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MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

xusheng.dev

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Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or.....Install Linux and bypass all this stupidity. They will move faster to track each and every one of you, all the while shoving ads and garbage down each of your respective machines... and you all pay for it?!

You still want the virtual mailing address for other reasons honestly. Even if your os isn't tracking you or leaking things giving your real address to any business could lead to it being leaked because no one cares about security, etc. If that's in your threat model you should be using a good proxy mailer

Perhaps so. But the problem at hand here is that MS Windows has so lost the plot of being an OS for users, to ABUSING users.

All these fixes and repairs ignore the fact that abusing people pays. Surveillance capitalism pays, and provides a revenue stream for Microsoft to further exploit.

The only way to win is not to play.

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#132
post #99
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly would this work? People take RAW photos. Load it up in a RAW editing tool. Manipulate it. Then load it in Gimp. Manipulate some more. Will the final result have the signature? And if it does, what use would it be?

In the imaginary dream world that Adobe, Google et al live in, the final file does indeed have a signature. Each piece of software in the chain must use TPM-like technologies (yes, even GIMP) to make sure it's running a "legitimate" build of the software, on "legitimate" hardware, and re-sign the file at each step along the way (using keys provisioned during some flavour of remote attestation flow, or using a RA-auth…

OK, but given that GIMP is a general purpose tool, what use is the signature if all of them verify it, when I can drastically change the image to whatever I want it to be?

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#133
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> address Do not tell Microsoft where you sleep. IANAL but they are not a government or financial institution and do not have a right to that information. Make sure you register mailing addresses with your credit card institutions in addition to your residential addresses, and make your mailing address your billing address so that you aren't forced to tell a thousand businesses like Microsoft where you sleep.

Windows 11 effectively forces users to register with a Microsoft account. Once that's established, all it takes is for an unaware user to fill out an e-commerce form and save an address for auto-fill.

> Windows 11 effectively forces users to register with a Microsoft account.

While it's definitely a dark pattern that I 100% do not agree with, Pro editions still allow you to do a local account. No need for the oobe /bypass command, still can be done through the OOBE GUI setup by selecting a Work/School account option then selecting Sign in options to then specify a local account to create.

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#134

Thanks Microsoft, for adding my signature so I won't have to claim authorship when it ends up in a museum in 200 years, and the NSA archives are declassified for art historians filing a FOIA in 2226, who find out, "yep, it was from his PC."

Ms paint slop being hung in a museum? Now that's a dystopian future!

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#135
post #70

This reminds me that in the USSR they had typewriters that added an identifier somehow that could be traced back to that particular typewriter (and who it was sold to)

Sure, try to scan, photocopy, edit in photoshop or print US money today.

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#136
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the imaginary dream world that Adobe, Google et al live in, the final file does indeed have a signature. Each piece of software in the chain must use TPM-like technologies (yes, even GIMP) to make sure it's running a "legitimate" build of the software, on "legitimate" hardware, and re-sign the file at each step along the way (using keys provisioned during some flavour of remote attestation flow, or using a RA-auth…

OK, but given that GIMP is a general purpose tool, what use is the signature if all of them verify it, when I can drastically change the image to whatever I want it to be?

The manifests at each step can embed a thumbnail (although this is optional, iiuc!), so looking at the thumbnail history it should be obvious that the edit was significant.

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#137
post #104

These days i cant recommend Windows to anybody. Even gamers should move to linux. Some say "i do nothing illegal" "have nothing to hide". You dont do anything illegal in your point of view. AI tracking you might think otherwise. A sudden knock on your door might happen because of an ambigious search/propmt.

Others say

"I need it to work on a random Thursday, not wait for fsck after ever reboot"

https://github.com/IceWhaleTech/CasaOS/issues/1104

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#138
post #24

The AI aspect of this is a red herring. The real problem is that they're secretly adding in a unique identifier into every image you create. If somebody does not like your meme, they can just send a copyright subpoena to Microsoft to instantly get your full name, address, email, phone number, and any other data associated with your Microsoft account. Just like age verification, this is another weapon in the war again…

[flagged]

I am a human and I upvoted the comment immediately. Do not underestimate the wide ranging hate for age verification. Even my normie friends are against it. Meta/etc have been buying those laws but at the cost of more and more people waking up to privacy activism. I predict in a couple years it'll backlash as people first fight against AV, and then fight for more broad privacy reform in the US. At least for myself, I had never been actively calling my reps until the AV laws.

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows 11 effectively forces users to register with a Microsoft account. It takes zero effort to bypass that with Rufus, if you set up your own pc.

My comment was in regard to the average PC user. The kinds of folks who would never install an operating system and would likely agree to use Edge while signed in to their Microsoft account.

Microsoft has also been pushing hard for Recall and recording all local activity forever. Not impossible to imagine that anything looking like a home address “somehow” gets ingested in the telemetry.

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#140
post #134

Thanks Microsoft, for adding my signature so I won't have to claim authorship when it ends up in a museum in 200 years, and the NSA archives are declassified for art historians filing a FOIA in 2226, who find out, "yep, it was from his PC."

Ms paint slop being hung in a museum? Now that's a dystopian future!

No, I wasn't suggesting that. I was saying that if there was digital art (human made) aesthetically significant that a curator would want to display it in a museum, Microsoft's GUID supplied to a data collection agency would make it possible to retrieve if ever/whenever that data were declassified (assuming it isn't purged)

It's possible a very bad curator with a terrible taste in art might select slop to display, but I was refering to "fine art" or at least finer art that is digital.

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