spyware

Telemetry removal script

Saturday, July 30, 2016

below is a .cmd script for uninstalling all the known telemetry updates (so far) in Windows 7. These telemetry updates are spyware Microsoft is installing on your computer to send data back to Microsoft. They have recently begun installing tools to exfiltrate your private files and log your keystrokes to their servers.

While there are people who think Windows 10 is a normal upgrade, there are nations that formally disagree. If you care about privacy; your privacy, your private files, your passwords, accounts, personal data, love letters, medical information, financial information, browsing history, private pictures, etc. not falling into either corporate or criminal hands (via soon to be exploited security holes created by these exfiltration tools) you should consider removing all known telemetry tools from windows 7 and never updating to Windows 10. And consider suing Microsoft.

If you don’t care about privacy at all, I hear Windows 10 has a pretty GUI.

This script removes all the telemetry (trojan horse) “updates” Microsoft has tried to sneak in so far.

Sources:

https://gist.github.com/xvitaly/eafa75ed2cb79b3bd4e9
https://web.archive.org/web/20220807054618/https://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/a-complete-list-of-all-updates-you-should-uninstall-to-block-windows-10/
https://gessel.blackrosetech.com/2015/08/24/microsoft-spyware-now-being-installed-on-win-7

@echo off
echo Uninstalling KB3075249 (telemetry for Win7/8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3075249 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3080149 (telemetry for Win7/8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3080149 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3021917 (telemetry for Win7)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3021917 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3022345 (telemetry)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3022345 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3068708 (telemetry)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3068708 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3044374 (Get Windows 10 for Win8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3044374 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3035583 (Get Windows 10 for Win7sp1/8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3035583 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB2990214 (Get Windows 10 for Win7)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:2990214 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB2952664 (Get Windows 10 assistant)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:2952664 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3075853 (update for "Windows Update" on Win8.1/Server 2012R2)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3075853 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3065987 (update for "Windows Update" on Win7/Server 2008R2)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3065987 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3050265 (update for "Windows Update" on Win7)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3050265 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB971033  (license validation)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:971033 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB2902907 (description not available)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:2902907 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB2976987 (description not available)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:2976987 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB2976978 (compactibility update for Windows 8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:2976978 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3102810 (update for "Windows Update")
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3102810 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3112343 (Windows Update Client for Windows 7)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3112343 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3135445 (Windows Update Client for Windows 7)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3135445 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3123862 (Windows Update Client for Windows 7)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3123862 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3081954 (Telemetry Update for Windows 7)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3081954 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3139929 (Get Windows 10 update for MSIE)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3139929 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3138612 (Windows Update Client for Windows 7)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3138612 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3138615 (Windows Update Client for Windows 8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3138615 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3150513 (Compactibility Update (another GWX) for Windows 7/8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3150513 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3133977 (buggy update)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3173040 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3139923 (Another GWX for Windows 7/8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3139923 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3173040 (Another GWX for Windows 7/8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3173040 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3083710 (Another GWX for Windows 7/8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3083710 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3083324 (Another GWX for Windows 7/8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3083324 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3050267 (Another GWX for Windows 7/8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3050267 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3035583 (Another GWX for Windows 7/8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3035583 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3021917 (Another GWX for Windows 7/8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3021917 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3146449 (Another GWX for Windows 7/8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3146449 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3044374 (Another GWX for Windows 7/8.1)
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3044374 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3075249 (Another GWX for Windows 7/8.1
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3075249 /quiet /norestart
echo Uninstalling KB3123662 (Another GWX for Windows 7/8.1
start /w wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:3123662 /quiet /norestart

Posted at 15:40:47 GMT-0700

Category: Privacy • Technology

A utility for disabling Windows 10

Sunday, June 19, 2016

While there may be people who actually like Windows 10, there are also many people who aren’t interested in fully exposing every part of their digital life to for-profit mining as means of offsetting Microsoft’s declining profits in the desktop OS business, and if you’re one of those, fighting Microsoft’s truly viral (and malware) marketing techniques is quite a hassle. It appears there may be an easier way.

Micrsoft has finally provided an “easy” way for people to turn off windows OS update (e.g. from 7.x or 8.x to 10) from happening automatically and without user intervention (and frequently in outright defiance of clear user intent because profits first!)

The short form for people who are comfortable with some of the internal workings of Windows is:

Search for "edit group policy" and open the editor then follow the selection cascade as:

Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates 
-> windows Components -> Windows Update 
->> Turn off the upgrade to the latest version... ->> [x] enabled

The longer instructions are at this link: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

Easy, no?

I suggest doing this and then downloading and installing the following program. It will pretty much do the same thing but it also checks to see if Microsoft has already kindly filled your hard disk with malware without your permission and offers to delete it:

https://www.grc.com/never10.htm

Note that my previous posts about removing specific “updates” are still relevant. The above should prevent windows 10 from auto-updating but Microsoft has been pushing updates with “telemetry” to Win 7 and Win 8, which are also spyware and are tracking you and reporting your usage patterns back to Microsoft without telling you or asking you.

