Nannies and Spyware

[Ron Texas]

I have noticed an alarming trend of data gathering enabled by technology. Most cars sold in the US now have telemetry. On GM it's OnStar. Stellantis has connected services. I don't know what Ford calls it, but articles I read suggest they have the most intrusive system which records when and where the vehicle shifts gears or the doors are opened. Smart TV's are content aware. If you use an app they keep track of it. In some cases it's not just the app but the programing in detail. If you use your ISP's DNS service they record everything and sell it.

The latest is all kinds of telemetry is showing up on notebook computers. Manufacturers make it hard to get rid of because as I found in the case of Dell removing the telemetry also disabled fan control and some other items making this an entirely different problem than the crapware of old. Dell, MSI, Lenovo and Asus appear to be the worst offenders. They offer proprietary software which analyzes how the computer is used and supposedly optimizes the user experience. LG appears to have the least of this garbage system software running and an Acer machine I recently examined did not look too bad. I have been told Microsoft Surface devices lack telemetry beyond what is annoyingly built into Windows. Look out for a program called Nehemic audio which is nearly impossible to remove. Killer networks, a modified Intel WiFi chip, now comes with it's own telemetry. I mention notebooks because desktops rarely have proprietary battery, power management and cooling systems.

I suppose somewhere when the machine first boots up they have you check a box which is linked to 12 pages of extremely convoluted legalese about what they are doing. I'm a retired lawyer and I can tell you these consents are vague and broad. A lawyer will have no idea of what data is actually being collected or how it will be used.

On GM cars OnStar can be disabled by disconnecting it's special antenna. With smart TV's unless they are just used as a display and not connected to the internet there isn't much you can do about it. I'm still trying to get rid of Connected Services on my Jeep.

 

[Dunring]

Best you can do is install Linux Mint and the Duckduckgo or Vivaldi browser. It's hard coded into windows starting with build 1809 of Windows 10 I believe.
There's privacy tweakers and Winaero that will get it under control to a point. Have to give up a lot since Google does it too. Browsers are fingerprinted to track that way as well. A good VPN will help, but a pain for things like online banking.

 

[audio_tony]

As a case in point here - I noticed that MSEdge was continually appearing in my running tasks, and all efforts to disable it via the recommended method failed.

So I located the folder it's in, and took ownership of all files / folders, and then set only my username to have access, which is read only, no execute permissions.

Now, each time I boot up my laptop, I get the message "access to c:\Program......\.....\mesedge.exe denied" - and I have been unable to find anywhere in the registry where msedge is called at startup or login, so it's well hidden.

Additionally, whenever I go into settings, I get the same message - but why does msedge need to run when I access settings???

I sense some serious privacy issues here. At least my hack has disabled it - however I note it's broken windows update as well (not that I'm bothered, as this laptop is soon to be upgraded to Linux).

The msedge issue reminds me of the privacy controversy when IE was initially bundled with Windows (95 or ME I think?) and Microsoft claimed it was an intrinsic part of the operating system, however here in Europe they had to allow users to uninstall it, by a court ruling.

It's unfortunate that the Edge issue appears to have been completely overlooked here though....

EDIT: The court ruling was over antitrust issues.

Microsoft fined by European Commission over web browser

The EU's competition regulator fines Microsoft 561m euros ($731m; £484m) after it failed to keep a promise to promote a choice of rival web browsers.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

...and yet when you try and engage with a company (electricity, gas, water, insurance, internet provider, health service) they seem to have never heard of you and can't find you and have to refer you to a AI text service with generic answers to your questions. And that's if their computer hasn't 'crashed' or is 'slow'...out of the 8 billion or so people on earth, I'm one of the least interesting. All 'they' need to do is ring me up and ask me what they want to know.

 

[Ron Texas]

As a case in point here - I noticed that MSEdge was continually appearing in my running tasks, and all efforts to disable it via the recommended method failed.

So I located the folder it's in, and took ownership of all files / folders, and then set only my username to have access, which is read only, no execute permissions.

Now, each time I boot up my laptop, I get the message "access to c:\Program......\.....\mesedge.exe denied" - and I have been unable to find anywhere in the registry where msedge is called at startup or login, so it's well hidden.

