After wiping my hard disk, reformating, and reinstalling windows, I
went to windowsupdate.microsoft.com to download security patches.
Although this worked without a hitch in the past, windows update just
scanned my system and failed to produce a catalog of required updates.
The progress indicator never went beyond 0%.
When I tried a second time, I was redirected to
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/thanks.
After rebooting my computer, my hardware firewall blocked 3 encrypted
HTTPS connection attempts from my computer to 208.187.212.24,
208.187.212.25, and 208.187.212.153. These addresses all belong to
Akamai Technologies.
What kind of a scam is this?