Microsoft postpones Windows 7 public beta

By Borimol
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Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted

I don't get it. Why won't Microsoft use BitTorrent? What's wrong with it? BitTorrent is the preferred method for getting all the major Linux distributions, like Ubuntu. I recall when I was downloading the 8.10 DVD, I had a solid download speed of 700-800 kb/sec, as there were literally thousands of seeders.

Grand Master

Growled Member

Posted
  • Member
Posted
I don't get it. Why won't Microsoft use BitTorrent? What's wrong with it? BitTorrent is the preferred method for getting all the major Linux distributions, like Ubuntu

Maybe you answered your own question right there. I doubt if MS wants to be compared to Linux in any way. Besides, everyone knows BitTorrent is only for illegal stuff. :D

Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted
Maybe you answered your own question right there. I doubt if MS wants to be compared to Linux in any way. Besides, everyone knows BitTorrent is only for illegal stuff. :D

It's not, it's just a method of distribution. And if a large corporation like Microsoft would realize this, then perhaps other large corporations could get over this stigma of BitTorrent being "only for illegal stuff."

By that logic, then direct HTTP downloading is "only for illegal stuff," too.

Grand Master

Ci7

Posted
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"Thanks for your interest in the Windows 7 Beta. The volume has been phenomenal -- we?re in the process of adding more servers to handle the demand. We?re sorry for the delay and we?ll re-post the Beta as soon as we can ensure a quality download experience."

oh :(n :(

Proficient

McDave

Posted
Posted

Why don't MS bitTorrent? Well it may gives people the impression that torrents are an accepted distribution platform for MS software. Would send a out mixed messages don't you think. Not the same for linux as it's free anyway.

Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted
Why don't MS bitTorrent? Well it may gives people the impression that torrents are an accepted distribution platform for MS software. Would send a out mixed messages don't you think. Not the same for linux as it's free anyway.

...As it should be. There is absolutely nothing wrong with BitTorrent as a distribution method. In fact, it likely would have prevented the issues that plagued today. People continue to wrongly assume that BitTorrent is used solely for downloading music illicitly. It's not. It's just another way of downloading data, just like direct HTTP downloading.

Experienced

7Dash8

Posted
Posted
...As it should be. There is absolutely nothing wrong with BitTorrent as a distribution method. In fact, it likely would have prevented the issues that plagued today. People continue to wrongly assume that BitTorrent is used solely for downloading music illicitly. It's not. It's just another way of downloading data, just like direct HTTP downloading.

Wrong. Torrents remove absolutely all control from the hands of Microsoft. There's nothing to prevent people from creating a virus-ridden version of the Windows 7 .ISO and then distributing that as the real thing via torrents. There is zero quality control and zero security in torrents. MD5 hashes have now also been broken, so anyone who thinks that knowing the right MD5 hash means your download is secure is wrong. That's why MS doesn't use torrents, because torrents are an inherently risky completely insecure way of distributing software which could potentially infect millions of machines.

Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted
Wrong. Torrents remove absolutely all control from the hands of Microsoft. There's nothing to prevent people from creating a virus-ridden version of the Windows 7 .ISO and then distributing that as the real thing via torrents. There is zero quality control and zero security in torrents. MD5 hashes have now also been broken, so anyone who thinks that knowing the right MD5 hash means your download is secure is wrong. That's why MS doesn't use torrents, because torrents are an inherently risky completely insecure way of distributing software which could potentially infect millions of machines.

Valid point, but what's to stop someone from creating a virus-ridden version of the Windows 7 .ISO and then uploading it onto a "mirror" site, which is common with a lot of popular software these days? Many people would be lulled to an alternate download site, and the URL could be spoofed.

Just a thought, of course. I doubt a situation like this would actually occur.

Experienced

7Dash8

Posted
Posted
Valid point, but what's to stop someone from creating a virus-ridden version of the Windows 7 .ISO and then uploading it onto a "mirror" site, which is common with a lot of popular software these days? Many people would be lulled to an alternate download site, and the URL could be spoofed.

Just a thought, of course. I doubt a situation like this would actually occur.

There's nothing to stop people doing that. Which is why everyone should download software directly from a 100% trusted site. In this case, the most trusted site would be directly from microsoft.com. You can't spoof an entire website as easily, nor can you mask a URL as easily, because modern browsers are built to detect and warn users about this precisely due to phishing.

Grand Master

what

Posted
Posted
As stable as it may be, it's still a beta. Nobody should use a beta as their main OS.

Blah, blah, blah. We're not idiots. We all backup our important data. The worst we have to lose is an hour of our time reinstalling Windows if something does manage to go badly wrong. But you might think that if they're releasing this to 2.5 million people, Microsoft must be pretty confident nothing like that will happen.

Wrong. Torrents remove absolutely all control from the hands of Microsoft. There's nothing to prevent people from creating a virus-ridden version of the Windows 7 .ISO and then distributing that as the real thing via torrents. There is zero quality control and zero security in torrents. MD5 hashes have now also been broken, so anyone who thinks that knowing the right MD5 hash means your download is secure is wrong. That's why MS doesn't use torrents, because torrents are an inherently risky completely insecure way of distributing software which could potentially infect millions of machines.

And precisely what is there to stop people doing this now? Infected torrents are reported very quickly, it's a very small concern these days tbh.

Experienced

7Dash8

Posted
Posted
And precisely what is there to stop people doing this now? Infected torrents are reported very quickly, it's a very small concern these days tbh.

Sorry, but how do you figure it's a small problem? You have statistics on this? There are fake torrents aplenty, and for things like executable and zipped torrents, the proportion is probably very high. Just look at how many fake/infected keygens and application files there are. Movies and music are different because a user can instantly check to see if a .mpg, .avi or .mp3 file is real, plus they're not executable files.