Additionally, whenever I go into settings, I get the same message - but why does msedge need to run when I access settings???

I sense some serious privacy issues here. At least my hack has disabled it - however I note it's broken windows update as well (not that I'm bothered, as this laptop is soon to be upgraded to Linux).

The msedge issue reminds me of the privacy controversy when IE was initially bundled with Windows (95 or ME I think?) and Microsoft claimed it was an intrinsic part of the operating system, however here in Europe they had to allow users to uninstall it, by a court ruling.

It's unfortunate that the Edge issue appears to have been completely overlooked here though....

EDIT: The court ruling was over antitrust issues.

Microsoft fined by European Commission over web browser

The EU's competition regulator fines Microsoft 561m euros ($731m; £484m) after it failed to keep a promise to promote a choice of rival web browsers.

www.bbc.co.uk

There are settings to quick load Edge which keep it running all the time. This behavior can be turned off.

 

[Ron Texas]

Best you can do is install Linux Mint and the Duckduckgo or Vivaldi browser. It's hard coded into windows starting with build 1809 of Windows 10 I believe.
There's privacy tweakers and Winaero that will get it under control to a point. Have to give up a lot since Google does it too. Browsers are fingerprinted to track that way as well. A good VPN will help, but a pain for things like online banking.

What exactly is hard coded into Windows?

 

[audio_tony]

There are settings to quick load Edge which keep it running all the time. This behavior can be turned off.

I did this, to no avail.

Each time you start windows settings, edge starts and never goes away....

Oh, and it still runs at login...

I'm on Windows 10 version 22H2

I've found that all the 'tweaks' to disable edge pertain to older versions of Windows 10.

 

[Ron Texas]

I did this, to no avail.

Each time you start windows settings, edge starts and never goes away....

Oh, and it still runs at login...

I'm on Windows 10 version 22H2

I've found that all the 'tweaks' to disable edge pertain to older versions of Windows 10.

I'm not having that problem with Win 11. Get the utility "Autoruns" from Microsoft and see if it helps. Also, check your Edge settings very carefully. When MS makes changes they are usually enabled by default. See Post #2 above which recommends Vivaldi or DuckDuckGo.

 

[audio_tony]

I'm not having that problem with Win 11. Get the utility "Autoruns" from Microsoft and see if it helps. Also, check your Edge settings very carefully. When MS makes changes they are usually enabled by default. See Post #2 above which recommends Vivaldi or DuckDuckGo.

Done all that. I worked in IT for 20+ years by the way.

I've no plans to shift to Win 11 - next O/S will be Linux.

 

[somebodyelse]

What exactly is hard coded into Windows?

Telemetry. You only get to turn it off entirely if you have the Enterprise or Education versions.

 

[Ron Texas]

Telemetry. You only get to turn it off entirely if you have the Enterprise or Education versions.

Microsoft claims it's limited information, but does not say exactly what. I read somewhere that the OS is hard coded to ignore hosts entries intended to block telemetry.

 

[Morla]

Companies seem to look at the data they produce and collect with the products they sell to customers (cars, phones, laptops, operating systems, and so on) as a new Product that is actually owned by the company and not the customer. Next stop: pay less for car insurance because your car's data is sent to the insurance company by the car vendor.

Not sure what to do about it unless governmental regulation and a concept for protection of data privacy (yes I'm from Europe)

 

[Blumlein 88]

Companies seem to look at the data they produce and collect with the products they sell to customers (cars, phones, laptops, operating systems, and so on) as a new Product that is actually owned by the company and not the customer. Next stop: pay less for car insurance because your car's data is sent to the insurance company by the car vendor.

Not sure what to do about it unless governmental regulation and a concept for protection of data privacy (yes I'm from Europe)

A couple of insurance companies already offer this on a voluntary basis. Promise your insurance won't go up, but if they put a monitoring device for a month on your OBD port it might go down. As someone owning more than one car, I'd like to let them monitor mileage driven and adjust rates appropriately because it would save me money. They don't do that of course.

 

[BlackTalon]

I keep clicking on this thread to see pics of @Ron Texas 's nanny that need to be reported (just doing my part as a concerned citizen). Very misleading thread title...

