[Eilif]

UPDATE: 5th February 2015
KB2952664 triggers daily telemetry run in Windows 7 (Basically snooping your data and collects information to make Windows 10 upgrade more attractive to other Microsoft users)
KB3123862 the "mystery patch" which swaps your explorer.exe, explorerFrame.dll, shell32.dll, authui.dll to support "updated telemetry" aka. snooping.

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Microsoft very recently released 2 updates called KB3075249 and KB3080149. The second one is especially suspicious because it expands the functionality of already existing feature called "Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program", which is enabled by default on your Windows under many navigation panels.

UPDATE: 2th September 2015

Microsoft Released 2 more KB updates with same functionality. These are:

KB3068708
KB3022345

Both of these new ones are configured to bypass hosts files as well. (You can't block them in hosts)

Having these installed will result your computer calling home into following addresses:

vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
settings-win.data.microsoft.com

Suggestion:
1. Un-install both KB updates and/or hide the said updates so they don't get installed onto your system.
2. if you haven't already, disable the "Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program" participation access from your system.
2.1 To do so, navigate to: Control panel -> System and Security -> Action Center -> Change Action Center Settings -> Customer Experience Improvement Program ->



select "No" and apply.

Update: 24th November 2015

For Win10 users!

After Threshold 2 update (aka. November 1511 update), you guys might want to disable "Connected User Experiences and Telemetry" (formely known as: "Diagnostics Tracking Service").

This can be done from "services.msc". You should see "Connected User Experiences and Telemetry", or whatever the translation is in your language.

[Niko]

Damn, never thought any shit like this would happen with Windows 7. Thanks for the heads up on this one.

[thales]

Good thing I have a mac 🤝

[ze-slade]

Good thing I have a mac 🤝

Apple is probably doing the same.
Op, I'm awaiting for this to be surfaced for windows 8 and 8.1.

[ZuGgY]

Well I was already not participating in the program but will uninstalled them now.
Thanks for the info!

EDIT: Apparently never even installed them yet, I guess I still have updates to install now (I haven't checked for them for a while now).

[blackhawk101]

when it means no really means its still turned on.

never trust something that say you can disable when you can not.

thanks for the information

[_NY_]

Apple is probably doing the same.
Op, I'm awaiting for this to be surfaced for windows 8 and 8.1.

it's already in the process of being pushed to earlier versions of Windows
if not already done
I'm just sitting over here with my hardened+pure64 encrypted Funtoo installation, I love being free from the restraints that are Microsoft

[Paul Wilson]

Thanks for this, I have windows 8.1 on my desktop and ubuntu on my laptop (learning the ropes of linux)
My privacy is fucked on windows and safe on linux :)

[netFaux]

thanks for this, just removed it from my pc.

['OverSight]

Well I was already not participating in the program but will uninstalled them now.
Thanks for the info!

EDIT: Apparently never even installed them yet, I guess I still have updates to install now (I haven't checked for them for a while now).

Same here. I dont even have it. LOL.

[SystemR]

Thanks for information :)

[Private Network]

Apple is doing the same.
Op, I'm awaiting for this to be surfaced for windows 8 and 8.1.

Fixed it for you.

Some old article that I know doesn't directly have anything to do with Apple but you cannot say they aren't spying on you.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/28517/...on-you.htm

[Pr0m3th3us]

Appreciate it OP.

PS: both are under the optional updates section

[Eilif]

Update!! Microsoft released 2 more of these snooping updates.

Un-install ASAP! If you care about your privacy.

[Ghanem]

What about KB3092627, which came out yesterday?
They said it's to fix a problem with another update but I'm suspicious.