Ethical Hacking:

About Windows 10: Microsoft can track your keystrokes, your speech, and more. It’s a critical
problem.

Read More: It's funny and equally sad that year 2015 marks the end of the Windows OS for a lot of
people. There are several issues with Windows which, at present, make Spyware/Malware OS 10
inappropriate and even outright dangerous for a lot of people. The most egregious, of course, is a
total abandonment of any form of privacy and control.

Firstly, Microsoft openly stated that pervasive data Microsoft: 'We finally fixed everything in Windows
10'

View this page source code to find the source of this picture collection will be present in any Windows
version starting from Windows 10 and as a host of research on the Internet shows, this data
collection cannot be disabled using official means. If you decide to disable total tracking (including
keyboard scanning and voice recording) you'll have to disable over a hundred different Internet
addresses and then no one guarantees that a new Windows update doesn't add new hosts because
Microsoft surely is not interested in losing such a lucrative feature meant for Big Brother agencies.
Read the rest of the article for official Microsoft statements and for various information on how
Windows breaches you privacy and how you might try to control it (it's almost futile btw).

Secondly, Microsoft has stripped us of controlling Windows updates. It was ostensibly done to
improve the user experience by keeping the system up to date and perhaps malware free, but the
truth is that a built-in antimalware protection in Windows is simply horrible (according to various AV
comparisons Microsoft Essentials misses over 20% of in the wild malware) and said updates mean
nothing for security because over 90% of infections happen due to the user actions (like downloading
and installing dubious applications). No Windows update can prevent such a behaviour.

Thirdly, as Microsoft has stated multiple times, Windows 10 will not have any service packs,
Windows 10 is the final version of Windows, because Windows 10 has become a service, it will be
updated over time to bring new features and remove the old ones. Windows 10 you might have
updated to in July 2015 will be a different OS than Windows 10 plus all its updates a year later.

You may probably want to know why Windows 10 feels so buggy. Here's a very nice quote:

Full Disclosure: I worked at M$ from 2014-2015.

 MS has some very talented programmers. They're not very common, but they exist. The problem is that the entire
company is completely and totally focused on developing an absurd number of new features and products, giving them
completely unrealistic deadlines, and then shipping software on those deadlines no matter how half-assed or buggy it
is.

The idea is that everything is serviceable over the internet now, so they can just "fix it later", except they never do.
This perpetuates a duct-tape culture that refuses to actually fix problems and instead rewards teams that find ways to
work around them. The talented programmers are stuck working on code that, at best, has to deal with multiple badly
designed frameworks from other teams, or at worst work on code that is simply scrapped. New features are prioritized
over all but the most system-critical bugs, and teams are never given any time to actually focus on improving their
code. The only improvements that can happen must be snuck in while implementing new features.

As far as M$ is concerned, all code is shit, and the only thing that matters is if it works well enough to be shown at
a demo and shipped. Needless to say, I don't work there anymore.

In a new, not that unexpected, turn of events Microsoft now foists ads as part of ... security updates for Windows
7 and 8/8.1 (KB3139929 which says nothing about this new "feature"). People were afraid but never believed it would
happen. It now has.

So, there are two kinds of issues with the Windows operating system created by Microsoft. The first kind is the
issues intrinsic to every Windows version starting from Windows Vista (XP is out of circulation and support so let's forget
about it).

