Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 485 posts

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#291

Post by jbotdev »

plopilop wrote: post #249
jjcm wrote: post #187

Recall suffered from a classic Microsoft mistake they've made time and again, but never learned from - how to correctly market and package your feature. Microsoft always tends to "go big" with their integrations, often to their detriment, in order to increase adoption of new features. One notable time was with Windows 8. They really, REALLY wanted people to try out the new Metro UI, so they deeply integrated it into…

How is this objectively a great feature? This is a spyware that stores screenshots unencrypted (and thus accessible to any other spyware). I am also not convinced that the AI tools would have been offline, thus effectively sharing your whole data with Microsoft (even more than before). From a privacy perspective, this feature is an abomination

I’m not sure an “objectively great” feature exists, because “great” is such a vague and subjective term.

I think it’s more productive to discuss it in terms of the use cases and who they benefit.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#292

Post by cybwraith »

methuselah_in wrote: post #139

Well I guess got scared because people will install Linux?

Windows 11's disaster of changes had already pushed me to decide to go full linux on my PCs, this was the straw that got me to stop being lazy and actually execute on that decision.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#293

Post by HaZeust »

k8svet wrote: post #170
HaZeust wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ZorinOS is catching up FAST and QUICK with out-of-the-box gaming support, many thanks to Valve's bankroll into the problem with Proton (primarily) and Wine (secondarily) for the Steam Deck. I look forward to see where developments can go from here, but Zorin is pretty good for a solid amount of games... Maybe not most.

Give me a break. Its the kernel, drm, mesa, and proton. The distro haw scant all to do with it except a bunch of newbies loudly claiming "new distro" is the best because it includes one single extra package pre-installed or something. I will never stop being annoyed at conversations around distros. Ever.

The conversation started, to which I contributed to, was about what's easiest out of the box for casual users. What are you on about?

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#294

Post by porcoda »

I’m not sure Microsoft will ever achieve the level of trust they’d need to make things like this feature ever be acceptable. I’m sure in parts of the company they care about user trust quite a bit, but those people will never be able to counter the actions that the “maximize revenue at all costs” people take that undermine trust left and right. I don’t see them putting “build and maintain user trust” as a corporate goal that they ACTUALLY try to achieve (not just use as a corporate feel good statement), since “maximize shareholder value and revenue” will always win.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#295

Post by mrangle »

simonw wrote: post #90
segasaturn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My takeaway is that Microsoft has been trying to boil the frog, but slipped and turned the temperature up too quickly. They're retreating for now, but make no mistake that Recall will slowly trickle back into Windows under another name. Every major power broker wants something like Recall to become the norm - bosses to spy on their employees, governments to spy on their citizens/enemies, and tech CEO's to collect tra…

This is a very cynical take. I've not seen anything to make me think this feature is intended for surveillance as opposed to personal utility. The personal utility benefits are very clear to me - the problem is the ease with which malicious attackers might steal the data (if they can breach the system).

Cynicism is forgivable. Smart, even. Given that it implies expectations from experience. Naivete, and possibly "willful naivete", on the other hand is not forgivable given perceived stakes by many.

It's not cynical whatsoever to understand that features that enable surveillance are for surveillance. It's simply a realistic take.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#296

Post by pjmlp »

consumer451 wrote: post #202
pjmlp wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, Azure has a much better security culture than Windows business unit. Most stuff is built with .NET, Go, Java and Rust, while the hypervisors are based on Windows (Azure Host OS[0]) it isn't the same as regular Windows, and most workloads are Linux based, officially > 60% [1]. Finally, starting this year, Azure has new security guidelines, all new software is to be written in managed languages, if a G…

Thank you, I really appreciate this response. I need to read all of this. However, the most recent compromises did happen on Azure, and not Windows, correct? edit: and of course that's where the threat actors put their focus, because that's where the data lived.

The whole issue is with Recall storage, and information gathering on Windows.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#297

Post by slashdave »

consumer451 wrote: post #99
swatcoder wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a much more mundane read: They invested a bunch of effort into a product the market loudly rejected. They're now withdrawing the product while they figure out what they can salvage from the effort. Key stakeholders may have a few ideas about how to proceed (ranging from "try again later" through "repurpose it" to "forget it"), but enterprises of Microsoft size make decisions very slowly so of course it's vagu…

In addition to direct market reaction, they must be a bit red in the face considering that Apple just laid out a complex and well thought out implementation of "AI", which focused on privacy. As someone who grew up near Redmond, who still has an emotional soft-spot for Microsoft for some reason, I feel truly embarrassed for their implementation.

My suspicion is that Microsoft learned of Apple's effort, thus this rushed, skunkworks implementation, pushed to be released before Apple. The effort backfired spectacularly.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#298

Post by kergonath »

HaZeust wrote: post #165
999900000999 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you can't afford a Mac, and you're not technically literate enough to install Ubuntu ? Speaking for myself, I dual boot mint and windows because I really like playing games and making music. Both of those are absolutely subpar on Linux. Outside of our nerd bubble, most normal people don't really want to run desktop Linux. Macs are great, but I can't really game on them.

ZorinOS is catching up FAST and QUICK with out-of-the-box gaming support, many thanks to Valve's bankroll into the problem with Proton (primarily) and Wine (secondarily) for the Steam Deck. I look forward to see where developments can go from here, but Zorin is pretty good for a solid amount of games... Maybe not most.

> ZorinOS is catching up FAST and QUICK

This is a perfect example of a frustrating problem with Linux on the desktop. There is always a perfect distro that my aunt can just use and that never breaks. The problem is that once it was Mandrake, then Ubuntu, then Manjaro, then Pop_OS!, and many others. Most of them fade into obscurity after a couple of years, to be replaced by $shiny_distro that this time will be perfect for non-technical users, I promise! And a year later, there will be another one and everyone will start raving about it and dismiss $shiny_distro for being broken.

This does not work. To work with a general audience, a distro needs to look nice, behave well, be good at marketing, and last long enough to establish a presence. Maybe ZorinOS is good, I have no clue. But I never heard of it (and I am following what’s happening in tech in general), and i have no clue whether it will be around next year. So I’ll stay on Tumbleweed, and I still don’t have a really good solution for normal people who might want to use Linux.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#299

Post by slashdave »

patmorgan23 wrote: post #203
digging wrote: post #55

This is confusing and vague to me, which I believe is exactly the intent. It focuses on security, reiterates that security is their top priority (and we know that this is untrue). What were the security problems? They don't even allude to the existence or detection of any specific security problems. It sounds to me like they're figuring out a new marketing approach, or they're softening the blow by "listening to user…

Per one of the ars Technica articles, All the information collected was stored locally completely unencrypted, and would be accessible by anyone with local administrator rights.

Nevermind accessible to other users, but accessible to any 3rd party application that the user executes. A nightmare of a security hole.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#300

Post by roody15 »

simonw wrote: post #90
segasaturn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My takeaway is that Microsoft has been trying to boil the frog, but slipped and turned the temperature up too quickly. They're retreating for now, but make no mistake that Recall will slowly trickle back into Windows under another name. Every major power broker wants something like Recall to become the norm - bosses to spy on their employees, governments to spy on their citizens/enemies, and tech CEO's to collect tra…

This is a very cynical take. I've not seen anything to make me think this feature is intended for surveillance as opposed to personal utility. The personal utility benefits are very clear to me - the problem is the ease with which malicious attackers might steal the data (if they can breach the system).

Explain the personal utility here... Ohh I cannot find that one website I visited but I know I had found it a couple weeks back? Really. The personal utility use case looks pretty weak IMO.
Post reply on HN