Windows 10 has been in the news lately because of fears that it transmits a lot of personal information from the computers, tablets and phones it runs on.

That’s concern enough, but the deeper problem is a lot more like power windows and door locks. In an effort to be ‘convenient,’ even helpful, modern computing devices bring along a lot of baggage and risks that consumers really don’t understand. Windows is just one of the latest, but 10 takes it to a new level.

While Microsoft and others really do want to data mine your activity to make money, there is a more fundamental shift. They are trying to improve the computing experience, to make it more integrated, and to be more helpful to the consumer. It isn’t necessarily malicious, but there are implications way beyond privacy.

Windows 10 is fundamentally different from earlier technology products in several ways

• it tracks your activity and personal information (if you let it)
• it is designed to be ‘live linked’ to online resources
• it constantly tries to modify itself to stay ‘current’
• it tries to anticipate your needs and do things automatically to be helpful
• it ‘assumes’ that you want all of this as a default

Windows and other computing platforms used to connect to online services as needed. As a consumer, you were generally aware that you were accessing remote resources. 10 changes all that. It integrates online resources into its basic operations. Its default settings include options to track your behavior, suggest content, target advertising and provide answers predicted by your behavior. It also continually updates itself at regular intervals.

The platform connects you to available open hot spots, and it shares resources with computers identified by your contacts list. It allows ‘friends’ devices to share your network access when they visit your home. It even goes so far as to have program updates get shared by other computers in your local network.

All this gets done without any effort on your part. That may all sound wonderful, but it has drawbacks. With all the activity you may find that 10 is taxing your network. According to The Hacker News, even with all the privacy options enabled, 10 will contact external servers 5,500 times per day! Add three computers to your home LAN; they all start chattering; and, you suddenly have a lot of network traffic.

With all this ‘activity’ 10 will

• use a lot of network bandwidth with endless communication
• potentially disrupt your work or apps with automatic updates
• create a greater opportunity to be hacked with all the communication
• expose your device(s) by connecting to open hot spots
• risk your device(s) by allowing other computers to use your network
• obscure when you are connecting to outside resources
• transport your personal information around putting it at risk
• freely update guest computers with your network via peer to peer distribution

Perhaps worst of all, the platform does all this automatically. Some of the options can be turned off, but a basic installation turns these features on by default. If hackers break into the inter-system communications, any corruption or malware would be spread like wildfire.

Assuming that no one would or will hack into this infrastructure seems foolhardy. Forcing this risk on consumers without their understanding is unfair and irresponsible.

For more understanding check out:

PCWorld: How to reclaim your privacy in Windows 10, piece by piece

The Hacker News: Windows 10 Sends Your Data 5500 Times Every Day After Tweaking Settings

ars technica: Even when told not to, Windows 10 just can’t stop talking to Microsoft

Slate: Broken Windows Theory

isleaked.com: fix windows 10 (see settings screens)

As Always, Happy Computing!

It even allowed us to leave the office on holidays and enjoy a festive green screen at home. (you are old too if you got that one) That was fine, but it was complicated and not a tool that went much beyond programmers and system administrators.

Remote access used to mean connecting and working on one computer, probably with a slow terminal session. Today, high speed communications allow file sharing, remote system control, remote printing, shared sessions, virtual meetings, and a host of other services.

With today’s communication technology, remote access is now a practical, even necessary, tool for most people and organizations. It has become so pervasive or invasive that we have radically changed the way we work, play and do business. It’s not just for techies any more.

In our business we now work with more people remotely than we do in person. We have completed entire projects without meeting people face to face. We have met other customers, but we may not see them again in person, literally for years.

Just in our firm alone, we regularly use the following technologies to work with non-technical customers: (Cisco VPN, GotoAssist, GotoMeeting, OpenVPN, Remote Desktop, Skype, VNC, Zoom and VOIP phones)

That is a large mix of tools, but we are a technology company that deals with a lot of companies with specific requirements. Most companies can still benefit from a smaller mix of services. Using even a limited set of remote work tools allows companies to

• provide flex time for employees (work when needed)
• reduce real estate costs (people work off site)
• reach customers beyond their immediate area
• leverage technology provided by other firms
• connect remote locations like one group
• provide remote customer support

Adopting the correct tool set can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be expensive. There are viable options for any sized organization even with a modest budget.

Employing simple services like GotoMeeting, GotoMyPC, and a VOIP phone solution can even make a small company a lot more effective.

A larger organization with more staff may find it cheaper and want to use a VPN instead. We have employed OpenVPN, which has a very reasonable price, with great success.

Some organizations may find that tailored remote/cloud based tools enhance their business. These may not replace a current mix of business solutions, but they may help to eliminate manual processes in spreadsheets. With remote access to tailored ‘helper’ applications, a company can be more consistent, and even offsite staff can be granted access to consistent tools.

Spend some time considering your business process. Remote capabilities may give you some of the tools to expand your business and reduce the cost of running it.

At ICAL, we not only produce environments and solutions that leverage remote technologies, we run our business on them. We couldn’t exist without them.

If you decide that your business might benefit from the addition of remote work capabilities, we can help. call us.

Happy Computing!

We developed a set of tools that listen for those signals just like a doctor might listen to your heart.

The ‘Heartbeat Monitor’ can be configured to take several different actions when a monitored program fails to signal or signal correctly. Specifically, the monitor can:

• log an event
• allow several failures before acting
• notify ICAL staff by text or email
• restart a program that has failed
• do nothing

There are both commercial and open source tools that do similar things, but they are more focused on data center management, not application monitoring. Most provide a lot of abilities we don’t need, and each lacked a few features that make it easier to watch our monitored applications.

The monitor program and the tools that were needed for each program to talk to it were developed over a year. We began of defining a simple protocol in 2014. In June of 2015, we started testing the process on some of our existing hosted applications.

For ICAL, this means we can can maintain more applications with less resources. For customers, we can keep our costs lower while providing better service. We don’t have to pay people to check things 24 hours a day. We do have programs that can.

If you have business application needs Contact Us.

Happy Computing!