If a major company like MS moved to a torrent distribution model then the ability to infect machines in large numbers would be too great a temptation for malware makers and the number of infected Windows 7 .ISOs would rise dramatically. After all, the best way to infect a machine and bypass its defences is to inject the OS installation with infected/altered files from the get-go.

Sorry, but I don't trust borderline criminals like the pirate bay to police the security of torrents for me. I download my software from trusted sites.

Grand Master

what

Posted
Posted
Sorry, but how do you figure it's a small problem? You have statistics on this? There are fake torrents aplenty, and for things like executable and zipped torrents, the proportion is probably very high. Just look at how many fake/infected keygens and application files there are. Movies and music are different because a user can instantly check to see if a .mpg, .avi or .mp3 file is real, plus they're not executable files.

You have statistics on this?

Like I said, infected files are reported in the comments very quickly. You just need to use your eyes. Hence, a small problem.

Experienced

7Dash8

Posted
Posted
Like I said, infected files are reported in the comments very quickly. You just need to use your eyes. Hence, a small problem.

Tell you what, I'll use my eyes if you use your brain. How will anyone detect an infected .ISO file? If the Windows installation files are modified to include a rootkit for example (i.e. a backdoor for other malware), how will any user know? If the Windows installation files are modified to not raise a UAC prompt when a particular trojan or virus is executed, how will any user know? Not all malware has big flashing signs that tells you you're infected. After a while people might work out that version of Windows 7 is compromised, but by then thousands will have had their systems compromised in the process.

Plus all it would take is for a few smartasses to falsely label a torrent as malware, because they doesn't like Windows for example, and then you get confusion.

How hard is it for people to comprehend that major companies can't trust the deployment of millions of copies of critical software to the same unsafe protocol that kiddies use to distribute illegal material?

Mentor

Mathiasdm

Posted
Posted
Sorry, but how do you figure it's a small problem? You have statistics on this? There are fake torrents aplenty, and for things like executable and zipped torrents, the proportion is probably very high. Just look at how many fake/infected keygens and application files there are. Movies and music are different because a user can instantly check to see if a .mpg, .avi or .mp3 file is real, plus they're not executable files.

If a major company like MS moved to a torrent distribution model then the ability to infect machines in large numbers would be too great a temptation for malware makers and the number of infected Windows 7 .ISOs would rise dramatically. After all, the best way to infect a machine and bypass its defences is to inject the OS installation with infected/altered files from the get-go.

Sorry, but I don't trust borderline criminals like the pirate bay to police the security of torrents for me. I download my software from trusted sites.

If Microsoft puts up the torrent file AND the tracker, I'd say that's pretty secure ;-) Md5 is hacked, yes (though it's not exactly cheap to get 200 PS3's and a quad core, to be able to do the hack reasonably fast), but the bittorrent protocol doesn't use md5. It uses the SHA-1 protocol.

I don't think anyone's seriously suggesting that Microsoft hosts their torrents at The Pirate Bay. If they host the torrents themselves, they could spare tons of bandwidth compared to hosting the entire ISO.

Experienced

7Dash8

Posted
Posted
If Microsoft puts up the torrent file AND the tracker, I'd say that's pretty secure ;-) Md5 is hacked, yes (though it's not exactly cheap to get 200 PS3's and a quad core, to be able to do the hack reasonably fast), but the bittorrent protocol doesn't use md5. It uses the SHA-1 protocol.

I don't think anyone's seriously suggesting that Microsoft hosts their torrents at The Pirate Bay. If they host the torrents themselves, they could spare tons of bandwidth compared to hosting the entire ISO.

There's a problem with the fact that people don't understand the meaning of the phrase "official torrent". Once a piece of software is distributed via torrent, people will naturally assume that a torrent download link at TPB is much the same as one from Microsoft. In fact some non-conformist tryhards might go so far as to only download the torrent from a "non-M$" source, just to show how cool they are. There's no control once something is released into the wilderness that is torrents. There's no way to explain to an average user that one torrent is not the same as another.

Also I was referring to the use of MD5 to check to see whether a downloaded file is the same as the official version. SHA-1 is used to make sure the torrent itself isn't tampered with. But if the file was originally tampered with in subtle ways and then put up as a seemingly valid download via a torrent link, that's when end users have to check the validity of the file themselves.

Grand Master

ViperAFK

Posted
Posted
There's a problem with the fact that people don't understand the meaning of the phrase "official torrent". Once a piece of software is distributed via torrent, people will naturally assume that a torrent download link at TPB is much the same as one from Microsoft. In fact some non-conformist tryhards might go so far as to only download the torrent from a "non-M$" source, just to show how cool they are. There's no control once something is released into the wilderness that is torrents. There's no way to explain to an average user that one torrent is not the same as another.

Also I was referring to the use of MD5 to check to see whether a downloaded file is the same as the official version. SHA-1 is used to make sure the torrent itself isn't tampered with. But if the file was originally tampered with in subtle ways and then put up as a seemingly valid download via a torrent link, that's when end users have to check the validity of the file themselves.

That doesn't really make too much sense. win7 is already leaked on torrent sites and it doesn't make any difference whether the ms download is a torrent or not it can be leaked and upped on torrent sites just as easily... and people bent on not downloading from ms can still do it...

You also make it seem like torrents are ONLY used for illegal downloads which is plain not true, and there are plenty of illegal http downloads, like users could tel anymore difference between an illegal download and an illegal torrent...

Also imo you would have to be mentally damaged to think tpb download is legal and the same as the ms one...

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