Slashdot Mirror
Game Publishers Using Stealth P2P Clients
An anonymous reader writes "TorrentFreak has shed some light on the dark practice of installing stealth-mode P2P clients during game downloads and using unsuspecting gamers' PCs as 'bandwidth slaves.' The clients operate in the background and largely go unnoticed until problems arise that are caused by overactive uploading/seeding. While the Akamai NetSession Interface and Pando Media Booster are specifically called out, there appear to be other offenders as indicated in the comments left by TorrentFreak readers. A publisher called Solid State Networks is putting out a call for an industry-wide 'best practices' effort to promote transparency, control and privacy on behalf of gamers who are otherwise being abused for their bandwidth without their consent."
Last I knew, which was quite some time ago, Blizzard was real explicit about the fact that you were uploading while fetching a patch. Upload speed and bytes transferred provided in the update pane.
Its the companies that don't tell you that you're part of their distribution network, or how much of your bandwidth is being consumed, that this article is against.
I don't expect morality, equality, consistency, or justice from the law. I expect only legality.
Pando Media Booster = slows down your internet connection
Norton Antivirus = makes your computer vulnerable to hacking
Trusted Computing = you can't be sure if you have control of your computer
etc.