Microsoft Officially Announces the Windows 10 "China Government" Edition

[Raevenlord]

Remember that piece regarding Microsoft's Windows 10 for the chinese government? Well, Microsoft has just officially announced it in its Shanghai presentation today. In a joint-venture with China's government, CETC (China Electronics Technology Group), CMIT (a conglomerate of China-based manufacturers), and Lenovo, the Redmond-based company has apparently managed to deliver what they themselves thought impossible: a version of their operating system that doesn't spy on its users. Lenovo, as you might have guessed already, will be one of the first OEM partners to preinstall Windows 10 China Government Edition on new devices.

Based on Windows 10 Enterprise Edition, the Windows 10 China Government Edition ironically ticks all the boxes for what enthusiasts would like to see from their OS: it's a modular approach to Windows, where users (read, in this case, government entities) can remove features they aren't looking to take advantage of (like OneDrive), whilst giving the capability to "manage all telemetry and updates." Aren't those just great features to have?





China's government previously banned Windows 8 and its derivatives, citing security concerns, and later launched an anti-monopoly probe against Microsoft. This meant that Microsoft was largely left out of China's huge state-backed enterprises in China - and one can imagine how lucrative a market this one is. Microsoft surely wouldn't be willing to allow such a chance of revenue to just jostle over to the Linux field, following the Chinese government's attempts to craft a custom OS (Kylin, which failed) and recent efforts with new NeoKylin initiative.

I just love that title, and all of the implications behind it.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Deleted member 50521]

So where can we get this then?

 

[dj-electric]

Between USA and china collecting my data, i think ill take the USA.

 

[StefanM]

I guess it's optimised for the "Great Firewall"

 

[Diverge]

Correction. Doesn't spy on users for Microsoft or the US government. But spies for China's government.... at least that is my speculation...

 

[R-T-B]

Correction. Doesn't spy on users for Microsoft or the US government. But spies for China's government.... at least that is my speculation...

Doesn't have to. When your ISP is literally your government, why even bother with a spying OS? You're already tracking every web action.

 

[Deleted member 172048]

I think China was concerned over what information they (Microsoft) could obtain about the Chinese government, etc. and so this was created so they could have a product offering in such a large market.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

For the glory of the Empire!!

 

[birdie]

Doesn't have to. When your ISP is literally your government, why even bother with a spying OS? You're already tracking every web action.

God, I'm really tired of this idiocy at TPU.

Even if I didn't use VPN, my ISP would know shat about what I'm doing on the Internet 'cause 99% of the websites that I browse have mandatory SSL encryption.

Is TPU still a tech related website or I'm gravely mistaken? A lot of comments indicate otherwise.

Also I'm more content with the Chinese spying on me because our paths most likely will never cross whereas I'm not content with visiting the US where the TSA (and other three letters agencies) already have a dossier on me even though I've never committed any crimes.

And people who claim they have nothing to hide - why don't you have glass walls in your house? Why don't you take a shit/piss while everyone could be watching? What about your p0rn habits? What about the collection of child time mischiefs? Would you want to share that with us?

 

[natr0n]

MDL should have if you want to tinker.

 

[R-T-B]

God, I'm really tired of this idiocy at TPU.

Even if I didn't use VPN, my ISP would know shat about what I'm doing on the Internet 'cause 99% of the websites that I browse have mandatory SSL encryption.

If they blocked known vpns and their ports and only allowed dns on a single host (theirs?). I really question your technical know-how if you think SSL protects you from that. General purpose DNS queries are NOT encrypted. You think China doesn't practice this? (Hint, they do).

Chinese ISPs also install their own root level CA on client machines. Yes, this is for SSL "man in the middle" monitoring, I'd wager.

Is TPU still a tech related website or I'm gravely mistaken? A lot of comments indicate otherwise.

I think you just massively overestimate your own understanding of the issues vs those you disagree with. I am assuming complete government ISP control, like in China.

 

[birdie]

If they blocked known vpns and their ports and only allowed dns on a single host (theirs?). I really question your technical know-how if you think SSL protects you from that. General purpose DNS queries are NOT encrypted. You think China doesn't practice this? (Hint, they do).

Chinese ISPs also install their own root level CA on client machines. Yes, this is for SSL "man in the middle" monitoring, I'd wager.



I think you just massively overestimate your own understanding of the issues vs those you disagree with. I am assuming complete government ISP control, like in China.

Another :facepalm:. With VPN on my DNS queries are not being leaked to my ISP. Also, there's this nice daemon which I use for DNS queries, it's called dnscrypt-proxy. So even when my VPN is not on, my DNS queries are always encrypted.