Problems which are present in every version of Windows for PC

o Devastating Windows rot (might be solved in future Windows releases if developers switch from Win32
to UWP).
o No enforced file system and registry hierarchy (I have yet to find a single serious application which can
uninstall itself cleanly and fully). The $USER directory in Windows, specially in Windows 10, is an inexplicable
mess.
o svchost.exe (the whole philosophy of preserving RAM this way became outdated years ago).
o No true safe mode (rogue applications may easily run in it).
o No clean state (for most OEM installations out there). This will be finally solved in new Windows 10
builds.
o The user as a system administrator (thus viruses/malware - most users don't and won't understand
UAC warnings).
o No good packaging mechanism (MSI is way too fragile).
o No system wide update mechanism (which includes third party software - to be fair there are 3d party
applications which offer this functionality, but then such applications don't support core Windows updates).
o In certain cases it's extremely difficult to find or update drivers for your hardware devices (anyone
who's tried to install a fresh Windows onto their laptop will testify).
o Windows is extremely difficult to debug (e.g. try finding out why your system is slow to boot).
o Windows boot problems are too often fatal and unsolvable unless you reinstall from scratch.
o Windows is hardware dependent (especially when running from UEFI).
o Windows updates are terribly unreliable, very slow (to install) and they also waste disk space. The only
released Windows 7 SP1 cumulative update, totally breaks the Windows Updates service (the worst piece of
software in the human history). This issue is now two months old and Microsoft doesn't even apologize for it.
Literally billions of watts of energy are spent and they don't give a damn! Did Microsoft fire everyone in their
QA/QC department?
o Windows cannot replace system DLLs on the fly and restart corresponding services which depend on
said DLLs due to its architecture. As a result some system updates require multiple reboots (innocuous
malevolence in me requires to mention that in Linux you can even update the kernel on the fly).
o Windows keeps trying to reinstall failed updates over and over (in certain cases every such cycle of
"updating" can render you PC disabled for hours!).
o There's no way to cleanly upgrade your system (there will be thousands of leftovers), etc.
o Windows OS installer doesn't give a damn about other OSes installed on your PC and it always
overwrites the MBR. In case of already existing Windows installations, it sets the newly installed Windows as
the default OS - no questions asked. In case of UEFI booting of other non Windows OSes is unsupported and
Windows actively prevents this.
 o WinSxS, though a neat idea, turned into some madness: Windows keeps the versions of files the
user won't ever need: for instance the English version of Windows will have copies of files for many other
languages irrespective of the chosen locale or MUI.
o Cryptic error messages (considering the size of the OS, >9GB as of Windows 10, this practice is simply
ridiculous).
o Most malware writers target Windows as the most popular desktop OS, so it has the biggest number of
viruses among all other OSes (over five thousand new viruses daily).
o Windows loves thrashing your HDD.
o Microsoft programmers are still unable to cope with NTFS fragmentation 25 years after its introduction.
To make things worse most Windows applications do not preallocate files thus they contribute to fragmentation
even more.
o Windows anti-virus products oftentimes make your PC less safe - so if you want perfect security and
privacy, stop using Windows and migrate to Linux right away. OEM updaters make your PC wide open for
attacks.
o Microsoft has recently decided that you would no longer be able to download certain Windows updates
manually. You'll only be able to get them via Windows Update.
o Microsoft has gone crazy: Windows 10 is now a recommended update for all Windows 7/8.1 users
unless you're running their Enterprise versions. That means your computer will automatically update to
Windows 10 unless you either disable the Windows Update service completely or set Windows updates to the
manual mode.
o In May 2016 Microsoft started deceptively updating users' PCs to Windows 10 regardless of your
Automatic Windows Updates settings or the way you interact with the GWX application.
Now the second kind of issues is intrinsic to Windows 10 only

