SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Microsoft will use its customers' upload bandwidth to deliver Windows 10's updates and apps with a peer-to-peer technology resembling BitTorrent, a fact that has caught some by surprise.
Baked into Windows 10 is a new technology Microsoft dubbed "Windows Update Delivery Optimization" (WUDO) that is turned on by default for all editions of Windows 10. However, only some SKUs (stock-keeping units) -- notably Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro -- are set to provide updates and apps to other devices when connected to the public Internet.
Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Education, volume-licensed SKUs for large companies and organizations, also have WUDO enabled, but default to sharing updates and apps only within a local network.
WUDO resembles BitTorrent in its basics, and like that file-sharing technology, uses a peer-to-peer delivery system to spread the load to PCs worldwide rather than relying on a centralized-servers model.
If WUDO is enabled, Microsoft can point others to locally-cached copies of updates and apps on users' Windows 10 devices that are connected to the Internet. When that happens, a user's Windows 10 PC acts as a substitute server for others, and any customer whose device is tapped for WUDO delivery has given Microsoft access to their upload bandwidth.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday August 04 2015, @07:57PM
So how will this affect those on limited plans or with hidden caps? It will make the average user appear more like the Pirate Bay user. Also is there anyway way one could only pull updates from specific IP address ranges?
One other question that jumps to my mind is can someone use this to push out in mass a malicious update to all windows users or even a modified existing one to be malicious?
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:09PM
By a simple setting you can tell windows 10 that your connection is metered, and it won't do WuDO.
By another simple setting you can tell Windows 10 not to use WUDO at all, regardless of connection type.
Articles on how to do this are all over the web.
Microsoft foresaw your worry about bogus malicious updates pushed from some nefarious sources. They use a technique similar to torrents, where your machine will only download/upload signed and hashed portions from/to other machines.
The easiest thing is to just turn it off.
Disclaimer: I've only done the upgrade to 10 on one machine (a Windows Surface Pro (og version), and it went flawlessly.
Everything worked, all applications previously installed worked perfectly.
I found the tablet was much warmer when sleeping (on mains power) indicating it was doing something it never use to do. I went digging around and found online articles, and shut down those features, as well as Cortana.
No intentions of upgrading my work computer (win7) any time soon.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:23PM
Good to know. I haven't made the plunge yet but probably will since I haven't heard of any catastrophic issues. With a lot of features that get added to things security is often not even thought of so it was reasonable to postulate if that was the case here as well.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:29PM
Is the existence of that option (and the necessity of choosing it) obvious for the average user?
The vast majority of people will not search for articles on the web before getting Windows. Especially if it's preinstalled on their computer.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday August 05 2015, @01:43AM
Microsoft makes an attempt to figure out if your connection is metered. They don't explain how they do that, or how well it works.
Even on a pre-installed store bought computer you are presented with the choices. Admittedly, most are in too much of a hurry to think it through. But as more articles are written on this perhaps some will hear of it.
There will be a more who will learn of security and privacy issues from friends, or when some big expose is written, but sadly, I suspect the bulk will run the recommended settings.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Jiro on Tuesday August 04 2015, @09:10PM
I was under the impression that Windows 10 will not let you set every type of connection as metered.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday August 05 2015, @01:45AM
Why wouldn't they? If you have a metered connection, that accounts for our ONLY connection in most cases.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by linkdude64 on Wednesday August 05 2015, @06:30AM
The closest analogy I can think of to the situation of Win10 users who "untick the surveillance boxes" is that they've got a gun pointed at their heads, and MS is telling the lUsers that they can choose whether or not they want it to be loaded. How can you be sure it's unloaded? Because they _promise_ it is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:36PM
Just figure out how to get a copy of the Enterprise edition.
It allows you to turn off all the shit you'll have to. Stuff like the telemetry, cortana, p2p updates, location tracking/sharing bullshit...and on and on.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Tuesday August 04 2015, @10:18PM
Windows 10 is supports WSUS, so enterprise users can continue to use the same proxy update servers they've been using.