TORRENT TRACKERS BAN WINDOWS 10 OVER PRIVACY

[The Owl]

https://torrentfreak.com/torrent-trackers-ban-windows-10-over-privacy-concerns-150822/

TORRENT TRACKERS BAN WINDOWS 10 OVER PRIVACY CONCERNS

BY ERNESTO ON AUGUST 22, 2015 C: 20

OPINION

The level of Windows 10 paranoia reached new heights this week when reports suggested that Microsoft would wipe torrents and pirated software from people's hard drives. Nonsense, of course, but all the recent privacy concerns were enough to have the operating system banned from several torrent trackers.

win10Since the release of Windows 10 last month many media reports have focused on various privacy intrusions.

The WiFi password sharing feature, for example, or the extensive sharing of personal data and information back to Microsoft’s servers. The list goes on and on.

While we’re the last ones to defend these policies, it is worth pointing out that many other large tech companies have similar privacy violating policies. Reading rants about Windows 10 privacy on Facebook is particularly ironic.

This week things took a turn for the worse. Slowly but steadily reports started pouring in that Windows 10 has a built-in piracy kill switch. If we were to believe some of the reports, Microsoft would nuke all torrents downloaded from The Pirate Bay.

The truth is nowhere near as dystopian though. The controversy originates from a single line in Microsoft’s Service Agreement which allows the company to download software updates and configuration changes that may prevent people from “playing counterfeit games.”

This change isn’t limited to Windows 10 but covers many services. Also, there is no indication that this will ever be used to target third-party games, which is highly unlikely.

Still, the recent privacy concerns have some torrent tracker staffers worried. During the week TF received reports informing us that several private trackers have banned Windows 10, or are considering doing so.

The staffers at iTS explain that Windows 10 is off-limits now because of the extensive amount of data it shares. This includes connections to MarkMonitor, the brand protection company which is also involved in the U.S. Copyright Alert System.

“Unfortunately Microsoft decided to revoke any kind of data protection and submit whatever they can gather to not only themselves but also others. One of those is one of the largest anti-piracy company called MarkMonitor,” iTS staff note.

“Amongst other things Windows 10 sends the contents of your local disks directly to one of their servers. Obviously this goes way too far and is a serious threat to sites like ours which is why we had to take measures,” they add.

While this may sound scary, Microsoft has been working with MarkMonitor for years already. Among other things, the company helps to keep scammers at bay.

There is no evidence that any piracy related info is being shared. Still, the connection is raising red flags with other tracker operators as well. More trackers reportedly ban Windows 10 and others including BB and FSC are consider to follow suit.

“We have also found [Windows 10] will be gathering information on users’ P2P use to be shared with anti piracy group,” BB staff writes to its users.

“What’s particularly nasty is that apparently it sends the results of local(!!) searches to a well known anti piracy company directly so as soon as you have one known p2p or scene release on your local disk … BAM!”

The same sentiment is shared at FSC where staff also informed users about the threat.

“As we all know, Microsoft recently released Windows 10. You as a member should know, that we as a site are thinking about banning the OS from FSC. That would mean you cannot use the site with the OS installed,” FSC staff writes.

While a paranoid mindset is definitely not a bad thing for people in the business of managing a torrent community, banning an operating system over privacy concerns is a bit much for most. Especially since many of the same issues also affect earlier versions of Windows.

Luckily, the most invasive privacy concerns can be dealt with by configuring Windows properly. Or any other operating system, application or social network for that matter.

Instead of banning something outright, it may be a good idea to inform the public on specific dangers and educate them how they can be alleviated.

I must admit I am getting concerned

[knowledge-Spammer]

ill keep a eye on this more i think

[GRiM]

Privacy issues? Utter bollocks and over-hyped crap.

[mkc21]

ppl need to calm their tits..

[SnakeMasteR]

Back in the days when crazy conspiracy terrorists made something up with spying, CIA and NSA, everyone laughed about those idi0ts, only to find out a handful of years later that there was nothing but the sad hard truth spoken.

Only time will tell. :P

[CODYQX4]

Back in the days when crazy conspiracy terrorists made something up with spying, CIA and NSA, everyone laughed about those idi0ts, only to find out a handful of years later that there was nothing but the sad hard truth spoken.