o Windows 10 spies on you and even more so on your children aka phones home (welcome
NSA/CIA/thoughtcrime/1984)! Microsoft added spying features to Windows 7/8.1as well (more general list).
Microsoftofficially admits that automatic spying cannot be disabled in Windows 10.
The official Microsoft guide on Windows 10 telemetry settings contains this beautiful tidbit: "Ability to gather
user content, such as documents, if they might have been the trigger for the issue". Now, Microsoft states that
user files can be requested only on the "Full" level of telemetry, however you need to bear in mind that this
feature is built-in, it's remotely triggered, and it can be used to get any of your data any time they want.
o Wow, just wow: Microsoft now openly publishes its collected data in regard to Windows 10 users:
o "Over 44.5 billion minutes spent in Microsoft Edge across Windows 10 devices in just the last
month" - we spy on Edge users.
o "Over 82 billion photos viewed within the Windows 10 Photo app" - you're using our Gallery
app, right? Great!
o "Gaming continues to grow on Windows 10 – in 2015, gamers spent over 4 billion hours playing
PC games on Windows 10" - we now know what apps you're running and for how long.
o Starting October 2016 telemetry(spying) became impossible to disable in Windows 7 and 8.1 because
Microsoftchanged the way it distributes updates for these two operating systems.
o Microsoft's EULA grants Microsoft the rights to use any of your content related to the services like Bing,
Cortana (a built-in file indexer and search in Windows 10), OneDrive or Skype: "you grant to Microsoft a
worldwide and royalty-free intellectual property license to use Your Content". You can read
Microsoft's response here which paints everything in a positive light however after Snowden's leaks it's hard if
not impossible to take them seriously.
o Microsoft pushes Windows 10 so hard it actually started spreading FUD even about its own older OSes:
o Microsoft started lying through their teeth about Windows 7: "We do worry when people are
running an operating system that's 10 years old that the next printer they buy isn't going to work well,
or they buy a new game, they buy Fallout 4, a very popular game, and it doesn't work on a bunch of
older machines. And so, as we are pushing our software vendors and hardware partners to build great
new stuff that takes advantage of Windows 10 that obviously makes the old stuff really bad and not to
mention viruses and security problems".
o Egregious lying continues: Microsoft falsely states that newer Intel and AMD CPUs will only be
supported by Windows 10. If that were actually true you wouldn't be able to run MS-DOS on Intel
Skylake yet you perfectly can (edit: later Microsoft reneged on not supporting Skylake CPUs). Perhaps
they are talking about new advanced features of the said CPUs, but their wording means the opposite:
like you cannot physically run any older Windows releases on these new CPUs.
o Microsoft desperately wants to install Windows 10 on pretty much all computers running
Windows 7/8/8.1, even though some older hardware is not compatible with Windows 10 due to missing
 drivers. In certain cases drivers for Windows 10 are buggy and incomplete, which means after
upgrading you end up with a broken PC you cannot use or its features don't work like they should.
o Microsoft has lost its mind and they now aggressively try to foist/force Windows 10 on
unsuspecting users. Oh, it's now official: they will forcefully install it everywhere they can in 2016.
o Windows 10 will forever be beta software:
o A new model of development with no Windows 11 in sight.
o Two Control Panels (read below).
o Microsoft hides the information about Windows 10 updates, so oftentimes you won't even know
what certain updates are aimed to fix or improve. Also Windows 10 updates may have unintended
consequences and unannounced changes in behaviour (it's already been confirmed).
o Microsoft sometimes pushes half-baked updates which kill end-users' PCs or cause a lot of
damage (this is a wonderful read). Make sure you also read an article about the clusterfuck
called Anniversary Update - there are numerous reports that the installer kills all the partitions which
Windows doesn't know about (Linux users beware).
o Windows 10 anniversary update broke millions of web cameras.
o GWX application updates the PCs which are incompatible with Windows 10 because there are
no drivers available for PC components or periphery devices like printers/scanners/etc.
o You've got no real control over crucial features of the OS:
o Windows 10 will have no service packs which means it will always be a work in progress and
you are a perpetual beta tester.
o Forced updates you cannot opt out of (and Microsoft have borked quite a lot of them recently
so prepare to see your Windows die after installing a new portion of updates - actually Microsoft has
already borked one update, read horror stories about KB3081424).
o Safe Mode has become impossible to access unless you've booted into ... the running OS which
totally defeats its purpose. Also Safe Mode is hidden behind almost a dozen of steps vs. a single F8 key
press on boot in every Windows version from 95 to 7.
o Windows 10 anniversary update makes it very difficult (read impossible for average users)
to disable Cortana.
o Windows 10 violates the basic networking principles: it ignores the hosts files, the DNS protocol
and firewall rules and sends telemetry data regardless.
o Microsoft says that there will be at least two service updates (or whatever their names are) for Windows
every year, and each update is basically a new version of Windows, so:
o Twice per year you may reinstall software deemed not required by Microsoft.
o Some features you grew dependent on will be removed without providing any alternatives.
o Your preferences will be reset to default, so you'll need to go through them regularly.
o Some Metro applications will be reinstalled if you deleted them previously. New wonderful Metro
applications will be installed.
o Expect your group policy settings and tweaks to be completely removed or changed and the
only way to get them back is to upgrade to Windows 10 Enterprise.
o Certain software titles and drivers will cease to work.
 o Windows 10 features terrible UI inconsistency, not limited to:

