it is quite reasonable to be worried

About what, exactly?

No server is 100% secure. I have nothing on my PC that I care that much about, but some people do. It should be a concern that Microsoft can, on a whim, ferry away a copy of a random file from your drive to a random server for unknown reasons. Why do they feel the need to do this? What if the file they copy has sensitive financial data and their servers get hacked? What benefit is this data to Microsoft?

All of that is still beside the point. Microsoft doesn't have the right to the data on my drives, regardless of the EULA. It is MY data. I'm not 100% opposed to the collection of telemetry data, so long as it is Windows specific and doesn't contain personal data of mine, but Microsoft doesn't make that guarantee.

Are you involved in treason or sedition via email? Is your hard drive full of pirated software or kiddy porn?

If not, then this is all merely a philosophical debate, and while I agree that corporations and governments shouldn't spy on their customers/citizens... It's not like I'm going to lose sleep over the fact that they do.

See, it is just this shitty attitude that is wrong: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Well fuck it.

If you are innocent, nobody has a right to violate your health, your liberty, or your privacy. It's nobody's fucking business what's on your computer, whom you call on the telephone, where you go, or whom you maybe date. And you are innocent unless there is conclusive proof that you aren't. Until then, it's your darn right to make a secret of anything you do or own, and it's your right to stay unharmed and unpersecuted.

Every country that calls itself "civilized" has agreed to this, at least on paper.

Even Microsoft saying "will share that data if we deem it necessary" is an insult. They are in no fucking position to judge whether it's necessary.

Everything else is simply a perversion of civil rights.

If you are innocent, nobody has a right to violate your health, your liberty, or your privacy. It's nobody's fucking business what's on your computer, whom you call on the telephone, where you go, or whom you maybe date. And you are innocent unless there is conclusive proof that you aren't. Until then, it's your darn right to make a secret of anything you do or own, and it's your right to stay unharmed and unpersecuted.

As I said, I agree, at least in principle.

However, the fact remains that I make my living in the field of software development, and as such, I don't have the ability to refuse to use the majority operating system purely out of principle.

The government spies on people via their telephone calls. Have you stopped using the telephone? Or switched to prepaid burner phones that you rotate on a weekly basis? If not, I'd say you are being a tad hypocritical about Windows telemetry.

The government spies on people via their telephone calls. Have you stopped using the telephone? Or switched to prepaid burner phones that you rotate on a weekly basis? If not, I'd say you are being a tad hypocritical about Windows telemetry.

I still use the phone. It isn't hypocritical. I can do nothing, short of refraining from using electronic devices, to stop NSA snooping. This is different though. Microsoft has no legitimate need of personal data, and yet they collect it. While I very much disagree with the NSA spying, I can at least see the potential need. There are real threats they are trying to protect us from. I despise their methods, but I do understand them. Microsoft has no need for any personal information from my PC. There is no problem they can solve by sending a random file of mine to their servers or by sharing it with a third party.

it is quite reasonable to be worried

About what, exactly?

Could Microsoft copy all your files to a remote server? Sure, at least in theory. But what exactly do they have to gain by doing so?

Are you involved in treason or sedition via email? Is your hard drive full of pirated software or kiddy porn?

If not, then this is all merely a philosophical debate, and while I agree that corporations and governments shouldn't spy on their customers/citizens... It's not like I'm going to lose sleep over the fact that they do.

Until the point comes where you need to engage in sedition. Or when you need to maintain commercial secrets from your US competitors.
The right to privacy should be held higher than the right to bear arms when it comes to insurance against tyranny. Tea Party idiots should be foaming.

As mentioned earlier, it's not just the terrorisms and sepratists and paedobears. If you're working for a non-US high tech company (telecommunications, aerospace, defence, crypto, energy, etc) then you're a target. Or if you're an activist of any kind, or a journalist, or a "lefty intellectual" with an audience, work on key open-source libraries, involved in petty crimes, facilitate IP infringement (even via legal loopholes), or if you publically sympathise with Palestinians, Syrians, Iranians, Russians, etc...

There's people out there trying to publicise the fact that the empire overthrows democracies, installs nazis, funds islamists, knowingly breaks the laws of war, kills journalists and doctors, tortures, kidnaps, basically does whatever it takes to ensure that the empire grows in strength and that it's competitors are contained. And these people are treated as traitors - they are spied on, framed, hunted, destroyed, even to the point where it's acceptable for politicians and pundits to publicly state their desire for assassinations of such truth-seeking "traitors". And MS is now working as a tool of that empire.
When it comes time for sedition, keep a 90's era Linux dual boot and a sneakernet handy :lol:

The only thing i am concerned and that what should really matter is if they, steal your project, hire 10000 monkeys to write your game/app in shorter time and you will be left with nothing.

Second thing imagine i have my photos i rather do not want to be pinned as this computer is this guy from jpg file. ;x but since i dont store any of photos except my cat photos then i dont care they can download kitten photos as much as they want :X

stealing software code is what concerns me.

every non us institution that uses win 10 will be freely sending data about their every citizen to us gov, no wonder why russia hates uSSmans

The only thing i am concerned and that what should really matter is if they, steal your project, hire 10000 monkeys to write your game/app in shorter time and you will be left with nothing.

So you seriously, honestly think you are a high profile enough target for them to personally be reading the contents of your hard disk and stealing your project?

Yeah, I'm sure MS has nothing better to do with its billions than to spy on every windows user, personally view and decide what to do with every file ever created and get away with mass theft of intellectual property.

I'm also sure that the government has nothing better to do either.

Get real.

They gather all information, then they just try to update the database when theres need, potentially they can even steal you bank account, potentially they have more intel to attack every country that uses win10, or lets say X ussman company wants an intelligence about y company in europe when will they transfer some data or overtake or whatever info that makes X ussman company more and more money, they steal it and they buy the z company or y company for profit.

Hostile overtake, and everything legal, spying on other country politics, without involving any more than 10 humans. And in fact everything is legal, even if its not.

They gather all information, then they just try to update the database when theres need, potentially they can even steal you bank account, potentially they have more intel to attack every country that uses win10, or lets say X ussman company wants an intelligence about y company in europe when will they transfer some data or overtake or whatever info that makes X ussman company more and more money, they steal it and they buy the z company or y company for profit.

Hostile overtake, and everything legal, spying on other country politics, without involving any more than 10 humans. And in fact everything is legal, even if its not.

This is where things get silly.

There are legitimate concerns about the default privacy setttings, the fact that they're scattered across multiple control panels, the lack of clarity about what is or isn't sent, but when you go to this kind of level you essentially just become a walking reductio ad absurdum for the whole thing.

You'd do better to make noise about the real problems that do exist rather than stoking the flames of paranoia and FUD. At least you might stand a better chance of getting a meaningful result, instead of just making yourself look ridiculous.

The only thing i am concerned and that what should really matter is if they, steal your project, hire 10000 monkeys to write your game/app in shorter time and you will be left with nothing.

Why do they need to steal your project to do that? A competent dev team can already replicate your game idea in half the time it'll take you to build it - hell, Zynga built their entire business model on duplicating every game that made it to the top of the appstore charts.

potentially they can even steal you bank account

Why would they? What would a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation care about the small amount of money in your personal bank account? And the government already has access - it's called "taxes", and a "social security number".

There are many legitimate reasons to be concerned about government and corporate spying: in the past people have been discriminated against, or had their lives endangered for the mere suspicion of being Jewish, or homosexual, or belonging to the Communist Party (to name just a few)...

Adding pointless FUD to the discussion makes your case weaker, not stronger.