.

And as I have shown above, your point is demonstrably false. They already protect their copyright-holding citizens. By allowing them to sue someone that makes copies of their works without authorization.

Most artists will create new works even after they're financially successful.

But do they continue for 70 years after they are dead? Because the exclusive right to make copies of their works lasts that long. And it deprives the public of its cultural heritage and the ability to honor and celebrate their artists after they are gone.

So? There are many descendents of people who owned real estate, farms, businesses, hotels and restaurants that are enjoying the fruits of their parents' hard work and investments. How about forcing these descendents to donate their parents' assets to the public domain, just like copyrighted works?

Your inability to see the difference between a tangible asset (and depriving the owner of that tangible asset), and the grant of an exclusive right to perform an activity (copying), is truly a stunning example of your myopic view. The world does not owe you a living. And it certainly does not owe you and your kids a lifetime of earnings for a extremely short-term amount of work.

Comment Re:Mickey Mouse copyirght extenstions... (Score 1) 183

1000 years is still a "limited Time"

So is a trillion years. Perhaps we should extend all copyrights to a trillion years, by that logic.

Proponents have argued that the law should be changed to allow them for "forever minus one day". Same affect as your proposal, but the Mary Bono was testifying before Congress when she suggested it, and she was serious.

Comment Re:Third Dimension (Score 1) 1197

I've seen this first-hand. A guy locally was going around with an up-skirt camera rig in his duffle-bag. I saw what was going on and alerted security, they called the cops... They said it was a public place with "no reasonable expectation of privacy" so as much as they wanted to get him, they didn't think it would hold. (The guy was long-gone by the time the cops arrived)

How could you NOT accidentally step on and kick a knee high camera that close? I'm really surprised nobody accidentally destroyed it and had to exchange information with the guy, you know, to replace it, or something.

Comment Re:Mickey Mouse copyirght extenstions... (Score 4, Insightful) 183

And that's exactly where the current form of copyright not only fails to address its original purpose but actually works against its purpose.

The purpose was to give people an incentive to create works of art by giving them an monetary incentive to do so. If you can monopolize something great for a time (instead of fearing that whatever you create immediately being copied by anyone, rendering your work worthless), you have an incentive to create something great and reap the rewards of your work. That's fine.

Now, last thing I heard about "happy birthday" was that it makes 5 grand a DAY for Warner. Now, imagine you made "happy birthday". And got 5 grand a day from it. Where the fuck is your incentive to EVER create anything again? 5 grand a day? Fuck, I couldn't be assed to do anything but sit there and rake in the money for the rest of my life. Why bother work ever again if you already get more money than you can sensibly spend without doing anything?

Comment Re:This won't end well.... (Score 3, Insightful) 187

However... From my experience, the leading edge systems have been getting much MUCH better.
Many of the core stuff has been stabilized for years.

Windows 10 still uses the NT based Kernel. Like the previous versions. Most of the drivers are the same as well. The buggy stuff are in the new features, that are often not yet implemented into the prod environment anyways.

The bad old days of the 1990's seem to be over for now. Quality is much better sense then. We can do a lot of things now without much fear of bad consequences.

Just like in the 1990's we stopped having to worry so much about failure in RAM as a major issue, because RAM has became a rather reliable component on the system.

Comment Re:Edge (Score 2) 187

I really wasn't impressed with edge at all. The touch interface is very buggy, pinch zoom and scrolling doesn't work past the first few seconds, in desktop mode. the browser stuff takes up a lot of screen real-estate. And still the lack of plugins such as adblock hinders the web experience.
I still don't see the point on drawing on your web page either.

Comment Limited Time.... (Score 1) 187

There could be less demand, If we really had a good handle on the limited time to upgrade for free window.
There are a lot of people who are not in a rush to get windows 10. However this limited time means they might as well upgrade now vs waiting too long and having to pay for it. (Yes I am wide open about Free/Open Source Linux advantages...) But is it that important to give an artificial high demand to make investors thinks people really REALLY want the upgrade. vs just Getting it now for Free, vs waiting later for it.

Comment Re:My upgrade strategy (Score 0) 187

Which is fine.
I had my Linux for a desktop kick for a while back in the late 1990 and early 2000s
then I was on on Solaris for a while, then Mac OS.
I am actually trailing on a Windows kick, it is getting to a point where I may want to switch a again.

Nothing is wrong with any of these system they have their pluses and minus.
However OS X and Windows, is less struggling for hardware compatibility. Linux seems to be hit or miss, unless you invest a lot of time trying to determine if it is compatible enough, as many of discussions on such hardware fail to state if it works with a distribution or not.

Linux: I tend to prefer when I need to be very productive, When I need to crunch a lot of data. Also it is handy for cases when I need to do something outside the box, as it doesn't dumb down lower level access.

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