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

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#151

Post by TallGuyShort » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 1:44 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.

It's well known that Android has also abandoned many of the principles of user freedom behind the rest of the Linux ecosystem and similar communities.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#152

Post by tokenizerrr » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 1:44 PM UTC

deutronium wrote: post #52

tokenizerrr wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably just the useragent and the javascript navigator.appVersion.

In the article it talks about trackers blocking access though

Yes, private trackers. These private trackers can only be accessed if you have an account on their website, where you then download the .torrent files.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#153

Post by mnw21cam » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 1:44 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #119

progman wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 platfor…

I would point out that Windows programs written for different versions of the OS will appear different when running on the same machine. For instance, in my Windows 7 VM, LibreOffice has a white X on a red button to close the window, while Word has a black X on a grey background.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#154

Post by moe » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 1:45 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.

In addition I've installed glasswire to check the network activities.

How do you know glasswire sees all network activity? What about data that piggybacks on legitimate network activity (e.g. the requests to update.microsoft.com)?

http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/08/22/nsa-windows-8-exploi...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-c...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#155

Post by leni536 » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 1:45 PM UTC

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 chances are that 90% of the users don't know how to do it. Also it's a good warning for the users. It's primarily not for protecting the torrent site but for protecting the users anyway.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#156

Post by sidmkp96 » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 1:45 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…

> that works just fine

Are you kidding me? If you're a full-stack developer, then try opening Android Studio & PyCharm IDE at the same time, and after approx. 1 hour, things just get horrible. Everything is stuck. I don't know exactly what is happening, but somewhere the Swap handling horrible wrong.

No such issues on Mac OS/Windows :/

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#157

Post by JimmaDaRustla » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 1:46 PM UTC

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…

Orwell? Is that you?

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#158

Post by smtddr » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 1:46 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.

>>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.

I'm going to recommend to you, or anyone, wanting to verify Windows 10 network behavior to do it without depending on software running on the OS itself. Try verifying it again using network analyzing software on linux or macosx, running downstream of your network setup. e.g., a router that's running linux you can ssh into and run "ngrep"(kinda like a commandline version of wiresahrk) and verify from there.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#159

Post by pjmlp » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 1:46 PM UTC

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…

Sure, as if we didn't had it already in Android and Ubuntu distributions.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#160

Post by chriswarbo » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 1:47 PM UTC

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…

> Nothing about Linux on the desktop "works fine". It's horrible.

I disagree. MS-DOS "works fine", and had many users. I would say that on average, UIs on Linux (both commandline and GUI) are better than those on MS-DOS, hence Linux UIs also work fine.

I wouldn't claim that the average Linux UI is great, or follows any HCI guidelines, or whatever. What I would claim is that it doesn't matter; all that matters is that it's possible to get the job done. Just like it was possible to get the job done on MS-DOS.

Regarding the XKCD reference, I think that's covered in the parent's statement "if you come over, then all the desktop software makers will port their software to Linux". Those kinds of distinctions make it all too easy to move the goalposts; eg. "Linux is useless because it doesn't run MyProprietaryApp(TM)".