Is it possible that Microsoft is using the remaining power of my machine to power paid Microsoft Azure machines?

How would we go about that, and how does that fit in modern day capitalism (you don’t even own your own machine)?

    • azron
      link
      22 years ago

      Yeah I don’t think I understood your question correctly initially. You are asking about whether or not MS could use your hardware to power azure as sort of a way for them to steal resources exploiting their market dominance?

      The answer is yes. Would they? Even if it is legal (maybe it already is, IANAL) for them to do it I doubt they’d do it . My two cents is that the reality is the resulting product would be too unreliable to sell to customers, especiaply Enterprise customers. I guess they could sell preemptive VMs but even then there are so many things they can’t control: network, hardware, availability, basically the only use a system without more guarantees is for raw computation like Bitcoin mining or folding@home like applications. Sure they could do that and sell it but they’ve chosen not to for some reason. The technology has existed she nice the late 90s. Likely doesn’t make monetary sense.