Analysis claims Windows 10 keeps connecting to MS servers

Feb 8, 2016 06:05 GMT  ·  By

Ever since it rolled out Windows 10, Microsoft has been bombarded with claims that its new operating system is spying on users, with more or less detailed research trying to demonstrate this.

A new such analysis brings forward almost the same claims: Windows 10 is phoning home even when all telemetry settings are off, which, according to Voat user CheesusCrust (via Betanews), could be a sign that some information is leaving your computer even when not allowed to.

In short, what the analysis came down to was setting up a Linux Mint PC with a Windows 10 Enterprise virtual machine and a DD-WRT router that was being used for monitoring traffic. CheesusCrust disabled all telemetry settings in Windows 10 (the ones in the Settings screen) and then left the Windows 10 virtual machine running over night to monitor the connections it’s attempting to make.

The results are no surprising: during this whole time, the router logged a total of 5,508 connections, out of which 3,967 were said to be attempts to 51 different Microsoft IP addresses.

This still doesn’t mean anything

If you’re considering these claims and numbers, Microsoft is clearly a monster that keeps an eye on everything you do, but the truth is that this analysis is not so relevant in the end.

First of all, this analysis is not an in-depth look at the information that Windows 10 transmits to Microsoft’s servers, but only a review of the connection attempts that the operating system made during a certain period of time. For what it’s worth, these could be attempts to check for updates or adjust the time.

At the same time, it would be inaccurate to accuse Microsoft of anything just by looking at these logs because nobody can tell for sure (except for the company, of course) that Windows 10 is sending any of your private details to the company. Everything is encrypted, so aside from these connection attempts, not much can be extracted.

Terry Myerson, head of the Windows group at Microsoft, has explained that while Windows 10 does send some information to the company, everything is encrypted and does not include personal details. Windows 10 only collects app crash data and reliability reports that can be then used to further improve the OS and fix issues that users are experiencing with the OS.

“With Windows 10, information we collect is encrypted in transit to our servers, and then stored in secure facilities,” Myerson says.

In the end, while this research indeed shows that Windows 10 has a lot of attempts to connect to Microsoft in just 8 hours, it certainly doesn’t prove anything. At least not as far as the privacy violation is concerned.