Yay! More Windows 10 security insanity!
So now some BitTorrent trackers are blocking Windows 10! Why? Well, paranoia.
This is gold. And the outrage around it phenomenal. Firstly, because the BitTorrent trackers are blowing shit out of proportion and secondly because people are legitimately upset that they might be banned from downloading... ILLEGALLY!
Let's start with the claims that Microsoft sends files to their servers. No one seems to have concrete evidence, but the likely source of this fear is a privacy setting that allows MS to upload samples of files scanned by their AV software for analytics purposes. But others have speculated on far less likely privacy settings that lead to this. Though, it is hard to say for sure, since it seems people are just skimming the policy finding and combinations of words that scare them and then completely ignoring the context within which they are used.
For the sake of sanity though... lets assume it is the AV thing.
So, given that many people still have bandwidth caps, we can probably assume that Microsoft will favor smaller individual files as opposed to say, your pirated ISOs or full length movies. With the permissions defaulted on you can expect a class action lawsuit otherwise to recoup bandwidth overage charges from both legit and illegal downloaders.
But even if MS goofed and decided to arbitrarily upload any file regardless of file size there are a small army of other reasons why they don't really want the bulk of the crap you download illegally. Namely, storing your crap on their servers and having to analyze every single piece.
MUCH quicker; generate a digital fingerprint of the file locally, check with MS servers to see if it has already been scanned, and only send the file if it hasn't been checked yet. That makes a TON of sense IF Microsoft is even bothering with most large files, which lets face it, this is mostly about. Microsoft doesn't need 10 million, identical, illegally acquired copies of every season of Game Of Thrones. And, it certainly doesn't bother rescanning it over and over again.
And here is the interesting bit... I would think Microsoft legally obligated to avoid uploading potentially copyrighted media. I'm no law grad... but if their software accidentally, automatically uploads a legitimate copy of a movie, then they are technically in violation of copyright law for producing a copy of a work without express consent from the copyright holder.
So, it is unlikely they are going to upload your stolen media unless it meets some other criteria, like a heuristic algorithm picked up a digital signature of a piece of malware or a virus and sent the file off to confirm if it was a false positive or an accurate detection to improve the software.
But, what about a smaller stolen file? Like an MP3? Well, now we're getting into funky territory. Note that this also applies to videos and some software as well, but I'm focusing on music because the files could be small enough to justify sending off. And that funkiness is how would Microsoft know that the MP3 was illegally downloaded? There are MANY legitimate ways to acquire all of the above. The existence of a video, even if its digital signature matches a known torrented version is not sufficient enough to say that the instance on your PC was illegally acquired. There are also grey areas. If I paid for something legitimately and have proof of purchase, and that item didn't have a licensed tied to a physical disk, etc... if I re-acquire via would otherwise be an illegal download, is my downloaded copy considered illegally obtained? Oh, and the above about automatically producing an unauthorized copy of a piece of media... also applies here.
If you're concerned... go produce an original piece of art and intercept the data going to MS and sue then should they happen to upload your works.
All of the above of course is as ludicrous as the people complaining in the articles. We're still complaining about potentially being caught doing something illegal. Only on the internet.
There are a handful of comments on the linked article that do raise legitimate arguments... but the fact that they raise in the defense of protecting illicit activities doesn't help their credibility.
In the end, it is similar to the Kinect/NSA fears. While these concerns are pretty clearly overrated, even if they were based in fact, the average person would STILL have nothing to fear. Validating that much information simply isn't going to happen. If it is being used this way at all, it is being used against the biggest offenders and those people will likely be shut down over time by other methods any way.
Not going to pretend this is a glowing defense, but then, it is stronger than the argument it is defending against so I'm happy to leave it there.
This is gold. And the outrage around it phenomenal. Firstly, because the BitTorrent trackers are blowing shit out of proportion and secondly because people are legitimately upset that they might be banned from downloading... ILLEGALLY!
Let's start with the claims that Microsoft sends files to their servers. No one seems to have concrete evidence, but the likely source of this fear is a privacy setting that allows MS to upload samples of files scanned by their AV software for analytics purposes. But others have speculated on far less likely privacy settings that lead to this. Though, it is hard to say for sure, since it seems people are just skimming the policy finding and combinations of words that scare them and then completely ignoring the context within which they are used.
For the sake of sanity though... lets assume it is the AV thing.
So, given that many people still have bandwidth caps, we can probably assume that Microsoft will favor smaller individual files as opposed to say, your pirated ISOs or full length movies. With the permissions defaulted on you can expect a class action lawsuit otherwise to recoup bandwidth overage charges from both legit and illegal downloaders.
But even if MS goofed and decided to arbitrarily upload any file regardless of file size there are a small army of other reasons why they don't really want the bulk of the crap you download illegally. Namely, storing your crap on their servers and having to analyze every single piece.
MUCH quicker; generate a digital fingerprint of the file locally, check with MS servers to see if it has already been scanned, and only send the file if it hasn't been checked yet. That makes a TON of sense IF Microsoft is even bothering with most large files, which lets face it, this is mostly about. Microsoft doesn't need 10 million, identical, illegally acquired copies of every season of Game Of Thrones. And, it certainly doesn't bother rescanning it over and over again.
And here is the interesting bit... I would think Microsoft legally obligated to avoid uploading potentially copyrighted media. I'm no law grad... but if their software accidentally, automatically uploads a legitimate copy of a movie, then they are technically in violation of copyright law for producing a copy of a work without express consent from the copyright holder.
So, it is unlikely they are going to upload your stolen media unless it meets some other criteria, like a heuristic algorithm picked up a digital signature of a piece of malware or a virus and sent the file off to confirm if it was a false positive or an accurate detection to improve the software.
But, what about a smaller stolen file? Like an MP3? Well, now we're getting into funky territory. Note that this also applies to videos and some software as well, but I'm focusing on music because the files could be small enough to justify sending off. And that funkiness is how would Microsoft know that the MP3 was illegally downloaded? There are MANY legitimate ways to acquire all of the above. The existence of a video, even if its digital signature matches a known torrented version is not sufficient enough to say that the instance on your PC was illegally acquired. There are also grey areas. If I paid for something legitimately and have proof of purchase, and that item didn't have a licensed tied to a physical disk, etc... if I re-acquire via would otherwise be an illegal download, is my downloaded copy considered illegally obtained? Oh, and the above about automatically producing an unauthorized copy of a piece of media... also applies here.
If you're concerned... go produce an original piece of art and intercept the data going to MS and sue then should they happen to upload your works.
All of the above of course is as ludicrous as the people complaining in the articles. We're still complaining about potentially being caught doing something illegal. Only on the internet.
There are a handful of comments on the linked article that do raise legitimate arguments... but the fact that they raise in the defense of protecting illicit activities doesn't help their credibility.
In the end, it is similar to the Kinect/NSA fears. While these concerns are pretty clearly overrated, even if they were based in fact, the average person would STILL have nothing to fear. Validating that much information simply isn't going to happen. If it is being used this way at all, it is being used against the biggest offenders and those people will likely be shut down over time by other methods any way.
Not going to pretend this is a glowing defense, but then, it is stronger than the argument it is defending against so I'm happy to leave it there.
Comments
Post a Comment