Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#71

Post by kuschku » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 12:42 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #64

analog31 wrote: post #56

Ask HN: Could Win10 data leaks be managed by some kind of firewall or parental-control software? I mean, if we know what sites are being accessed, just block those sites.

Yes, but the lists I've seen look huge [1]. It also requires 3rd party software/hardware to block since the name resolution for many of the endpoints seems to be hardcoded into dnsapi.dll. There's also no guarantee that some security update will add additional server names that Windows can talk to. Basically you end up in a security arms race with your OS provider - which is hard if not impossible to win. [1] http://…

Can’t we remove them from dnsapi.dll?

Decompile dnsapi.dll, remove all hardcoded hosts, replace and protect to a nonexistent group so that windows can’t even override it during an upgrade.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#72

Post by thescrewdriver » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 12:43 PM UTC

KaterKarlo123 wrote: post #62

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…

I've deactivated all reporting and services that call back home (at least which I was aware of). In addition I've installed glasswire to check the network activities. So far I can assure you: Compared to my Android phone Windows 10 is absolutely mute. There're no noticeable differences compared to Windows 7. You seem to be more driven by your hatred towards Microsoft than by real privacy concerns.

> Compared to my Android phone Windows 10 is absolutely mute.

I think this says more about Android than it does about Windows 10. Windows 10 has crazy defaults, but so does android and many android apps want access to my info for no good reason (e.g. news apps wanting access to list my accounts, my phone number, my contacts, precise location etc.). Comparing privacy defaults of Windows to Android is not comparing it to a particularly high bar.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#73

Post by fredoliveira » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 12:44 PM UTC

agopaul wrote: post #26

zexmitrov wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://pxc-coding.com/blog/donotspy10-1000/

After reading Krebs' book, I think twice before running this kind of tool, even if it looks legit

A little OT, but you piqued my interested. Is this Spam Nation? Is it good?

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#74

Post by keithpeter » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 12:44 PM UTC

stinos wrote: post #9

But there is less concrete evidence to support the pirates’ most worrying claims. less , or just none (e.g. the claim about data being sent from local disk)? In any case this is turning to be far from ideal for MS and makes me wonder if they really didn't see this coming when defaulting to not-so-private defaults: I already know people asking 'I heard this new Windows sends all your data to Microsoft, is that true?'…

I use a free operating system (Linux, currently Slackware) because I take property rights seriously. Years ago I decided that I did not want to use 'cracked' software and didn't have much money.

Strange how things turn out.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#75

Post by AlexandrB » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 12:46 PM UTC

exar0815 wrote: post #44

It is very well possible that behaviour like This will result in massive problems in the European Union with its much more atrict privacy laws. Microsoft should ask Intel about huge fines.

> It is very well possible that behaviour like This will result in massive problems in the European Union with its much more atrict privacy laws.

Unless TPP passes[1]. One of it's provisions may result in a weakening of privacy laws. Unfortunately it's hard to tell since the whole thing is secret.

[1] http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/07/16/TPP-and-Personal-Data/

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#76

Post by UnoriginalGuy » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 12:46 PM UTC

r3bl wrote: post #69

KaterKarlo123 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've deactivated all reporting and services that call back home (at least which I was aware of). In addition I've installed glasswire to check the network activities. So far I can assure you: Compared to my Android phone Windows 10 is absolutely mute. There're no noticeable differences compared to Windows 7. You seem to be more driven by your hatred towards Microsoft than by real privacy concerns.

I have a license for like every single Microsoft's product (Windows 8.1, Office 365, Dreamspark account, 1 TB of data on OneDrive, some Skype premium minutes) and yet, I completely agree with him. I love Microsoft's products and I'm using them when I need to use them, but Windows stopped being my primary operating system ever since that whole Snowden scandal. People just automatically assume that I hate Microsoft bec…

> but Windows stopped being my primary operating system ever since that whole Snowden scandal.

Snowden released nothing specifically about Windows. No backdoors, no specific cooperation, only the NSA's bespoke malware (but they also have malware for everything under the sun, Linux, uEFI, RAID firmware, cell modems, etc).

Sure, the NSA were spying on Microsoft by hooking the fiber lines between Microsoft's data centers in order to gain backdoor access to Hotmail (now Outlook.com). But they did the same thing to Google and several other organisations.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#77

Post by cletus » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 12:47 PM UTC

x5n1 wrote: post #67

KaterKarlo123 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've deactivated all reporting and services that call back home (at least which I was aware of). In addition I've installed glasswire to check the network activities. So far I can assure you: Compared to my Android phone Windows 10 is absolutely mute. There're no noticeable differences compared to Windows 7. You seem to be more driven by your hatred towards Microsoft than by real privacy concerns.

Hatred for Microsoft? I have none. I do hate the fact that we have an absolutely free operating system that works just fine but thanks to Bill Gates 90s shenanigans and aggressive and illegal market and business tactics we're stuck with a proprietary system that is totally unnecessary and as it continues that system becomes more and more invasive. And that system is a black box that you can't trust. Google started en…

Nothing about Linux on the desktop "works fine". It's horrible. UI seems to be one area that benefits--almost demands--a central planning authority. I'm reminded of Supported Features [1]. There is some great open source software out there. But I'm struggling to think of great open source software with a good UI.

Not that I'm saying Windows is good mind you. My personal preference would be OSX, which you can view as Windows with a better underlying OS or Unix with a decent UI. Either way it's a win.

[1]: https://xkcd.com/619/

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#78

Post by ascagnel_ » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 12:49 PM UTC

jand wrote: post #61

analog31 wrote: post #56

Ask HN: Could Win10 data leaks be managed by some kind of firewall or parental-control software? I mean, if we know what sites are being accessed, just block those sites.

There are numerous sites (eg [1]) which claim to provide a list of FQDNs associated with Windows 10 telematics. These sites usually advise you to reroute those FQDN to localhost via the hosts file. To my point of view this is a endless game of cat-and-mice... finding the (changing?) telematics FQDNs and updating the hosts file. By design this cannot be a permanent solution. [1] http://news.softpedia.com/news/blocking…

Could you filter this traffic on a network level? Having to provision and update every Windows PC on a network would be an administrative nightmare.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#79

Post by pdkl95 » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 12:49 PM UTC

Gladdyu wrote: post #35

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…

> display managers

You mean "window manager", right? Why would depend on a specific WM unless you were writing a WM-specific utility where no decision would be necessary? Your application only needs to target X11, which is implicit when you use a pre-existing toolkit.

> audio devices

What audio devices? Just write to the default ALSA device. Better yet, delegate the problem by linking to something like OpenAL.

I'm sure there are edge that are more complicated to port, but that is true for any OS. For most apps, porting shouldn't be particularly difficult.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#80

Post by KJasper » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 12:49 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #39

sz4kerto wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But they might just use their wifi connection ;)