My ISP doesn't have access to my PC, nor they can install their own certificates.

Could your stop with your fairy tales please? I work as a CSO if you ever heard about that line of work. And now I'm not currently running Windows. In fact I have Windows 7 installed purely to play games. No work is done in this spyware ridden OS (telemetry updates, as everyone now knows, have found their way into W7/W81).

 

[Katanai]

What about your p0rn habits? What about the collection of child...

Buehehe! I thought you were going somewhere else with this...

 

[bug]

Yes, in the aftermath of WannaCrypt, letting users disable updates is a great idea
Can't argue about modularity though.

 

[Imsochobo]

If they blocked known vpns and their ports and only allowed dns on a single host (theirs?). I really question your technical know-how if you think SSL protects you from that. General purpose DNS queries are NOT encrypted. You think China doesn't practice this? (Hint, they do).

Chinese ISPs also install their own root level CA on client machines. Yes, this is for SSL "man in the middle" monitoring, I'd wager.



I think you just massively overestimate your own understanding of the issues vs those you disagree with. I am assuming complete government ISP control, like in China.

SSL\HTTPS is only to make matters a little better but not make you secure from man in the middle attacks cause it does simply nothing in that regard!

 

[TheOne]

Based on Windows 10 Enterprise Edition, the Windows 10 China Government Edition ironically ticks all the boxes for what enthusiasts would like to see from their OS: it's a modular approach to Windows, where users (read, in this case, government entities) can remove features they aren't looking to take advantage of (like OneDrive), whilst giving the capability to "manage all telemetry and updates." Aren't those just great features to have?

These features could have helped with their adoption rate during the "free period" and still could help, even if only in Pro and higher.

 

[Hood]

So where can we get this then?

Should be up on TPB soon, knowing Chinese hackers...

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Between USA and china collecting my data, i think ill take the USA.

I'll take china, as I live in the US and dont plan on ever visiting asia. So I couldnt care less if china knows what Im doing. (mostly Pr0n and civ....)

 

[chlamchowder]

About VPNs, the situation is pretty unstable in China. The gov't there is constantly trying to block/control VPNs.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/23/china-vpn-illegal-internet-censorship-government-approval/

Not to mention using a VPN = extra network hop = possibly more latency

Also, the motivation behind using the OS to spy: with SSL becoming more common, spying at the endpoints (where encryption/decryption happens) is easier than trying to break the encryption.

 

[TheGuruStud]

SSL protects you?

That's cute even for the US. I already discovered how much control the ISPs have. I blocked Comcast's caching servers, b/c youtube was useless. All was well for 6 months.

Then, most Google services wouldn't connect. Half the time google search would fail to load. Guess what? I unblocked their servers and blammo, all was well.

SSL is vulnerable. TOR is vulnerable. If they want to intercept traffic, they can.

 

[Scrizz]

Buehehe! I thought you were going somewhere else with this...

lmfao so did I. xD

 

[R-T-B]

Another :facepalm:. With VPN on my DNS queries are not being leaked to my ISP. Also, there's this nice daemon which I use for DNS queries, it's called dnscrypt-proxy. So even when my VPN is not on, my DNS queries are always encrypted.

My ISP doesn't have access to my PC, nor they can install their own certificates.

We're talking about China and SSL, not your VPN. Please stop changing the conditions to suit your argument.

Could your stop with your fairy tales please?

None of what I claimed is a fairytale. Your best argument would be the ease of which VPN providers get around the "great firewall," but they could just as easily load another OS too, so both approaches have their pitfalls when presented with knowledgable users.

Honestly, as a news reporter for this organization, I don't deal in "fairy tales," only the facts. I find your implications offensive and rude.


At any rate, I'm one of the biggest privacy advocates on TPU man, and I don't endorse what Windows 10 does. You need to learn to tune down your attack trait and study your opponent a bit more.

SSL\HTTPS is only to make matters a little better but not make you secure from man in the middle attacks cause it does simply nothing in that regard!

That is sort of what I just pointed out.

 

[Caring1]

Will this edition be Chinese language only, or can we expect to see Chinese computers with this O.S. listed on fleabay next year in English language?

 

[R-T-B]

Will this edition be Chinese language only, or can we expect to see Chinese computers with this O.S. listed on fleabay next year in English language?

It will almost certainly be Chinese only but I expect hacked language packs for every other language soon enough.

Legally, its sale and use is certainly region-locked.

 

[Kyuuba]

Is this a joke?