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

Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 345 posts

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#271

Post by ajnin »

crazygringo wrote: post #166
kozak wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are downvoting the above comment for some reason, but what is this Windows Defender behavior if not a form of censorship?

That makes no sense. By that logic, what are firefighters doing but censoring homes? What are koalas but a form of eucalyptus censorship? What is locking your front door but a form of censoring burglars? No, just no. Censorship is preventing the transmission of ideas , nothing more, nothing less. Deleting a file has nothing to do with transmission, and it's being done in response to a perceived threat, not its commun…

Defender is deleting the app as a "potentially" unwanted application, a better analogy would be if firefighters went to every home and confiscated every "potential" source of ignition.

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#272

Post by doubled112 »

kozak wrote: post #127
ethbr0 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also be curious what happens if you rename them to {not-keygen}.exe I'd hope it wouldn't make a difference, but my experience with IT security thinking makes me bet the other way.

I renamed it into {not-keygen}.{not-exe} instead. I didn't investigate the issue in details, but I think that Microsoft expects a more enterprisey file name for a legitimate keygen. I should have called it something along the lines of CredentialManager.exe instead :) But I wonder whether it did auto-submit these files to Microsoft together with my private keys. I'm glad that the private keys were in config files outs…

If everybody started renaming keygens to CredentialManager.exe, would the learning algorithms the AV companies are using start to flag and delete those .exes too?

No way, right? What could go wrong?

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#273

Post by jacobr1 »

crazygringo wrote: post #225
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...I'm less sure of this. If Windows Defender was deleting any file named "Animal Farm.txt", that would be a form of censorship, right? It's preventing the transmission of a piece of political literature. Now, what if it was deleting "Animal Farm - The Video Game.exe"? Now, what if it was deleting the keygen for "Animal Farm - The Video Game"? What if the activation server for that game had gone offline, and this key…

No, it depends on the intent . If the intent is to prevent the transmission of ideas, then yes it's censorship. If the intent is to protect from harm -- totally unconnected to ideas -- then no it's not censorship. The reason Defender deletes keygens is that they're statistically associated with malware and viruses, as any Google search will terrifyingly immediately reveal. It clearly is falling under the "protect fro…

Isn't the stated intent of most censorship to protect from harm?

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#274

Post by novok »

jensensbutton wrote: post #63
finalis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think that too before I made the switch to macOS. Yes it was a learning curve initially, but it wasn't unmanageable, and you start to uncover Windows annoyances that you never knew existed because you were used to them and conditioned into thinking they were normal for so long. You'd be surprised how flexible your needs are when you aren't pigeonholing yourself.

I have to use macos for work. I don't think it's very good. Mostly just different (and less untuitive for me - ymmv). I started by being annoyed about the UI, then the cli differences (it's not linux) then I got annoyed by the terrible finder, then I got annoyed by frequent beachballs, then... it goes on. Some people just don't like it.

Your frequent beachballs might be caused by your work installing an antivirus on the mac, such as carbon black or crowdstrike. Or a bad external hard drive causing i/o freezes.

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#275

Post by novok »

bob1029 wrote: post #93

I like how defender has been a daily thing on HN for the last week. If you want to turn this shit completely off (or actually remove it), you just need to find a way to elevate a prompt as TrustedInstaller. This is the magic spell required to carry out extremely dangerous actions, such as 'net stop windefend', or otherwise adjusting permissions so the local administrator is allowed to do administrative things again.…

I don't think those controls will ever go away, because Windows is mostly just gamers and corporate IT installations, and IT people will need full control over that kind of stuff until the end of time, due to law.

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#277

Post by smoldesu »

jensensbutton wrote: post #63
finalis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think that too before I made the switch to macOS. Yes it was a learning curve initially, but it wasn't unmanageable, and you start to uncover Windows annoyances that you never knew existed because you were used to them and conditioned into thinking they were normal for so long. You'd be surprised how flexible your needs are when you aren't pigeonholing yourself.

I have to use macos for work. I don't think it's very good. Mostly just different (and less untuitive for me - ymmv). I started by being annoyed about the UI, then the cli differences (it's not linux) then I got annoyed by the terrible finder, then I got annoyed by frequent beachballs, then... it goes on. Some people just don't like it.

Honestly, I feel like Apple should just throw away Unix compliance at this point. The average Mac is less POSIX-derived than most unlicensed Linux distros (or BSD derivatives, for that matter), and it only serves to further ostracize people like me, who just want to develop and not wait on my computer. Most Mac owners I know wouldn't care at this point, since they're either completely used to this kind of treatment or quit programming altogether.

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#278

Post by smoldesu »

vetinari wrote: post #62
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have used other operating systems, including Linux and MacOS. While I am fond of MacOS Application Bundles, I do not like many other things, like single-button mice, limited choice in hardware, and relative lack of gaming.

You know you can connect any USB mice you want, right? Right now, I'm using a Steelseries one with a Mac. All six buttons and the scroll-wheel work fine.

Side-note: I really, really, really wish MacOS had mouse acceleration control in the settings menu. It's the first frustrating roadblock I hit whenever I set up a Mac, and it makes me just want to flash it with something else.

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#279

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

e3bc54b2 wrote: post #61

When I mentioned in another thread this happening to other open source projects (winmerge, kdiff3) [0], I was told I was making stuff up and/or this is in 'best interest' of users and that this only happens because these are 'uncommon applications'. Its going to be amusing to read replies to this thread. Pardon the snark, but this is BS and its really sad to see this shitshow being defended. [0] https://news.ycombina…

They need to bring Ballmer back to throw some chairs around for the sake of the developers.

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#280

Post by alyandon »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #270
alyandon wrote: post #44

There are group policy settings to regain control over Windows Defender automatic quarantine/deletion: https://www.windows-security.org/6d29bb05ca76bf06eae9760e736... I use that and another setting to disable automatic sample submitting after catching Defender uploading sensitive files from my Firefox profile directory like places.sqlite.

Win10 home doesn't have that. And I speak from experience that defender likes to magic away files to quarantine without any user interaction. Yes I didn't believe it either but it does. Indignation!

While Windows 10 Home doesn't have a UI for manipulating the local group policy settings you might have luck just setting the registry key directly.
Post reply on HN