Back in November Microsoft confirmed Windows 10â??s worst kept secret: its extensive telemetry (or â??spyingâ?? as it has been labelled) cannot be stopped. What no-one realised until now, however, is just how staggering the extent of this tracking really isâ?¦
Blowing the lid on it this week is Voat user CheesusCrust whose extensive investigation found Windows 10 contacts Microsoft to report data thousands of times per day. And the kicker? This happens after choosing a custom Windows 10 installation and disabling all three pages of tracking options which are all enabled by default.
The raw numbers come out as follows: in an eight hour period Windows 10 tried to send data back to 51 different Microsoft IP addresses over 5500 times. After 30 hours of use, Windows 10 expanded that data reporting to 113 non-private IP addresses. Being non-private means there is the potential for hackers to intercept this data.
Taking this a step further, the testing was then repeated on another Windows 10 clean installation again with all data tracking options disabled and third party tool DisableWinTracking was also installed which tries to shut down all hidden Windows 10 data reporting attempts. At the end of the 30 hour period Windows 10 had still managed to phone home with data 2758 times to 30 different IP addresses.
A further interesting fact is these tests were conducted using Windows 10 Enterprise Edition â?? the version of Windows 10 with most granular level of user control and far more than the standard Windows 10 Home edition used by most consumers. All of which confirms, this controversial data tracking simply cannot be stopped.
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