A number of torrent sharing sites have taken the step, or are in the process of considering, of preventing users with Windows 10 computers from accessing the services contained within. Owners of a number of high profile torrent sites have determined that Windows 10 collects and sends a large amount of identifying data back to Microsoft, which in turn is shared with its strategic partners. It’s for this reason that the decision has been taken to prevent machines running Windows 10 from accessing the sites.
The sites in questions have reportedly put processes and checks in place to prevent Windows 10 users from accessing and using their trackers. A BitTorrent tracker is essentially the server that torrent sites use to facilitate the communication between peers that are using the BitTorrent protocol. These trackers allow two-way communication to request and provide files that are required to complete the requested download. Blocking access to these trackers for Windows 10 users essentially kills the torrent experience for anyone running Microsoft’s latest operating system.
TorrentFreak is reporting that torrent tracker iTS started off the process by putting the check and ban in place, which ultimately redirected any detected Windows 10 users to a video on YouTube entitled “Windows 10 is a tool to spy on everything you do.” The mistrust of Microsoft’s latest and supposedly greatest platform is also compounded by the fact that Microsoft seemingly shares any collected data with MarkMonitor, a brand protection company that is said to be involved in the U.S. Copyright System. iTS had this to say on the subject:
Many of you might have heard or read about the terrible privacy policy of windows 10 recently. 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. 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. Since last thursday windows 10 is officially banned from iTS.
It’s worth noting that Microsoft has actually been working with MarkMonitor for a number of years in one form or another. There’s also no official evidence that Microsoft actually collects any piracy information to be shared. Still, it seems that the connection between Windows 10 and MarkMonitor is enough to raise the red alarm for a number of torrent sites.
(Source: TorrentFreak)
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