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 MrGuy on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:44PM
Isn't peer-to-peer delivery the most socially optimal way to use the limited overall bandwidth of the internet? Shouldn't we be encouraging companies to do things this way, as opposed to having a simply massive number of servers saturating a number of network links sending the same 1's and 0's to each end user one-at-a-time?
I get the sad face where telecoms potentially pass additional cost on to users when using this delivery model, which is problematic. But it feels like this is something we should be encouraging huge bandwidth users to do.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Lunix Nutcase on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:49PM
Since this involves Microsoft it is automatically wrong and evil. Regardless that others do it as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @09:20PM
We're talking about P2P tech here, not operating systems!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @09:33PM
But that doesn't suit his internal narrative, which is that everyone else automatically thinks Microsoft are an evil crowd when they're simply some poor hardworking businesspeople who are just doing what they have to in order to get by.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by dyingtolive on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:58PM
My fuzzy feeling ends when I remember than my upload bw is much lower than my download, and they neither ask permission nor warn you that this is happening.
This is also OS level stuff. Steam/Blizzard? Yeah, whatever. I can quit those if I think it's causing an issue. I mean, I know you can turn this off too, but it's buried inside options that you wouldn't know about. Big difference.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @09:43PM
That they don't tell you is the key, as far as I'm concerned. I have very low upload bandwidth, and my contract won't allow me to install an upload service or a P2P server. Had I installed Windows 10 response times would increase to unpleasant levels, my ISP would investigate, and I'd run the risk of being banned.
Does the package ensure that you're not, for example, gaming online and so uploading plenty of non-Microsoft data?
Also, why should I be subsidizing Microsoft by letting them use my bandwidth? They're a multibillion dollar company, I don't even have a thousandth of that. They can pay their own way, instead of freeloading off my back.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday August 04 2015, @10:47PM
Imagine what would happen if millions of Windows users got banned by their ISPs due to this Windows 10 feature.
I wonder who would get more backlash, Microsoft or the ISPs.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by rob_on_earth on Wednesday August 05 2015, @09:28AM
Or it could just lead to a great improvements.
Instead of getting N up and N/10 down from your ISP it would have to be just N. And they could not include the "thou shalt not run any servers" clause.
Which in turn would make it more feasible for individuals to run there own servers. OpenId, Identica and TOR exit nodes to name just a few.
Hell! Microsoft could be the internet's salvation.
Maybe not.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mtrycz on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:58PM
I thought the same thing.
I'd use it if it was open and secure, for some content delivery like updates. It makes a lot of sense.
Not if it's shoved down your throat, tho.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 2) by pixeldyne on Tuesday August 04 2015, @09:38PM
It'd be great if there was a setting to make it work on LAN only, I could update all machines without hogging the DSL and would save money on WSUS. Half baked idea, it seems there's a lot of "if only" with Microsoft. oh well, another opportunity for 3rd party vendors to implement it (for home computers especially).
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday August 04 2015, @10:10PM
I think that there actually an option for that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @01:22AM
There is.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Tuesday August 04 2015, @09:43PM
I think the best option is to only have it utilized over the LAN. Fetch once and the whole local network gets a copy without having to go back upstream. This would largely solve the problem of needing to redownload numerous patches when one of your computers gets reinstalled, as another local one would be at the latest patch release and could provide the entire lot. Seems like a pretty huge win for convenience and keeping ISP facing bandwidth usage to a minimum.