1197768 - Disable Microsoft Telemetry for Windows 10 testers

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Infrastructure & Operations :: RelOps: General, task)

Description

[Rob Thijssen [:grenade (EET/UTC+0300)]]

There are some, [partially substantiated](http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/even-when-told-not-to-windows-10-just-cant-stop-talking-to-microsoft/) [claims](http://localghost.org/posts/a-traffic-analysis-of-windows-10) of MS Telemetry containing a high volume of keylog traffic being forwarded to external (non-Mozilla), telemetry servers.

It is probably worthwhile analysing the traffic in question thoroughly to substantiate or discount the claims, but in the meantime, it may be prudent to err on the side of caution by disabling some scheduled tasks and services related to MS telemetry which do not, in any case, contribute to effective Firefox testing and may have an impact on network bandwidth.

For example, it is difficult to see how disabling the scheduled tasks below, would have a negative impact on our Windows 10, testing instances and it may reduce our exposure if the claims were substantiated:

schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Customer Experience Improvement Program\KernelCeipTask" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Customer Experience Improvement Program\UsbCeip" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Customer Experience Improvement Program\Consolidator" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Customer Experience Improvement Program\Uploader" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Power Efficiency Diagnostics\AnalyzeSystem" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Shell\FamilySafetyMonitor" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Shell\FamilySafetyRefresh" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Shell\FamilySafetyUpload" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\AitAgent" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\ProgramDataUpdater" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\StartupAppTask" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Autochk\Proxy" /Disable
schtasks /change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Customer Experience Improvement Program\Consolidator" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\AppID\SmartScreenSpecific" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\DiskDiagnostic\Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticDataCollector" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\NetTrace\GatherNetworkInfo" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\PI\Sqm-Tasks" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\FileHistory\File History (maintenance mode)" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\DiskFootprint\Diagnostics" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\CloudExperienceHost\CreateObjectTask" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\QueueReporting" /Disable
schtasks /change /TN "Microsoft\Office\OfficeTelemetry\AgentFallBack2016" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Office\OfficeTelemetry\OfficeTelemetryAgentLogOn2016" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Office\OfficeTelemetryAgentLogOn" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Office\OfficeTelemetryAgentFallBack" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Office\Office 15 Subscription Heartbeat" /Disable

sc stop dmwappushservice
sc config dmwappushservice start= disabled
sc stop diagtrack
sc config diagtrack start= disabled

I have validated that most of these tasks & services exist on a vanilla Windows 10 instance and am currently testing the effect of running Windows 10 with these tasks/services disabled.
The list of tasks/services of concern, was sourced from a public forum: http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/63874-REPO-Windows-10-TELEMETRY-REPOSITORY

Comment 1

[Dustin J. Mitchell [:dustin] (he/him)]

We could also consider blocking traffic to some of the relevant destinations.

Comment 2

[Amy Rich [:arr] [:arich]]

We might want to make sure we don't install:

KB 2952664 (telemetry)
KB 2990114 (telemetry)
KB 3021917 (Customer Experience Improvement Program)
KB 3022345 (telemetry)
KB 3035583 (nagware for Windows 10)
KB 3068708 (telemetry)
KB 3075249 (telemetry)
KB 3080149 (CEIP and telemetry)

(from http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7891909&cid=50377715)

Comment 3

[Amy Rich [:arr] [:arich]]

Ah, those may be the windows 7 equivilents. Apparently MS is rolling out "telemetry" across older OSes, too.

Comment 4

[Q]

Mostly disabled by removing kbs however, the anniversary update reinstate will need more review

Comment 5

[Q]

Fixed in anniversary edition now being handled in ISO automation

Comment 6

[Yuhong Bao]

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/upgrade/upgrade-readiness-deployment-script
ConfigScript.ps1 is pretty interesting.
Of note is there are different versions of DiagTrack:
https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/windows-itpro-docs/issues/3347
There is a blog post on it:
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-Analytics-Blog/How-does-Upgrade-Readiness-in-WA-collects-application-inventory/ba-p/213586
I assume that Mozilla don't use this stuff, right?