Only time will tell. :P

The stuff that people know as confirmed (and don't care), just 5 years ago, anyone who believed must have been a paranoid nutcase.

Assume the absolute worst of your government. Assume that they're murdering orphans and laughing about it, because in this sick world run by scum, you'll probably be right.

... and nobody gives a shit. Too busy whoring themselves out for "likes" on Facebook to notice the noose around their neck.

[kaloo1995]

if it happens, it must be possible....................

[Cereberus]

so windows searches my hdd for files on my pc then forwards it to mpaa etc .....

what happened to innocent before proven guilty, or to search warrants for that matter..... instead they just invade your digital home (your pc...laptop....etc...) then ransack the place for evidence, then forward your private data to third parties.....

and if that isn't bad enough, they got a kill switch too, wtf :rant:

when news broke out about nsa spying (tracking phone records) i didn't really care, cause they were trying to catch terrorists or mafia. but this windows 10 is going way too far :spank:

anyone else think this is illegal :o ?

[jbleck]

as usual these articles are very big on the title but provide very low quality content...
i mean... be more specific and provide evidence before spamming us with what is most likely crap and rant.

come on people... i thought we've overcome the religious way of doing things...
and these tracker stories... it's not like it's a secret what is going on there and anyone can become a member if he truly wants to...
these puppies are fast runners it seems and they get scared pretty easy... i bet they'll spit anything if cornered by the big dog... my advice is to get away from them.

[Nastrahl]

Back in my days they said the great villain Microsoft sends privacy concerned data through Windows Update.

Strangely nobody cares when it comes to Google and Apple with their smartphone OS' which are far more dangerous for your privacy.

[The Owl]

Just remember I am only the messenger I did not write the message.

[The Owl]

Just remember I am only the messenger I did not write the message.

Don't shoot the messenger. :sui:

you got it

[emerglines]

At this time I can copy and paste a couple of movies on someones laptop and get him to prison easily!

What a mess!

[dMog]

Just remember I am only the messenger I did not write the message.

Don't shoot the messenger. :sui:

you got it

darned rights don't shoot this particular messenger...this one happens to know how to shoot back... :D

[The Owl]

Just remember I am only the messenger I did not write the message.

Don't shoot the messenger. :sui:

you got it

darned rights don't shoot this particular messenger...this one happens to know how to shoot back... :D

shhhhh don't tell everyone heheehe

[VileTouch]

At this time I can copy and paste a couple of movies on someones laptop and get him to prison easily!

What a mess!

...or hide a bag of weed under their door mat

... or replace the carrot nose of their snowman with a severed finger

so many options!, so much fun!

[nIGHT]

They could be right about this being the last w1ndows. hehehe!

Too many sh1ts as features that were not made public.

Too many sh1ts as features that were of no use to the users but only to the greedy gov'ts and C-trolls.

If only there is one linux distro that is made for "ease of use" and can give a great UX then maybe a lot of users will migrate to it. If the userbase of linux dominates then amd and nvidia will be "more cooperative" with the developers, so comes games more playable.

I hope one day I can see here "nSanedown's Linux" where each version is name like for sweets, spice or foods like in android. hehehe!

"nSanedown's Linux version FrenchFries!" :D

I keep on dreaming... :)

[steven36]

People have became so paranoid about windows 10 next they will be disabling windows updates all together and only doing updates offline. If you're this paranoid and it bothers you so much you should roll back to you're old O//S .

This is one reason i mostly only use filelockers to download stuff I dont have to deal with this kind of stupidity. Now there banning O/S on theory without any proof and i hear all you have to do is tweak your torrent client to say its windows 7 or 8 and they dont know what o/s your on . :lol:

[ugurano]

beter use windows 8.1

[emerglines]

At this time I can copy and paste a couple of movies on someones laptop and get him to prison easily!

What a mess!

...or hide a bag of weed under their door mat

... or replace the carrot nose of their snowman with a severed finger

so many options!, so much fun!

Micro$oft piracy request get accepted faster from court than a bag of weed!

[steven36]

M$ most likely loves it . They done got people scared as :shit: and didn't have do nothing but what they been doing all along .They didn't even deactivate no pirates . And many are rolling back and now torrent sites are making some have to roll back or use a vm to use there trackers .

