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Windows-10

At that place'due south online piracy, and then there's online piracy . Anyone can mosey over to The Pirate Bay and grab some torrents of popular digital content, but at that place's no quality control mechanism and certainly no privacy. That's a niche filled by a plethora of hardcore pirate communities built around private torrent trackers. All is non well in the country of private trackers, though. Several of these sites are reportedly banning the utilise of Windows ten by members due to Microsoft's new EULA.

Private torrent sites are no strangers to strict rules. Gaining access to one of these trackers can have weeks or months on a waiting list, and some of the more serious ones only let new sign-ups with an invitation from current members. The quality of the content on these trackers is oft college, and enforcement of seeding ratios means swarms are less probable to die out before everyone has completed the download. Banning an operating system, though? That's a new 1.

The controversy stems (mainly) from a line in the Windows 10 EULA that reads equally follows.

"We may automatically cheque your version of the software and download software updates or configuration changes, including those that prevent you from accessing the Services, playing apocryphal games, or using unauthorized hardware peripheral devices."

It's accordingly vague to be scary, and it'south not clear from the context what sort of games or hardware Microsoft is referring to. That hasn't stopped several torrent groups from reacting strongly — you might say overreacting. Popular torrent group iTS claims that Microsoft is sending the contents of users' hard drives to its servers, where it is shared with the anti-piracy group MarkMonitor. Attempting to load the site on Windows ten results in a redirect to this EULA explainer video that allegedly details the dangers of using Windows 10. It all sounds like average EULA language to me, though. There's no evidence Microsoft is scanning your files in search of popular scene releases.

Several other individual trackers take followed iTS' pb in banning the use of Windows 10 by their members out of fear that Microsoft is going to chase down everyone'due south pirated content. These blocks are, of course, simply relying on useragent reporting. That'south like shooting fish in a barrel enough to spoof, and so it won't keep a determined pirate from running Windows 10 if they want.

For any of this to be a legitimate threat to piracy enthusiasts, we have to assume that Microsoft doesn't intendance well-nigh retaining user trust. For a company that'south fending off rivals from all angles, tattling on people for torrenting things is a bad movement. The consensus on Microsoft's EULA language is that it's intended to employ to Microsoft and Xbox content just. It doesn't really accept an interest in enforcing someone else'due south intellectual property. It does take a healthy dose of paranoia to run a torrent tracker these days, so perhaps we shouldn't exist surprised by the reaction.