o Two kinds of fonts antialiasing (ClearType v2 for classic applications and some awful dirty
grayish something for Modern apps). Truth to be told it's not a problem with HiDPI monitors but few
people own them.
o All kinds of varying visual decorations and styles (some people have discovered up to seven
varying styles in Windows 10).
o Absolutely dissimilar classic and modern (PC settings) control panels.
o Different fonts faces and sizes all around.
o Different styles of settings for modern apps.
o Absolutely different context menus and their appearance in different applications and apps.
o Terrible hardly configurable appearance, dubious design choices and extremely limited functionality (vs
Windows 7/XP):
o Two Control Panels with absolutely zero thought given to how they differ and why each one
should be used.
o Some Control Widgets are spread between the two Control Panels which is utterly confusing
(e.g. Users Management).
o No Windows classic UI for windows decorations. Windows decorations can hardly be configured
at all in Windows 10.
o An awful choice of colors/palette.
o Absolutely awful, childish and amateurish icons (the current release features slightly better
icons) as if we live in the era of 8bit displays (only rivalled by those in Windows 3.1 from 1992).
Windows 2000 in 1999 looked better than Windows 10 in 2015.
o A big number of Windows 10 apps are still NOT on par with their classical counterparts from
Windows 7/Vista/XP (many features are missing or many options are not configurable).
o The start menu is an unusable abomination. Sometimes classic Win32 applications are not listed
anywhere. Applications are listed as a list which is nigh impossible to scroll.
o Windows 10 sucks terribly if you are an unlucky user of a metered Internet connection:
o It features huge mandatory system and apps updates (you cannot disable them, you can only
postpone the system reboot after their installation). A note for smug commentators: certain home
users/companies use a 3G uplink connection (for instance via a router which supports USB 3G modems),
which means Windows 10 doesn't and cannot know how it's connected to the Internet.
o As if it wasn't enough, Windows 10 gets downloaded automatically if you run Windows 7 or 8.1.
We are talking about 3-6 gigabytes of data some people absolutely do not need.
o It uses your free bandwidth to distribute updates to other users nearby you.
o Windows 10 Pro edition has become more or less unsuitable for small enterprises because Windows 10
anniversary update removes the ability to disable the following "features" (more like annoyances):
 o Microsoft Consumer Experience: personalized recommendations or, in simple terms, ads in the
start menu.
o Windows Tips.
o The Lock Screen.
o Disable all apps from the Windows Store.

To disable these "features" you will have to purchase a subscription for Windows 10 Enterprise or Education
editions.

o Interesting (read awful) features for developers and power users:

o Visual Studio 2015 C++ compiler secretly inserts telemetry code into binaries.
o Windows 10 anniversary update blocks all drivers which are not signed by Microsoft. At the
moment the ext2fsd driver and VirtualBox will cease to function.
o In Windows 10 certain not so old games and applications either do not work or have severe problems.
o Windows 10 shows full screen ads on your lock screen.
o A new shocker: Windows 10 installs apps behind your back without your approval. The first Windows
anniversary update without asking first reinstalls Skype and auto logins you.
o Windows 10 resets your default applications to built-in Microsoft's ones after each major update.
o With Wi-Fi sense enabled anyone you have in your Skype, Outlook or Hotmail contacts lists — and any
of your Facebook friends — can be granted automatic access to your Wi-Fi network as long as they're within
range.
o A newly created user profile weighs over 300MB (!) while containing zero (!) information about the
user.
o A newly created user profile is populated with all the default apps instead of giving the user a choice.
Some ways to fix/configure Windows 10