More news:

Windows 10 privacy paranoia leads to ban from private pirate torrent trackers.

Fears surrounding Windows 10's online connectivity and data collection are continuing to run rampant. The latest fallout is something that Microsoft probably won't be too upset about: some private BitTorrent trackers that trade entirely in pirated media appear to have banned the use of Microsoft's operating system.

According to a post on Reddit, the iTS tracker has banned the use of Windows 10. The reason? "Amongst other things Windows 10 sends the contents of your local disks directly to one of their servers."

To the best of our knowledge, this is nonsense. Windows 10, like every modern mainstream operating system, does connect to numerous cloud services, and there are certainly privacy implications to these. But sending the contents of disks to Microsoft? There are no signs that Windows 10 does anything of the sort.

Microsoft reserves the right to share some data collected by Windows 10 with certain third parties. This particularly alarms iTS because of an existing Microsoft partnership with a company called MarkMonitor. iTS describes MarkMonitor as an "anti-piracy company." That's true in a sense—the company helps brands stop things like the sale of counterfeits, domain squatting, and fraud—but it seems that Microsoft's involvement with MarkMonitor is of a kind that even dedicated pirates shouldn't find too offensive. Microsoft's brands are routinely used to defraud people, with tech support scams, phishing, and counterfeit install media all being rampant. Working to prevent this is an entirely reasonable thing for the company to do, and partnering with MarkMonitor doesn't mean that Microsoft wants to inspect everyone's hard disk.

TorrentFreak reports that other private trackers are considering copying iTS' move. It writes that the BB tracker told its users that Windows 10 "will be gathering information on users' P2P use to be shared with anti piracy groups." It is not clear what Windows 10 feature is believed to be responsible for this behavior.

Again, the concerns around Windows 10's privacy impact appear to be tremendously overblown. There is the kernel of legitimate concern: Windows 10 collects a lot of data, and it's not as easy as we'd like to disable this collection. Windows 10 also seems to communicate with Microsoft even when configured for maximum privacy and minimal online integration. There are also reasonable concerns about what precisely is sent to Microsoft.

But these concerns are not "Microsoft is capturing the contents of your disks." They're more subtle; they're things like, "some requests are sent with a unique identifier, which would allow some searches and other online activity to be correlated." The inferences that can be drawn are not entirely precise, and there are concerns that they might be used for things such as targeted advertising—with, for example, the operating system using local search terms to influence Web ads—blurring the lines between "local" and "online" in a way that leaves some people uncomfortable.

Cloud storage services, including Microsoft's OneDrive and Google's Drive, raise the prospect of automated (or other) analysis of files stored online. Both of those services, for example, will attempt to detect child pornography. E-mails stored in Gmail, Office 365, Outlook.com, or any other online mail provider are also susceptible to inspection by service providers (something that Google does but that Microsoft doesn't) or government seizure.

Concern over these things is reasonable; while many will decide that the trade-offs are fair, some may feel that they go beyond what an operating system should do. The ability to opt out is important, and we feel that Windows 10 would be improved by making this opt-out simpler (for example, in addition to the piecemeal controls, offer a single switch between "fully cloud-connected and online" and "no cloud connectivity, go online only for updates") and stricter (turning off cloud connectivity should really turn it off, no exceptions).

But the notion that Microsoft gives a damn about some bootleg copy of a movie that you downloaded with BitTorrent and wants to report you to an anti-piracy organization? It's absurd. The company has literally nothing to gain from the backlash that this kind of intrusion would provoke. Collecting data so that Redmond can better understand how Windows is used or offer better recognition of the people, places, and events that you care about when you ask Cortana about them is one thing, invading privacy just so that MPAA or RIAA can get their pound of flesh is quite another. It's paranoia unrelated to any real privacy threat from Windows or any other operating system.

Source

[coromonadalix]

windows 2000 ??? loll

[Cereberus]

if i'm not mistaken, if u use umatrix for your browser and spoof ur useragent to fake using another os other than windows 10, the private trackers can't flag you as windows 10 to ban your account while browsing the private trackers website for.... stuff...

:secret: i use tixati, and i only notice ips and countries mentioned, but not other stuff like OS being used when downloading an actual torrent.