Rumour: M$WinME spies on us?

Hi there

Just picked up another rumour:

I don't have WinME and i did not read their EULA. A friend of mine took some time and went through it to find a critical point:

I believe you know the function of ME to send an error report. In the EULA they say that in this error report there might be data that shouldn't be there. They just explain that data from your HDD or from RAM could be in this report (for sure they say as well that it is not intentionally).

What about this one? Did anyone have experiences with this? I would appreciate every information!


Thx,
Sledge

Just another reason to add to the long list of why ME is the worst OS ever.

Uh, isn't that the same type of hardware reporting required to register Win XP? Kinda funny that an OS a generation or two previous to XP would be showing signs of transmitting data of this nature and have it be called a bug..

Quote:

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Originally posted here by Sledge
In the EULA they say that in this error report there might be data that shouldn't be there. They just explain that data from your HDD or from RAM could be in this report (for sure they say as well that it is not intentionally).



Thx,
Sledge

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what KIND of data....?

Quote:

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what KIND of data

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Pornographic material I would imagine.

but what if i dont have any porn on my pc, what else can they get?

I wonder why in ME error reporting is automatic, but in XP it asks you if you want to send an error report. I hate when it brings up that stupid dialog box.

I'm willing to bet if for example, Internet Explorer crashed, it would send the address that you were at when the crash occured. If that site was, say, risque, they would know about it. It might even send a cookie or two to MS also.

Jan: Don't try to fool anybody, we know you do have porno on ya PC. Trying to act all innocent and junk. :)

The error reporting sends information regarding what programs were running when the error occured, possibly a snap shot of what's stored in RAM that could cause a problem, etc. Honestly, I never really saw a point to reporting my errors to Microsoft. If I have a problem, I know it probably has something to do with something I did (I've been setting up my own NT/2K-based machines for years now so I have them pretty much figured out inside and out) and I simply have all error reporting disabled.

AJ

If my memory of the bug reporting to M$ worked. If you were say in a word document and Word crashed out then not only the fact of the crash was/is reported but also the content of that document. This may not be good if you are working on a docuement at work that may hold inside stuff about your work or the company you work for, same thing in Excel and Access. If your in IE then yep the cache of where you visited is sent along to M$. Then throw in their media player that reports to M$ every music CD you put into your computer to lidten to while you work. But this is not just an M$ thing just about any new equipment and software you buy now days phones home. I bought a new printer about a year ago a Lexmark and the damn printer wanted to phone home. Packet sniffer told me they wanted to know ink levels and what I was printing. Needless to say took it back to Costco told them the problem. It is not unlike if you start your car does it report to all the people that make the parts you just started your car..answer is nope not yet but they are working on it. Try going to http://****microsoft.com/ learn about the hidden files and how to remove them and other antics of M$.

Personally, I consider every version of Windows 9x a Trojan Horse program. As Palemoon said, go to http://****microsoft.com/ and u will see why I think that. It logs every friggin page you have ever visited along w/ lots of other stuff. And yes, M$ tries very hard to keep those files hidden. But M$ is not the only one invading our privacy, spyware, adware, etc, all log information that other people really should not know. Whatever the case, our privacy is been invaded and its not right, but as usual, its legal. But hey, this could be a whole new topic. (Which I'm sure has been covered here @ AO already.) I really wouldn't doubt that M$ is taking information from our computers they shouldn't know about, but I don't really worry about it that much. Just think of how many reports they get in a day. Think of how many people use their products. Millions. Not like they're gonna know you by your first name and become friends w/ your boss! (And for some people, that could be a very bad thing. lol)

Perhaps a trifle paranoid.
If a piece of MS software (or any other vendor come to that) crashes, then you usually have the option of reporting it, together with debugging info that was collected at the time.
Any decent debugger running under Windows/*nix/mainframe etc. will have captured any data it thinks might be relevant which will include bits of RAM & temporary files.
It's up to you whether or not you want to pass your debug report on - and normally you have the option of saving it first, and seeing if it contains any data that you consider sensitive.
If you are in a work environment and have encountered a new problem then yes, you will pass this info on. At home, probably no point, as it is almost certain someone else has already discovered the problem, and you can download a patch to fix it.

I have the unfortunality (is that a word?) of running Win ME on my system. All i know is that now when it crashes, I'm not sending an error report. I never trusted it anyway.

yeah i'm running ME too. MS must recieve millions of reports a day based on the amount of errors i get. I'd imagine most of it is for marketing, but i'm not sure.