Windows 10 Privacy Lockdown Rules

Windows 10 privacy is a massive concern for everyone. Each day more of our rights are eroded as more applications continue to harvest our personal data. BlackFog includes hundreds of built-in rules to lockdown your computer and prevent spying activity. These rules are updated on a weekly basis so you can always stay on top of the latest spyware. These include invasive ads, malware, system services and spyware products.

In an effort to lock-down Windows 10 we shutdown a large number of services that consume CPU, memory and bandwidth to make your computer run extremely fast and significantly reduce traffic. People often comment that their machine shows a dramatic improvement in performance. This is especially true for computers running Windows 10. Our threat researchers have spent thousands of man hours profiling the operating system and monitoring inbound and outbound traffic to eliminate data harvesting.

More than 50% of your online traffic (often a lot more) is consumed for data collection technologies so that companies can better target you across domains and different sites. Of even greater concern is what happens to this data and who controls it. BlackFog allows you to track exactly where your data is going and Geolocates every request from your computer.

In addition, we eliminate background processes that collect information and send it back to remote servers without your knowledge. This is more common than you might think. In Windows 10 we were able to identify at least 10 OS level processes that collect and harvest data with incredible granularity. This includes not only what URL’s you visit but what search terms you use and where you are.

While this list is not exhaustive, we provide this as an indication of the number of privacy rights you are giving up by using the system in its default state. Many of these options are not even documented and often have no other way to turn off.

Windows 10 Rules:

• Device Access
• Microphone
• Location
• Personal Information
• Calendar
• Messaging
• Radios
• Unpaired Devices

Network Access:

• Update Sharing
• Wifi Sharing

Data Collection:

• Advertising
• Cortana
• Defender
• Feedback
• SmartScreen Filter
• Telemetry and Reporting
• Writing

Be default BlackFog locks down your system so that no data is collected by the operating system. We also notify you of any changes to your microphone, in case it is being used to record conversations without your knowledge.

One of the biggest threats to your online privacy is by simply using your browser. Thousands of companies now exist for the sole purpose of collecting your browsing habits so that they may target you for advertising. What’s worse is that these companies sell the data to other companies which run big data analytics over the top to profile you even further.

BlackFog has spent thousands of man hours discovering the extent of this collection and finding ways to prevent you from being exposed. In fact, we we shocked to find that more than 50% of the traffic you consume everyday is actually for collecting data on your personal online habits. By eliminating this traffic we were able to dramatically increase the performance of every computer BlackFog was installed on.