Welcome to the new economy: you’re the product.

Posted at 13:56:56 GMT-0700

Category: HowTo • Privacy • Security • Technology

Turn off windows update now!

Monday, March 14, 2016

If you haven’t already, turn off Windows update now. Microsoft has recently started installing Windows 10 spyware without consent. A good friend of mine had a bunch of systems at the company where he runs IT hacked by Microsoft over the weekend, which broke the certificate store for WPA-2 and thus their wifi connections.

To be clear, Windows 10 is spyware. Microsoft has changed their business model from selling a product to selling data – your data – to whoever they want. Windows 10 comes with a EULA that gives them the right to steal everything on your computer – your email, your private pictures, your home movies, your love letters, your medical records, your financial records – anything they want without telling you. “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.”

If this happens to you, I suggest contacting your state attorney general and filing a complaint against Microsoft. Hopefully a crushing class action suit or perhaps jail time for the executives that dreamed up this massive heist will help deter future corporate data thieves, though that’s certainly irrational optimism.

I wish I could recommend switching to Linux for everyone, but there’s a lot of software that still depends on Windows and a lot of users that will have a hard time migrating (developers: please stop developing for Microsoft). Apple seems unequivocally better in refusing to act as key player in bringing about Total Information Awareness. I’m not a huge fan of their walled garden and computers as overpriced fashion accessories approach, but it is far better than outright theft. For those that are slightly computer savvy, there’s Linux Mint, which is quite usable and genuinely free.

These instructions might help prevent that disaster of an update being visited upon you (and possibly law enforcement visits to come after Microsoft starts sifting through all your datas and forwarding on whatever they find). The latest reports suggest they aren’t enough, but it is the best I have found other than isolating your windows box from the internet completely.

Posted at 14:27:03 GMT-0700

Category: Negative • Privacy • Security • Technology

Windows 10 Privacy Annihilator

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Why would Microsoft, a company whose revenue comes entirely from sales of Windows and Office, start giving Windows 10 away – not just giving it away, but foisting it on users with unbelievably annoying integrated advertisements in the menu of Win 7/8 that pop up endlessly and are tedious to remove and reinstall themselves constantly?

Have they just gone altruistic? Decided that while they won’t make software free like speech, they’ll make it free like beer? Or is there something more nefarious going on? Something truly horrible, something that will basically screw over the entire windows-using population and sell them off like chattel to any bidder without consent or knowledge?

Of course, it is the latter.

Microsoft is a for-profit company and while their star has been waning lately and they’ve basically ceded the evil empire mantle to Apple, they desperately want to get into the game of stealing your private information and selling it to whoever is willing to pay.

So that’s what Windows 10 does. It enables Microsoft to steal all of your information, every email, photo, or document you have on your computer and exfiltrate it silently to Microsoft’s servers, and to make it legal they have reserved the right to give it to whoever they want. This isn’t just the information you stupidly gifted to Google by being dumb enough to use Gmail or ignorantly gifted to Apple by being idiotic enough to load into the iButt, but the files you think are private, on your computer, the ones you don’t upload. Microsoft gets those.

Finally, we will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary.

They’ll “access” your data and “disclose” it (meaning to a third party) whenever they have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary. No warrant needed. It is necessary for Microsoft to make a buck, so if a buck is offered for your data, they’re gonna sell it.

If you install Windows 10, you lose. So don’t. If you need to upgrade your operating system, it is time to switch to something that preserves Free like speech: Linux Mint is probably the best choice.

If you’re forced to run Windows 10 for some reason and can’t upgrade to windows 7, then follow these instructions (and these) and remain vigilant, Microsoft’s new strategy is to steal your data and sell it via any backdoor they can sneak past you. Locking them down is going to be a lot of work and might not be possible so keep an eye out for your selfies showing up on pr0n sites: they pay for pix and once you install Windows 10, Microsoft has every right to sell yours.

Update: you can’t stop windows 10 from stealing your private data

That’s not quite true – if you never connect your computer to a network, it is very unlikely that Microsoft will be able to secretly exfiltrate your private data through the Windows 10 trojan. However, it turns out that while the privacy settings do reduce the amount of data that gets sent back to Microsoft, they continue to steal your data even though you’ve told them not to.

Windows 10 is spyware. It is not an operating system, it is Trojan malware masquerading as an operating system that’s true purpose is to steal your data so Microsoft can sell it without your consent. If you install Windows 10, you are installing spyware.

Win 10 has apparently been installed 65 million times. That’s more than 3x as many users’ most intimate, most private data stolen as by the Ashley Madison attack. If you value privacy, if the idea that you might be denied a loan or insurance because of secret data stolen from your computer without your consent bothers you, if the idea of having evidence of your potential crimes shared with law enforcement without your knowledge and without a warrant worries you then do not install windows 10. Ever.

Posted at 11:00:30 GMT-0700

Category: Privacy • Technology