o Do not install it or upgrade to it if you're running Windows 7/8.1. If you did, read further.
o Install Classic Shell aka Windows 7 (XP) Start Menu for Windows 10.
o Uninstall/remove most built-in Metro/Modern apps in Windows 10 (quiet a lot of them are immutable
and cannot be uninstalled no matter what):
o Fire up administrator's PowerShell (Start -> Search -> Power -> Right mouse click -> Run as
Administrator).
o Run (copy and paste):
Get-AppXPackage -User | Remove-AppxPackage (remove the user's apps)
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage (remove all system wide apps)
o Disable Windows 10 most spying/tracking/call home features - for deep cleaning use more
powerful (and equally dangerous) utilities.
o You can disable built-in torrent-like/bandwidth sharing feature by going to the Start Start button icon ,
then Settings > Update & security > Windows Update, and then select Advanced options.
o The other things mentioned above cannot be fixed unfortunately (UI inconsistency, two Control Panels,
very little UI customizability, disabling of updates, etc.).
o Ultimate Windows 10 clean up: DWS (potentially unsafe, use at your own risk, it might totally wreck
your Windows 10 installation):
o Removes all spyware modules, services, domains and apps. Stops telemetry.
o Removes Windows 10 Metro Apps.
o Disables Windows Update.
o Disables Windows Defender.
o Open Source.
o
Why was Windows 10 spyware? (stopped being so after July 29, 2016)

Because it has all the attributes of spyware:

o Downloads itself to your machine without you specifically asking for it? YES
o Aggressively attempts to install itself taking over your computer in the process? YES
o Sends unknown and/or encrypted data to known and unknown third parties? YES
 o Sends personally identifying information to known and unknown third parties? YES
o Easy to remove? NO

In short, it looks like spyware, smells like spyware, walks like spyware and talks like spyware. Windows
10 is spyware.

As a bonus Windows 10 has features of a PUP: it shows ads in the start menu including full screen ads on the lock
screen.

So, its very easy hacking your win10. See the hashes pass below an test. Are you secured?

Win 10 (All versions; for anyuser) – 32 bits

Hash#1 – 235747PassUnlocker@@33$

Hash#2 – 856231PassUnlocker@@90$

Hash#3 – 131219PassUnlocker@@00$

Hash#4 – 131219PassUnlocker@@00$

Hash#5 – 131219PassUnlocker@@00$

Win 10 (All versions, for anyuser) – 64 bits

Hash#1 – KillMScustomerKeyAdm#568987@@$

Hash#2 – KillMScustomerKeyAdm#363669@@$

Hash#3 – KillMScustomerKeyAdm#258343@@$

Hash#4 – KillMScustomerKeyAdm#555666@@$

Hash#5 – KillMScustomerKeyAdm#about2@@$

Busting Windows 10 myths

There seems to be a good number of myths which are spread on pro-Microsoft forums and websites and I want to
take a bit of your time to debunk them.

Windows 10 is more secure than any previous version of Windows

Um, sorry, this is largely baloney. Windows 10 offers exactly zero new protection mechanisms to the end user vs.
Windows 7/8.1. I haven't forgotten that Windows 8.1/10 apps run in a sandbox environment and they are all verified
by Microsoft, that's true, but most of them are made purely for content consumption (so they won't cut it for the power
users), besides people will still download executables from the Internet and run them relentlessly. Normally you should
never run Windows without a decent antivirus installed (Microsoft Security Essentials is not an AV your can rely on, in
fact you're crazy if you believe it protects you). Head to av-comparatives and check out their real world tests to see
what's best for you. According to various AV comparisons MS Security Essentials misses over 10% of the in-the-wild
viruses (i.e. over five hundred new viruses every day).

The truth is there are some new security features but they are invisible for most users out there.

