An anonymous reader writes: t's a devious little feature called Windows Update Delivery Optimization. It's enabled by default. For Enterprise and Education users, it operates over the local LAN. For ordinary Home type users, Microsoft can send their data update goodies to potentially any PC on the global Internet — from your PC, over your Internet connection. On your dime.
We could get into the pros and cons of local updates being staged between local machines on a LAN as opposed to the outside Internet.
But as soon as MS decided that it's A-OK for them to use my Internet connection to cut down on their bandwidth costs serving their other customers — without asking me for my specific permission first — the situation blows into the red zone immediately.