C. Mitchell Shaw  – The Windows 10 update that turns your PC into a portal for spying on you was just the beginning of what Microsoft is doing. As more and more people begin to adopt Windows 10 — whether by buying a new PC or via Microsoft’s “free” upgrade — the Redmond Giant is building on that foundation to further violate users’ privacy and liberty.

In what may be one of the most confusing moves the software empire has ever made, Microsoft has begun rolling out updates for Windows 10 that contain none of the release notes users have been accustomed to. Now the description of the update simply says, “This update includes improvements to enhance the functionality of Windows 10.” With so little information, users are left to wonder what the update does and how important it is. Since many (most) users have updates set to install automatically, these “secret recipe” updates are especially troubling. This is a new policy for the company, which has said that the only updates that will include release notes are those the company decides warrant them. That means that the functions of the vast majority of updates will be unknown to most users. Microsoft points out that the updates can be searched on the company’s knowledge base, but this requires that users make note of the filename of the update (for instance, KB 3081424) and search it on the knowledge base.

In previous versions of Windows, these release notes were delivered to the user along with the update. This allowed users to have at least some idea what was going on with their PCs. As it stands now, users have to take the time to search for that information — if they can even find it. Even though Microsoft claims that nothing has really changed in the level of information that is provided about updates, the reality is that the changes are like night and day. For instance, here is the description of the KB 3081424 update for Windows 10, which was rolled out on August 5: Continue reading →