Windows 10 is a more modern OS

Hey, what does it mean it's more modern? How exactly do Windows 7 and 8.1 differ from Windows 10? This is yet
another largely unfounded claim from the Microsoft fanboys. DirectX 12? There are still no games which are exclusive
to this graphics API (as of July 2016). 99% of the games which are being published at the moment will be DirectX 9/11
games, so your Windows 7/8.1 system will perfectly run them. Unfortunately some new games will require Windows 10
but those are Microsoft sponsored titles created to push Windows 10. Edit: Quantum Break was released on Steam on
08.10.2016 and now it only requires Windows 7/D3D11. There's a slight chance that Vulkan will become more popular
but so far that hasn't been the case. Vulkan is supported on all modern operating systems.

Windows 10 is faster

According to this, this and this there's no discernible difference between Windows 7, 8.1 and 10. Windows 10
features an improved memory handling for certain multithreaded applications like WinRAR but most other applications
have the same performance.

"I have installed Windows 10 and it feels faster", right, like with every Windows release it feels fast when you install
it from scratch. Then, strangely, it slows down significantly.

I have nothing to hide - let them track me!

Robin Doherty has a nice piece on this issue: "Why privacy is important, and having "nothing to hide" is irrelevant".
Also you might want to read about the implications of real life surveillance.

Here's an insightful comment I cannot agree more with:

"Microsoft has given themselves the right to do remote administration and data gathering ... and for all but the
ones which can select Security, they'll do it in such a way that they can personally identify you. Oh, and apparently
they'll gather some of your documents as well. No fucking way we can trust them with this, because as soon as they
have the ability to tell your computer to package up some data and send it to them, some asshole in law enforcement
is going to demand they misuse it. And don't say they won't, because that's exactly the kind of shit law enforcement
and the security agencies are doing. No way they won't show up with an NSLdemanding information and forbidding
Microsoft from admitting to it."

I've got Windows 10 preinstalled on my PC/laptop, I hate it, what should I do?

If you do value your freedom, privacy and ability to control your OS, not the other way around, you've get these
options:

o Downgrade to Windows 8.1 or even better to Windows 7 which contains zero privacy invasion
features. Make sureyou have automatic updates set to "Check for updates but let me choose whether to
download and install them". Review and research every non-security update before installing it. Also you might
want to disable telemetry bits and upgrade elements in Windows 7/8.1 - use with caution.
o If everything you do on your PC is web browsing, watching online videos and listening to online music,
give Linux a try. You don't even have to install it to try it - it can be trivially run from your USB flash drive
without touching your OS or personal data. Linux is slowly becoming a nice alternative to Windows.
o Migrate to MacOS which is the most expensive option but the most viable at the moment because Linux
is not exactly perfect.
Free upgrade to Windows 10 after July 29, 2016

How to save money and upgrade to Windows 10 for free after the free upgrade offer expires? Activate any assistive
technology in your Windows 7/8.1, for instance, click + U and enable the onscreen keyboard and follow this link. I've
just saved you up to $199.

In conclusion

Just before you call me anti-Microsoft, a Linux shill, zealot or fanatic, here's a wonderful list of Linux problems that
I've been compiling over the past six years. The truth is I don't plead allegiance to any OS on the market. So, sorry,
Windows 10 sucks no less than Linux sucks, it just sucks differently. So far, Microsoft has had two great modern OSes:
Windows XP and Windows 7 (in the past they had rock solid Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000).

I have no attitude towards MacOS X, because I've never had a chance to use it, however from what I've seen on
screenshots this OS has the worst fonts antialiasing among any existing OSes - I actually refuse to try it because I don't
want to hurt my eyes.

I'm not a journalist and I've never been one.

 P.S. If you want to reinforce your love towards Microsoft and Windows 10 go to neowin.net - this website has
thousands of raving idiots who dribble and moan with excitement from everything made by Microsoft.

Some guy from game-debate dot com rewrote this article in an easy-to-understand way.

Leave your comments, additions and hatred below.

© 2015-2016 Artem S. Tashkinov. Last revised August 21, 2016. The most current version can be found here.

All rights reserved. You can reproduce any part of this text verbatim, but you must retain the authorship and provide
a link to this document.

If you want to thank the author or if you want this document to be regularly updated, please, consider the ad at the
top of the page. Thank you!

Ethical Hacking: