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Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Recall

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Re: Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Recall

#11
I have a different take on this.

If the same feature were built on Android or iPhone, the data would be encrypted, and the researchers would have had a hard time accessing the SQLite file itself.

Microsoft's takeaway from this negative news would be that it needs to lock down Windows 12 by adopting designs from Android and iPhone, effectively closing it off.

Re: Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Recall

#12
post #3

We've launched a FOSS alternative with OpenRecall https://github.com/openrecall/openrecall to (hopefully) work towards addressing some of the concerns people have with Windows Recall. We think it could be a useful feature but it must be (1) fully auditable/open source (2) using open source local models (3) focused on privacy/security and (4) hardware/OS independent. We're working out the roadmap currently so any feed…

Why would I want this?

If it's completely open, local, and trustworthy, I would definitely use it as a database of my activities. To query for and find something you didn't bother saving, for example, or combine it with RAG would be incredible. Since it's screenshotting everything - passwords, sensitive information, etc. - it can in practice never be trustworthy, though.

Re: Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Recall

#13
My understanding is that the Recall database is basically a plaintext local sqlite DB, and the only security measure is that it is stored in a folder for which you need admin rights to access?

If so, how is that excusable for a company like Microsoft? I'd say even a weekend hackathon project would implement more security than that?

Re: Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Recall

#14
post #11

I have a different take on this. If the same feature were built on Android or iPhone, the data would be encrypted, and the researchers would have had a hard time accessing the SQLite file itself. Microsoft's takeaway from this negative news would be that it needs to lock down Windows 12 by adopting designs from Android and iPhone, effectively closing it off.

It would be good for security but horrible for usability.

I recently got an iPhone and had to migrate to it from my Android phone which turned out to be really unpleasant because I could not carry over WhatsApp data.

Turns out that the SQLite database is encrypted and I can’t easily carry it over, nor even get the encryption key in a non-rooted device.

Furthermore, there is also the issue that Android only backs up to Google Drive whereas the iPhone only backs up to iCloud so I could not restore from backup either.

A task that should have taken minutes took me hours and I had to buy some questionable software.

https://blog.kronis.dev/everything%20is%20broken/iphone-andr...

Re: Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Recall

#16
post #11

I have a different take on this. If the same feature were built on Android or iPhone, the data would be encrypted, and the researchers would have had a hard time accessing the SQLite file itself. Microsoft's takeaway from this negative news would be that it needs to lock down Windows 12 by adopting designs from Android and iPhone, effectively closing it off.

It would be good for security but horrible for usability. I recently got an iPhone and had to migrate to it from my Android phone which turned out to be really unpleasant because I could not carry over WhatsApp data. Turns out that the SQLite database is encrypted and I can’t easily carry it over, nor even get the encryption key in a non-rooted device. Furthermore, there is also the issue that Android only backs up t…

I also looked into transferring WhatsApp data from Android to IOS recently and there is an official way to transfer in both directions now.

https://faq.whatsapp.com/686469079565350/?helpref=hc_fnav

I didn't end up going through with it through since there was no way to take a Signal backup created in Android and restore it to IOS.

Re: Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Recall

#18

My understanding is that the Recall database is basically a plaintext local sqlite DB, and the only security measure is that it is stored in a folder for which you need admin rights to access? If so, how is that excusable for a company like Microsoft? I'd say even a weekend hackathon project would implement more security than that?

where did you hear that?

> Snapshots are encrypted by Device Encryption or BitLocker, which are enabled by default on Windows 11. Recall doesn't share snapshots with other users that are signed into Windows on the same device. Microsoft can't access or view the snapshots.

You can delete your snapshots at any time by going to Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots on your PC.

source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy-and-cont...

Re: Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Recall

#19
post #18

My understanding is that the Recall database is basically a plaintext local sqlite DB, and the only security measure is that it is stored in a folder for which you need admin rights to access? If so, how is that excusable for a company like Microsoft? I'd say even a weekend hackathon project would implement more security than that?

where did you hear that? > Snapshots are encrypted by Device Encryption or BitLocker, which are enabled by default on Windows 11. Recall doesn't share snapshots with other users that are signed into Windows on the same device. Microsoft can't access or view the snapshots. You can delete your snapshots at any time by going to Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots on your PC. source: https://support.micros…

Some excerpts from https://doublepulsar.com/recall-stealing-everything-youve-ev...:

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Q. So how does it work?

A. Every few seconds, screenshots are taken. These are automatically OCR’d by Azure AI, running on your device, and written into an SQLite database in the user’s folder.

This database file has a record of everything you’ve ever viewed on your PC in plain text. OCR is a process of looking an image, and extracting the letters.

Q. How do you obtain the database files?

A. They’re just files in AppData, in the new CoreAIPlatform folder.

Q. But it’s highly encrypted and nobody can access them, right?!

A. Here’s a few second video of two Microsoft engineers accessing the folder:

https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/112535509953161486

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Re: Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Recall

#20

My understanding is that the Recall database is basically a plaintext local sqlite DB, and the only security measure is that it is stored in a folder for which you need admin rights to access? If so, how is that excusable for a company like Microsoft? I'd say even a weekend hackathon project would implement more security than that?

What further security measures were you imagining? full-disk encryption is now standard in windows 11. So how would you secure the database further from a user with admin rights?
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