Windows 10 and OS X... which has better privacy policies?

Discussion in 'privacy general' started by Rigz, Aug 30, 2015.

  1. J_L

    J_L Registered Member

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    Well I've gotta say you're the first and only person who has made such claims. Is there a reason you didn't back it with a good source and I can't seem to find one? Feel free to continue as PM or not bother at all, but I can totally edit /etc/fstab with the root password.
     
  2. MisterB

    MisterB Registered Member

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    I already admitted that my experience with OSX is dated. The versions I used which pretty much ended at Tiger never gave me the possibility to set a root password that I found. Windows comes out of the box in a configuration that gives you root access, OSX makes you jump through hoops to get there. You didn't just get to fstab without doing some homework. For a consumer OS that assumes that most of its users are going to be unaware or sloppy, that is the way it should be.

    The point is that OSX is better designed and structured than Windows and doing such things is not as easy for the typical user as in Windows. One of the reasons I don't use Apple products is that they are too locked down and I can't play with the system the same way I can with Windows--or Linux for that matter. I view them as being very secure and tightly coded but way too proprietary for my tastes. On the other hand, that makes it hands down the more secure OS.
     
  3. J_L

    J_L Registered Member

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    OK, so they hide the files better. But the OS X admin still has sudo powers, which as far as I can tell, is equivalent to root. And once malware is run with that same admin password, I highly doubt that OS X can prevent it from modifying any key system file. The new "rootless" feature in El Capitan is the only thing that supports your statements.

    I guess you can say that, especially for iOS. But OS X being so locked down you can't play around with it like Linux or Windows? That doesn't appear to be the case for me, at least until El Capitan. Lastly, the only advantages I see of the proprietary blobs in providing security is basically MSRT-like security updates, Gatekeeper, and "rootless". But they added way more attack surface as well.
     
  4. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    Admittedly Shuttleworth made a mistake by not shouting about the Amazon deal beforehand, but he was honest enough to admit that he probably should have done. Secondly, as I've said before it can be relatively easily opted out of, and isn't half as nefarious as the tinfoil hat brigade make it out to be. I'd like to see hard evidence for Canonical's 'anti-ethical' activity, apart from Shuttleworth's deal with Amazon, which was more for economic reasons than ethics or the apparent lack of them.
     
  5. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Next time someone robs me at the street I'll make sure to at least let them tell me that they shouldn't have done that :thumb:

    Which doesn't clear out Canonical's image at all. Only people who have some sort of emotional connection to Ubuntu try to defend it's nasy practices.

    So data leaks aren't important? Neither being connected to a company who mistreats it's employees and is associated with DRM and backdoors (all of this an OS from a company that started following GNU's philosophy)?

    Yeah, some people really can't afford not to drive sports cars :thumb::thumb::thumb:

    It doesn't matter if it's only one anti-ethical scenario, one is good enough, specially this one.
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2015
  6. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    The analogy isn’t cogent and is quite frankly near hysterical.

    Nice try, but my reaction to your asseverations are hardly due to ‘emotional attachment’. Canonical is a corporation, your definition of ‘nasty’ is quite subjective and not grounded in any logical thought process.

    The data leak is essentially a straw man argument and just how does Canonical mistreat its employees exactly? Some evidence would be nice.

    Irrelevant, I sense that you are smoke-screening now.

    What? Shuttleworth made a deal with Amazon to help finance Ubuntu development and he becomes the bogey man? I think this is more a case of the tinfoil hat brigade trying to demonise Canonical for trying to develop Ubuntu.

    Again, you don’t really seem to have a cogent argument. I get it, Canonical aren’t all Ma and Pa developers and are honestly trying to make Ubuntu a viable cross platform operating system. It is costing them time and money. They are a business distributing freeware.

    All this drivel about ‘evil’ Canonical is just that. They are a business.
     
  7. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    That wasn't the point. The point is that saying "I shouldn't have done this" isn't an excuse to continue doing something bad.

    Good.

    So just because they're a corporation they can do harm to the community and yet not be called nasty? I don't see how that is logical at all. And I wouldn't be surprise if you said the same about Microsoft's recent doings.

    I think I didn't express myself correctly.

    Canonical, as far as I know, doesn't mistreat people. Amazon does. Amazon is knwon also for putting backdoors into their Kindle products, for abusing DRM, and for sensorship.

    Are you really naive enough to believe that the Amazon deal was only to support the development of Ubuntu?

    Yes, he's a "bogey man" for doing that the way he did and with the company he did it.

    What's "tinfoil hat brigade" about not wanting the ignorant part of the community to be spied and used, for a product is isn't worth all this? It has nothing to do with tin foil brigade, it has to do with the standards that the Linux community had in the past, it has to do with the trust and model that Linux mostly was, and it has to do with a very bad move by a company that doesn't care about their users' privacy doing business with an even worse company.

