Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

irishexaminer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 358 posts

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#31

Post by Amezarak »

mtgx wrote: post #8
sz4kerto wrote: post #4

This is an overkill I believe. Are Android devices banned from torrent sites? Chromebooks? Windows 10 is a cloud-based operating system, as is Android and ChromeOS -- most of the code runs locally, but it heavily relies on cloud functionality. It is extremely naive to think that if MS tells you in the EULA that many services in the OS work based on the user behavior suddenly opens up new doors for spying. If MS wante…

It's not overkill when a company scans every single file you have in your PC, keeps those logs on its servers, and then eventually can and likely will share that information with others, from law enforcement to MPAA or even advertising companies. Microsoft has already admitted in its "privacy" policy that it can and will do such thing: > “We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (su…

You left out the circumstances under which they will share your data.

> comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies;

> protect our customers, for example to prevent spam or attempts to defraud users of the services, or to help prevent the loss of life or serious injury of anyone;

> operate and maintain the security of our services, including to prevent or stop an attack on our computer systems or networks; or

> protect the rights or property of Microsoft, including enforcing the terms governing the use of the services - however, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property of Microsoft, we will not inspect a customer's private content ourselves, but we may refer the matter to law enforcement.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/default.asp...

Additionally, the privacy policy section you and I are quoting applies to many Microsoft services, including, for example, OneDrive. Otherwise, the "private folder" data they're talking about could only be whatever bits and scraps telemetry and Windows Defender picks up, based on my reading.

That seems perfectly reasonable and also confirms they won't be sending any of your data to the MPAA.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#32

Post by rjaco31 »

jsf666 wrote: post #17

Shouldn't the built-in botnet/spyware push all major companies and goverments away from Windows? I don't know how they would be ok with all they're data sent/shared with them (and probably a dozen of US agencies). It's like buying a rooted by design system

Russia has already forbidden Windows 10 use on any governmental service.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#33

Post by datalist »

moondowner wrote: post #23
datalist wrote: post #15

What does that even mean? How would they ban Windows 10 users from trackers? A bit of more details wouldnt be bad.

There's an easy way to do that: when the browser makes a request to some web site, the server serving it will detect the browser's user agent (which the browser sends with the request to the server) and will check the operating system specified. If it's Windows 10 - don't fulfill the request. Here's a random example of user agent detection http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6163350/server-side-brows...

They are talking about trackers, not anything web based. So unless a client announces the underlying operating system there shouldnt be any way to implement such a block.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#34

Post by datalist »

gajjanag wrote: post #30
moondowner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an easy way to do that: when the browser makes a request to some web site, the server serving it will detect the browser's user agent (which the browser sends with the request to the server) and will check the operating system specified. If it's Windows 10 - don't fulfill the request. Here's a random example of user agent detection http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6163350/server-side-brows...

Not that the average user necessarily knows this, but in principle can't the user agent string sent by the browser be spoofed?

Sure, but its not about user agents.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#35

Post by Gladdyu »

x5n1 wrote: post #13

Basically M$ adoption of this strategy is the death knell for any semblance of privacy on the PC. It's amazing how far we have come to accepting such draconian measures in order to further marketing. There is still time people, come on over to Linux, the privacy here is still fine and will continue to be fine. And if you come over, then all the desktop software makers will port their software to Linux and all the col…

"port their software to Linux". The main issue there is that there is not one single linux, the market is very fragmented. Getting the binary format right (which is the same across distros) is the trivial part, just set the proper compiler backend. The hard part would be getting all dependencies and especially IO sorted out. The wide range of display managers, audio drivers that needs to be supported to simply "port their software to Linux" means that this is unfeasible yet I'm afraid.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#36

Post by mtgx »

adrianb wrote: post #6

Has anyone compiled a privacy checklist for Windows 10? What settings people have determined are best to use? I was somewhat forced to do the upgrade and didn't have the time to explore all settings (also they got more confusing since Windows 8).

Here's what I did:

1) turned off everything in the Customization section at install

2) Used http://pxc-coding.com/portfolio/donotspy10/

3) Used https://github.com/10se1ucgo/DisableWinTracking

Then, I installed a traffic monitoring tool - and surprise surprise - I still found some stuff trying to randomly connect to Microsoft's servers, similarly to what Peter Bright from Ars discovered (btw, "telemetry" can only be fully disabled on Enterprise version of Windows 10):

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/even-w...

I blocked those, too, and for now the Windows 10 spying monster seems to have settled down - BUT - new story points to the fact that you won't even know what Windows 10 updates will do in the future. That means that on machines where they see they can't spy on you anymore, they could push an update to bypass those protections and still spy on you.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/21/microsoft_will_expla...

Windows 10 really seems to be designed based on an NSA/law enforcement's wishlist. Any security or privacy measures you might take on it can be rendered useless by an update, and some articles even say Microsoft gets all of your typed keys (so all passwords).

http://localghost.org/posts/a-traffic-analysis-of-windows-10

When I find some time these days, I'll wipe Windows 10 and never look back.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#37

Post by msravi »

Phoenix26 wrote: post #2

More info/Original story -> https://torrentfreak.com/torrent-trackers-ban-windows-10-ove...

The "password sharing" feature of Windows 10 is sufficient reason for me to never allow anyone with Windows 10 access to my network. Ever.

That's the way I'll opt out. Not by changing my SSID.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#39

Post by bad_user »

sz4kerto wrote: post #14
belorn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy issues is all about scale. When groups of people can be mapped, it allows for discrimination and prosecution and that thought scares people into submission. Android and ChromeOS users are small minorities, while if you monitor all Windows users you more or less can map out the whole community, and that is a very scary thought for a lot of people.

> Privacy issues is all about scale I absolutely agree, but I don't see why Android users would be a minority -- I don't know the latest numbers but I guess there are more Android users already than Windows (10) users.

I'm pretty sure that people won't use their 3G / 4G mobile plan to download movies, music or the latest Linux ISOs from torrent sites on their smartphone with 16 / 32 GB of total storage.
Post reply on HN