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Microsoft Blocking Pirate Bay Links In Messenger
RemyBR writes with an excerpt from an article at El Reg: "Microsoft has confirmed that users of its instant messaging app will not be able to send each other links to popular torrent site The Pirate Bay, citing malware fears. 'We block instant messages if they contain malicious or spam URLs based on intelligence algorithms, third-party sources, and/or user complaints. Pirate Bay URLs were flagged by one or more of these and were consequently blocked,' Redmond told The Register in an emailed statement."
I know which of those three I'll bet on being responsible for TPB being blocked.
does anyone care for that company anymore? are there people still using MSN? o.O
msn messages are between sender and receiver. Microsoft has a duty to encrypt these messages so that no one else can read them. No one includes Microsoft.
What next? Microsoft will start auto correcting my grammar? So that the receiver gets messages with everything spelled correctly and with correct grammar? Why not just start sending messages with what Microsoft thinks I want to say?
Really. This should be the same as the post office. Stay the fuck out of my personal correspondence. If you can't do that, there should be a law saying you are spying and should be in jail.
Honestly people. How can you tell China that deleting content is bad when an American company is setting this type of example? I'm tired of "Do as we say, not as we do."
You may think that it is some grand anti-piracy conspiracy, but Microsoft is right. TPB is infested with torrents that contain malware. There are people who use it to spread viruses and malware. It makes sense too - it's quite easy method to infect peoples computers.
Maybe other sites are interested in tech news these days too. In 1997, your average joe didn't care about passwords, OSs, or other nerd stuff. Now, there's lots of people who want to know. So slashdot isn't the only tech news site anymore. Go have some more cheese.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Let's face it people, TPB isn't exactly a shining example of virtue. They do not give a shit who's ads they serve.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
It won't make much difference, people will just type "www.theporitebay.org/xxxxxx" instead. Like all other MSN 'blocking' it will be just another Windows annoyance rather than an impediment.
No sig today...
What is there to stop them from giving the same treatment to the your entire computing.
Easy: Linux, Mac OSX, Open/FreeBSD. It's not like MS is the only choice nowadays.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Would people have the same attitude as you if the phone company started beeping out words that they objected to? Or if the postal service started throwing away mail because they objected to the recipient? After all, the phone and the postal network belong to those companies, so they should be able to do whatever thay want?
You're right. And you know another site that is full of avenues for spyware and malware? Facebook. They should block all links to Facebook too. In fact, I'd contend that Facebook is an exponentially more threatening vehicle than TPB.
TPB is infested with torrents that contain malware.
I've been a Pirate Bay user for at least 5 years now, and must say, your statement is BS: tpb has an excellent community that actively comments on the torrents. tpb is probably the strictest torrent site out there. Only http://1337x.org/ comes close in terms of the quality of the torrents that _remain_ on the site.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
"TPB is infested with torrents that contain malware."
So are Google and Bing.
Out of Google, Bing, and TPB one of these sites has a trusted users flag from whom you can trust that content is unlikely to be infected. Guess which one of these sites it is.
And people here are always moaning how insecure Windows is - yet when MS try to take action, they are lambasted for "blocking free speech".
That's because it's what they're doing. The wider internet is full of malware, that doesn't mean you block the whole internet. You just block the URLs that are known to contain malware. Which is, incidentally, what they almost certainly do on other sites -- download.com is probably full of malware too, do they block the whole site? What about RapidShare or the like?
It's very clear that this "Pirate Bay is unsafe" is just a pretense. There is no excuse for blocking an entire domain unless the entire domain contains nothing of value, and that isn't the case here.
You may think that it is some grand anti-piracy conspiracy, but Microsoft is right. TPB is infested with torrents that contain malware. There are people who use it to spread viruses and malware. It makes sense too - it's quite easy method to infect peoples computers.
It depends on what you call "right". I would expect a messaging app to send any message, not block something that it thinks won't be good for me. What if I work for a studio and want to let someone know that our latest blockbuster has been pirated? Or if I am researching antivirus software and want to tell someone of a zero-day virus I have discovered?
More importantly where does it end? When AI is good enough will I be prevented from discussing "dangerous" topics, like making explosives? Or dangerous political parties? Or making non-PC criticisms of religions? Will there be calls for email services to do the same? I want to be able to send any message and discuss any topic I want.
So, essentially, you're saying, if we want to fight AIDS, it's better we outlaw prostitution and make access to them impossible instead of making sure everyone uses condoms?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It depends what you're downloading. I've successfully downloaded ONE piece of software via TPB torrents that wasn't infected. I stopped even trying several years ago, because it was obvious the only reason people were posting "cracks" was to spread botnet infections to the unwary.
So, no, unlike other media, I don't download and "try out" games like I do music and movies. I'm forced to go to a store to play around with a demo if I want a preview of a game.
But that's ok. The reflexes aren't what they used to be, so I pretty much quit the twitch FPS and sports games. And once you eliminate those from your gaming sessions, you realize that the vast majority of the remaining games are free or dirt cheap if you buy them online or as apps.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.