 

[Ron Texas]

I keep clicking on this thread to see pics of @Ron Texas 's nanny that need to be reported (just doing my part as a concerned citizen). Very misleading thread title...

LOL. She is 5'4" and weighs 200 lbs.

 

[boyboyboy]

With smart TV's unless they are just used as a display and not connected to the internet there isn't much you can do about it.

You can install a blocklist on software that's running on a router you manage, or redirect a traffic through a local proxy (OpenWrt and Raspberry Pi with PiHole are popular choices).

The blocklists are not perfect, though, and may also break some functionality.

As for cars, unfortunately I don't think there's much that can be done at the moment, short of buying second-hand cars or keeping old ones. In Europe I believe that means roughly older than 2018, because all later models have phone-home "for your own good" equipment as mandated standards.

Cars can be egregiously bad, as some manufacturers go as far as recording every conversation that take place on the car and mining/selling everything they can. That's outright Evil with a capital E.

Mozilla has run a campaign for cars that anyone who cares about this stuff might be interested in supporting in some way or another.

‘Privacy Nightmare on Wheels’: Every Car Brand Reviewed By Mozilla — Including Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota — Flunks Privacy Test

Mozilla’s latest edition of *Privacy Not Included reveals how 25 major car brands collect and share deeply personal data, including sexual activity, facial expressions, and genetic and health information.

foundation.mozilla.org

 

[Ron Texas]

You can install a blocklist on software that's running on a router you manage, or redirect a traffic through a local proxy (OpenWrt and Raspberry Pi with PiHole are popular choices).

The blocklists are not perfect, though, and may also break some functionality.

As for cars, unfortunately I don't think there's much that can be done at the moment, short of buying second-hand cars or keeping old ones. In Europe I believe that means roughly older than 2018, because all later models have phone-home "for your own good" equipment as mandated standards.

Cars can be egregiously bad, as some manufacturers go as far as recording every conversation that take place on the car and mining/selling everything they can. That's outright Evil with a capital E.

Mozilla has run a campaign for cars that anyone who cares about this stuff might be interested in supporting in some way or another.

‘Privacy Nightmare on Wheels’: Every Car Brand Reviewed By Mozilla — Including Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota — Flunks Privacy Test

Mozilla’s latest edition of *Privacy Not Included reveals how 25 major car brands collect and share deeply personal data, including sexual activity, facial expressions, and genetic and health information.

foundation.mozilla.org

I was finally able to cancel Jeep connected services for privacy reasons. Although this blocks some OTA software updates my understanding is this only involves updates to the radio and nav system. Roadside assistance is not an issue for anyone with a mobile phone. I have found nav systems built into both my Jeep and my last ride from GM, to be inferior to either Apple or Google nav systems. That link lists nearly every car made. The exceptions are limited production and exotics. The situation with cars has been going on for a long time. Use of OnStar by GM and BMW goes back over 10 years.

There will likely be no relief from automotive telemetry because law enforcement wants it. Maybe there will be some limits on how the data is used.

 

[somebodyelse]

A couple of insurance companies already offer this on a voluntary basis. Promise your insurance won't go up, but if they put a monitoring device for a month on your OBD port it might go down. As someone owning more than one car, I'd like to let them monitor mileage driven and adjust rates appropriately because it would save me money. They don't do that of course.

Some of these monitoring devices have had security issues: https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/209512/
Others have been recalled after causing certain car models to shut down while driving.

 

[anmpr1]

Mine came with something called Audi Connect, which after the 'trial' period was $500.00 a year. For that you got (I think) traffic condition reports, a satellite image pasted over your nav screen, and probably something else no one ever cared about. Like most people I just let the thing lapse.

The regular system lets you download navigation maps when they are updated. The nav is about 90% accurate, I'd say. I have no idea if it is sending telemetry to VW.

Funny thing--the system used 3G service, which evidently has been discontinued, so Audi issued a recall-- dealer had to install a updated fix for that. I don't know if it was hardware or software, or both.

I grew up on free gas station maps for navigation, and an AM radio that you had to bang on the top of the dash to sometimes get it to work. So I guess it's progress. Don't ask me if my life is better.

 

[Ron Texas]

I decided to throw in the towel on Windows and get a MacBook Pro.