Is it possible that the "error reporting" message could be used to gather your private information?

Question

I just got a creepy feeling when I received error report from windows that I was actually downloading all of my information to a huge database. Am I just being paranoid about FISA . . . The Patriot Act . . . Big Brother?

Answer 1

You can always find a reason to be paranoid, so, if you enjoy it, you're in luck! It's free, takes up a lot of your time, doesn't really hurt or help anybody, leaves no carbon footprint usually. I would just worry about if it makes you happy to worry about, other then that, they are just working on software issue and could care less who you are or what you are doing on your computer.

Answer 2

First, Microsoft get millions of these things a week, and I promise you they don't have a team of detectives going through them to see who has some interesting piece of information they could use, and they don't pass them to any external agency.

On the other hand, many big corporations disable error reporting because of data protection laws - for instance they don't have their customers' permission to send their info to Microsoft, so it would be illegal for them to do so, even if it was just a small part of a record that happened to be loaded in memory, e.g. when Excel crashed.

Personally I don't worry about it too much though, if someone really, really wanted to steal your personal information there are other ways they could do it.  But unless you're some kind of public figure (e.g. a politician they could bribe) or mega-rich (so it would be worthwhile going to a lot of trouble to steal your bank details and figure out how to impersonate you) you're unlikely to be a target.  Make sure you have all the relevant security patches for your operating system, an up-to-date anti-virus, antispyware and firewall, don't click on links you don't know the source of, and never log into a 'secure' site from a link in an email, however convincing it looks.  Those are the most important things.

But error reporting makes you uncomfortable, switch it off.  It doesn't do you any harm not to send it.

For Windows XP you can switch it off through Control Panel > System > Advanced > Eror reporting.

For Vista it's in Control Panel > Problem Reports and solutions > Change Settings > Advanced Settings