from unixsheikh: "Microsoft Windows 10 and 11 both send an almost continues stream of encrypted data back to Microsoft which you cannot neither look at nor truly know what consists of, you basically have to trust Microsoft that they are not stealing all your documents, contacts, and/or other personal information."
This data stealing argument isn't only limited to Microsoft Windows, they just have the biggest market cap so it's worth talking about. MacOS might also be mining your data, but the problem is even bigger than that, for all the non open-source software out there (i.e a regular person cannot view the source code) you might as well assume that they are mining your data, because, why not? They got money to make. Just like google keeps track of your searches and cross sends it with meta which keeps track of the messages you send (facebook, instagram, whatsapp) all the software you use that is proprietary (e.g zoom, adobe software,... ) is making their profile of you from the documents on your computer, the programs you have open when using the app, the sites you visit,... so you become perfectly advertable.
Ken Thompson who, together with Dennis Ritchie won the Turing Award in 1983, gave a talk "Reflections on Trusting Trust" in which he explains how to modify a compiler to install a Trojan horse in the login program for a system. In there he says:
"You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code."
He also noted that the same tricks can be applied to hardware where they will be even harder to discover (see e.g the intel management engine today). Of course it would be insane to completely write your own operating system and everything in it (we're not Terry Davis) but open source is the closest we can go now, trusting the masses instead of the corporations.
It's been in the news lately (time of writing: 5/01/2023) that Ukrainians know exactly where the swinasabakas (russians) are in their country and know where to target their missiles.. why? Because they (the russians) can't keep off their phone, they're probably watching girls dance on tiktok and sending messages to their friends using the local cellphone tower, making them fully give up their location to the Ukrainian military. Some even raided airpods from Ukrainian families, making find-my-iphone their enemy.
Now, if this cellphone use made them fully give away their location then of course your cellphone use also gives away your location fully.
At least there are some smart people in the world, the european union keeps on approving new laws to help people retain their digital privacy and even though apple can't be fully trusted, their new privacy feature on the iphone was a great deed.