    I have a gut feeling that all this is OK with you; being a business means they can get away with this kind of stuff. I won't be surprised is this is the case ;)
     
  8. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    It’s only bad if you accept the premise of what Shuttleworth did was intentionally malevolent.
    Again, a straw man argument. My personal feelings about MS are irrelevant. Also, again, it depends on how you define harm to the ‘community’. Which is at best an ontological construct not unlike invisible rainbow unicorns.

    Very possibly.

    Oh, I’m sorry, Amazon are the bogey man! You left out Lenovo, Apple and the reptoid overlords from the Zeta Reticuli star system.

    Are you really naive enough to believe it wasn’t?

    Probably in league with the Zeta Reticulans as well.

    Actually, you’ve just answered your own question. I’m pretty sure the ‘standards’ of the ‘linux community’ are another magical unicorn. I like magical unicorns personally. It’s just that they aren’t real, probably.

    I have a gut feeling that you have lost this one so you are just going with gut feelings. Which, in reality, are a lot like magical unicorns in the fact that they aren’t really empirically provable.

    Oh yeah, throwing the argument back with ‘I guess this is OK with you’ is a bit of a straw man.

    At the end of the day, your continued asseveration that Canonical and Ubuntu are ‘evil’ is baseless and a convoluted rhetoric at best.
     
  9. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Nah, could you imagine a grown business man doing something without intention?

    Community is referred here by me as "users".

    I left them out because I didn't see a reason to put them in this discussion. All of the listed companies that I know of also do nasty things. Apple deals with DRM, backdoors into their products, sensorship, and also is listed as one of the companies that participate in the PRISM program.
    Lenovo had that bootkit that I didn't read too much about.

    I get it. You think you're funny. You're not.

    Giving the history of how businesses are handled and how much wealth their leaders have, I'd said being naive is believing that a big portion of all that money wouldn't get into Shuttleworth's pocket.

    Again with this? Usually this kind of childish behavior leads me to stop responding to the person altogether. Maybe I'm in a good mood tonight.

    Almost gave up there, but I'll do it differently this time.

    The "standards" are not like a magical unicorn. That might be how you view it in your own little head, but it's not the case for everybody and certainly not to me.

    In the past Linux was known for being secure, privacy friendly, and nobody would care to read EULAs because there wasn't a need for such. Almost the entire software catalog of a distribution, that wasn't proprietary software, respected the user. Most people still think this is the case today, which it isn't, specially after Canonical's dirty move.
    At least only one company made such a move on it's community.

    Lost what, exactly?

    Which, if you read my quote, it doesn't say they are.

    Why? It really seems like you're OK with Canonical's actions, in fact I'm 99.99% sure that this is the case here. Of course, I don't know why and I'm just gessing on this one, but it could be because your an Ubuntu fan-tard; or because either you or someone close to you is a business man that doesn't have a slight ethical attitude. Or because, as many people's, your ethical values are as worthy as a trip to the desert without water.

    Let's see some of evil's meanings:
    Given Canonical's actions, I'd say they are evil, going by those meanings. But then again, some people would not consider they're action harmful, but I'm not really here to judge others' ethical (or lack of) values.
     
  10. MisterB

    MisterB Registered Member

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    Locked down by default vs. Windows being unlocked by default. That benefits the average user more than someone like me who likes to get into the guts of a system and tweak it. I'm the most unlikely defender of Apple around. I don't use their products at all and when I have played with them, I've found myself doing the opposite of what I do with Windows: I try to unlock them and open them up instead of having to lock down a sloppily configured OS that leaves it to end users to figure out how to secure it with its own built in security features which can be quite good once they are properly set up.

    Wow, passions are flying over a pretty simple question. I think the OP's question has been pretty well covered and now we're getting carried away with our opinions of different Corporations whose products we are using.
     
  11. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    And still you haven't actually proved your point about Canonical being 'evil'. Instead you are resorting to irrelevancies, pointless dictionary definitions, *ad hominem attacks, speculation, hearsay and conjecture.

    Just as I figured, you have no real argument, as usual.

    *The usual last resort of the discomfited.
     
  12. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    I think I'd sum up these OS's as having advantages and disadvantages.

    For example, while Mac's are "locked", they're more secure than Windows. Apple's store is by far one of the safest there are; while Windows' store isn't (although, Microsoft has been cleaning it's store really good). And for andoid users, your store is probably the least safe of them.
    While Windows is more "open", it's much easier for a new user to get in trouble because he/she will probably search on Google for programs. On the other hand, most programs/games run on Windows.
    While Linux is the most open and the most secure of all three, most AAA games and famous programs won't work on it. However, Linux still has more games than XBOX One and Play Station 4 combined, and a lot of replacement programs that will do most jobs just as good as windows counterparts
     
  13. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    I don't need to prove anything, I'm just stating my opinion. Canonical is "evil" to me, it harmed the community and the overall trust that the Linux name had. I don't need to prove that; no matter what my opinion is, you will stil have yours and nothing will change that.

    Yes, because "the reptoid overlords from the Zeta Reticuli star system" is a very constructive argument, product of a brilliant mind :thumb:

    Totally subjective.

    Totally subjective.

    Are you referring to the part that I said you're not funny? It wasn't Ad Hominem, it was a proper response to an actual BS comment about "the reptoid overlords from the Zeta Reticuli star system".

    I appreciate your effort to sound smart by using big words. To the point in question, there's nothing wrong in using speculation, hearsay, or conjecture in a discussion.
     
  14. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    FYI:

    'That might be how you view it in your own little head'

    'but it could be because your an Ubuntu fan-tard'

    'your ethical values are as worthy as a trip to the desert without water'

    are all examples of ad hominem comments. You are attacking me and not my argument.

    That's because you have never had a cogent argument. Everything you have stated is hypothesis, ontological fantasy or subjective speculation. Plus you misunderstood my entire 'magical unicorn' argument, which is, in effect, a variation on the classical ontological argument and is very apposite here and not irrelevant. I would put your dictionary to good use and look up the term 'ontology'.

    Resorting to ad hominems is, well, a last resort, and not a very well thought out one at all.
     
  15. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    I didn't think I'd have to explain this, but you're clearly taking things personal when you shouldn't.

    Meaning: that's YOUR view of things.

    Exactly, it could be. I didn't say you are, did I?

    This isn't a personal attack. It surely hurted your ego, but wasn't personal at all. Just my views on your probable lack of ethics, the reason why you're stil defending Canonical's action.

    This is a pure lie, and you know that.

    Please put it in perspective to your argument where Apple and Lenovo are put in the same sentence as the magical unicorn.

    Agree.
     
  16. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    I see you're now in denial of what you originally said. I'll lend you a shovel if you want and you could dig yourself a deeper hole. It's the least I could do.

    Oh, and I'm not lying. Your entire 'argument' has essentially been subjunctive or speculative. A bit like a magical unicorn in fact.

    You have still to prove that Canonical is an unethical company merely because Mark Shuttleworth made a deal with Amazon for obvious financial considerations. Something that was never hidden in the Ubuntu EULA.
     
  17. ronjor

    ronjor Global Moderator

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    Let's get back on the topic of the thread.
     
  18. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Exactly.

    OP, it looks like you want a system that doesn't spy on you and has a better privacy policy. You could consider putting Ubuntu off the list, for the many reasons stated in this thread; or don't, that's totally up to you. Overall Ubuntu is not a terrible distro if you remove it's spyware/keylogger.

    There are tons of Linux distros that actually respect your privacy, like Parabola (based off of Arch, for advanced users), Trisquel (based off of Ubuntu), pure Debian, or Arch with parabola's packages "your-freedom" and "your-privacy" installed.

    You could consider moving away from Google too. I, for instance, use autistici.org and riseup.net e-Mail services. Autistici has servers on countries with way less US digital influence (if any); and riseup actually got it's encrypted servers confiscated by the FBI, but fought in court and WON ;)
     
  19. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    Just to make this clear about Ubuntu, isn’t some full system keylogger it is just Canonical seeing what you type into the Dash. A process you can turn off if you want that privacy. This can also easily be disabled by typing 'Privacy' into the Dash and merely disabling the feature.
     
  20. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    I'm beginning to think that a glass house with no curtains brings with it a stronger privacy policy than Windows 10... even ones in which the occupants throw rocks in.
     
  21. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Right. The only way to have privacy with Windows is to make sure that it knows only about what you're doing with it. With no money trail back to your true name. Through some mix of Tor and VPNs. And strictly compartmentalized from other personas, and utterly from your true name.

    And same for OSX, Linux etc.
     
  22. driekus

    driekus Registered Member

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    Not giving windows external network access could also do the trick
     
  23. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Yes, there's that too :) When you're using it as a locked-down VM host, for example. But then, just why use Windows in that way? Why not just use Linux as the host?

    If I'm just using Windows to run Excel on all cores, for example, I just don't give it Internet access. But sometimes, the point of using Windows is having external network access.
     
  24. deBoetie

    deBoetie Registered Member

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    I'm struggling with finding reasons for the "sometimes" - browsing and mail are better done on a Linux VM, and the only apps I use that cause inconvenience if not connected are visual studio (for NuGet), and OneNote. OneNote is particularly problematical and risky IMO, because, if connected, you have searchable notebooks on MS infrastructure, already sorted and available for inspection (and they cannot be encrypted). So I tend to segregate the "public" cloud-based notebooks from local ones, where the OneNote instances do not get internet access (using Sandboxie).
    Skype is clearly better on Windows, but then I want to wean the family off Skype for obvious reasons.
    Netflix/silverlight is another area, but then that's probably for a "living room" type entertainment/gaming box.
    The other problem with Windows VMs is, of course, the crazy licensing for the instances, which is only really workable if you have enterprise licensing. I'm using old XP licenses in isolated VMs for that reason.
     
  25. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    I use generic installers, and don't bother activating. I typically just need a Windows VM for some specific task. So I delete it when done. That saves disk space too :)

    Sometimes I need to run remote Java stuff, and it's just a lot easier on Windows. Linux does not, in my experience, play well with Oracle Java. And some apps are broken using Iced Tea :(
     
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