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Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

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Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#111

Post by wlesieutre »

zxcvcxz wrote: post #95
cletus wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Linux on the Desktop works stunningly for me. Seeing as you're an OS X fan I'm going to link you to this HN thread so we can go ahead and stop pretending that trash OS "just works": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10010395 As far as OSS interfaces go, I wouldn't be surprised if you're using an open source browser right now, seeing as the closed source alternatives don't compare. Windows has nothing to show for t…

> As far as OSS interfaces go, I wouldn't be surprised if you're using an open source browser right now, seeing as the closed source alternatives don't compare.

Since he's a Mac user, that's not necessarily a good bet. Safari wins out handily in battery life, and Firefox's UI text rendering (tabs/URL/bookmarks) is comparatively atrocious.

Chrome benefits from its cross-platform bookmark sync, but the snappier interface, extra hour of battery, and the fact that it comes preinstalled all make Safari a pretty popular choice on OS X.

EDIT: Though I suppose Safari is a sorta-open-source project in the same way that Chrome is. Mostly it's the same as WebKit, but not entirely. Does Apple get much in the way of community contributions, or is it a "we have to publish the source, but we're not going to take your input" arrangement like Android?

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#113

Post by weland »

cletus wrote: post #77
x5n1 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have no love for the direction in which Linux desktop seems to be heading today, but engineering concerns aside, it's been working fine for a long time.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#114

Post by agopaul »

fredoliveira wrote: post #73
agopaul wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes it is, I just finished it.

Although his writing style isn't always consistent, the book is totally worth reading just to get a clue on how 'cyber criminals' (used to) operate on a global scale. I said 'used to' because the facts narrated in the book occurred mainly in 2009-2011, but in the final chapter there is also some recent events.

Although the title refers to the spam problem, It's not just about spam itself, but it gives a full image of the surrounding cybercrime environment. Give it a try ;)

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#115

Post by cookiecaper »

Amezarak wrote: post #31
mtgx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, includin…

I understand that there are legal barriers around it per the privacy policy but the fact that someone at Microsoft can just decide that they need file X off my laptop and then fetch it is way beyond the pale. If someone wants the files off my laptop, they can get a search warrant and successfully convince my lawyer that I am legally obliged to decrypt.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#116

Post by Amezarak »

Spoom wrote: post #109
Amezarak wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sharing your password via Wi-Fi Sense to your friend gives him access to the network, but no knowledge of your password and no ability to share it. Sharing your password via word-of-mouth gives your friend your password and access to your network and the ability to share it further.

But if the friend who got the password via Wi-Fi Sense has access to the network, that means that at some point, the password had to be in clear text on their computer (since otherwise it wouldn't be able to authenticate to the network). This means that at best, they use reversible encryption, and at worst, it's just stored in cleartext somewhere (this being Microsoft, my guess would be in the registry). I guarantee…

> This means that at best, they use reversible encryption, and at worst, it's just stored in cleartext somewhere (this being Microsoft, my guess would be in the registry).

The status quo is that your password is already stored on their computer with nothing better than reversible encryption.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#117

Post by kaolinite »

x5n1 wrote: post #41
Gladdyu wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Yes if you actually write software for desktop Linux you know that it's not that much of a problem to actually do it if you want to. There is enough free software available, you know often written by individuals without multi-million dollar budgets, that I have not had need for using a Windows machine other than to compile software for Windows machines. If multi-million dollar companies actually wanted to support Lin…

For what it's worth, I had the same experience with my parents. I installed Ubuntu on my dad's laptop and my mum's desktop. They loved it for quite a while - it was much faster, no security problems and no weird errors. I was so happy that I left a few comments online similar to yours.

A year or so later, they both use Mac. In both cases, the inevitable question came "so I bought this , how can I get it to work?".

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#118

Post by fluidcruft »

Amezarak wrote: post #31
mtgx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, includin…

If you use Dropbox or Google or any other cloud service the same applies. Google actually goes further and makes some nice sounding TOS text at first glance, but if you read carefully you will find that it carves out a super-vague disclosure for "technical" reasons loophole which can easily mean "because we feel like it, technically".

Furthermore, if you actually bothered to read the damn Microsoft TOS rather than seance over the tea leaves of copypasta confetti, you would see that this is clearly in the context of the cloud services that can be enabled in Windows 10, not Windows 10 as a whole.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#119

Post by wlesieutre »

progman wrote: post #107
cletus wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Nothing about Linux on the desktop "works fine". It's horrible. This claim is usually made by Windows users who don't want to invest any effort and time to learn another desktop -- which they had to do in Win8 anyway. Linux offers several nice desktops (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, E17, etc.) which we can freely choose from. I am a Linux user since the 90's and I have always used it as my primary desktop. It works perfectly w…

One of my gripes with Linux is that software all tends to feel like it was designed to look nice on the developer's particular flavor of window manager. The system as whole comes across as an inconsistent pile of different UIs. OS X has benefited a lot from interfaces all being put together in Xcode with elements snapping to the HIG standardized margins. And when something doesn't match (looking at you, cross platform Java apps), the users notice.

Maybe the average Linux user is OK with this, but I can't help but be bugged by it. Cost of having so many options, I suppose.

Elementary does better than most, but only by including a set of software designed explicitly to fit there.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#120

Post by weland »

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…

This may be true for games, but it's less of a problem in general. If you don't want to release the sources and have it handled downstream, you can always statically-compile everything and call it a day. Most commercial vendors tend to do that. Display managers are pretty much irrelevant, I can't think of any application that cares if you're running gdm, sddm or anything else; the ALSA backend pretty much guarantees everything is fine in the sound department.

I guess it depends on how many dependencies you're relying on and on what those dependencies are, but the process is pretty smooth.

If they manage to develop things for Android, it can be done for Linux, too.

(Source: developed and packaged a commercially-distributed Linux application. Not too painful a process.)

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