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Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

reuters.com

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

#351

Post by chucke1992 »

swatcoder wrote: post #69
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…

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…

But market did not reject it - the OS and corresponding copilot devices literally hasn't launched yet.

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

#352

Post by gigel82 »

hnpolicestate wrote: post #123

You know what would be catastrophically bad? A Recall AI feature being baked into Android. Like most people don't actually use personal computers anymore, even laptops aren't common among demos younger than millennials. I can tolerate switching to Linux or buying a steam deck. But if this became a hard coded feature of android or iOS I'd have to give up smartphones entirely.

That's basically what Apple announced with the their semantic AI integrations; they didn't call them screenshots because they're smarter than Microsoft but it's the same thing (actually, slightly worse, since their "AI" is not only local, but can reach out to the "private cloud" under unspecified conditions).

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

#353

Post by gigel82 »

cedws wrote: post #256

If Apple did something like Recall, they'd run the whole thing on a separate secure chip somehow and encrypt the data with a (actual secure) enclave. Microsoft are doing this the quick, dirty, lazy way by just embedding it into the OS. Lack of vertical integration is also haunting them.

Of course, everything will be encrypted, then securely transmitted over to their servers and promptly decrypted when requested by the authorities (see Apple in China and CCP's key to iCloud).

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

#354

Post by qsdf38100 »

nimbius wrote: post #63

In summary: the only customers that matter --corporations paying site licenses-- declared this to be an unacceptable business risk. Anyone who is still using windows in 2024 and isnt a multinational business or llc gets what they deserve.

No, they also try to attract non-pro developers with a free OS, free programming suites and languages, free web frameworks, free web server, all that with a home edition. They also claim to embrace open source, etc. They care about their image as a relevant and alive Linux and Apple alternative for developers, and I don't mean the ones forced into it because of their job.

Now they also want to attract the "masses" so in the end on Windows you'll get a lot of crappy "user-friendly" stuff. There is the ad situation also, but is really not as bad as I keep hearing about, I'm not even sure what it refers to exactly. The only times I see ads is when I mistype something in the start menu, and I start getting irrelevant web search results from bing or whatever, with ads, just like when googling. I guess that's what I "deserve"? It didn't bother me enough to try disabling it anyway.

And finally, obviously if I'm using Windows it means I accepted that I implicitly trust Microsoft, just like anyone with an iPhone/Android implicitly trusts Apple/Google. I try to minimize the number of actors which I trust. Actually Microsoft doesn't scare me too much because they are always under the spot lights, with lots of harsh criticism, so they have much more to loose than smaller/more "reputable" players. So, anyway, I don't really see why I should care that some new crappy feature could help them spy on me, as they could spy on me anytime anyway.

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

#355

Post by Andrex »

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).

> The personal utility benefits are very clear to me

Please explain to me, because I keep failing to understand. How would Recall help me do anything I want to do on my PC?

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

#356

Post by quickthrowman »

jahewson wrote: post #209
quickthrowman wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for an S-Corp with ~500 office employees and high nine-figure revenue (in dollars). All of our industry specific software is only available on Windows.

What’s your industry?

Construction. Trimble and Autodesk are the two main industry specific vendors we use software from.

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

#357

Post by Andrex »

red_admiral wrote: post #227
vsuperpower2020 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When would this be useful? Microsoft's best examples are that the user forgot the location of a chinese food place your friend told you once.

I imagine MS did a lot of user studies, and found that the average user could gain a lot from being able to ask the computer questions like "where's the word document for the summer anniversary party that I worked on a couple of weeks ago" or "the photo with the waterfall from our holiday in Greece in 2015 that I sent to Mary recently". Whether Recall in 2024 will be good enough to answer queries like that remains to…

> the photo with the waterfall from our holiday in Greece in 2015 that I sent to Mary recently

Google Photos' search bar would be able to complete this search, since like 2015. Recall is completely overkill for this, like building a Death Star to swat a fly.

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

#358

Post by TillE »

MP_1729 wrote: post #136

Satya Nadella's Microsoft is such a weird company. It's like there's one side of it that is running with Zuckerberg's "move fast and break things" and the other side is saying "wait, we're the most important software company in the world! Things can't break!"

One side is open-sourcing .NET and VS Code and running GitHub well and making vcpkg. The other is crapping up Windows with embarrassing ad-ridden F2P games. It's really weird.

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

#359

Post by Dalewyn »

mrangle wrote: post #306
Dalewyn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel Recall got excessive backlash because of how ubiquitous and far reaching Windows is, and critics basically live and die by finding something popular to bitch about. There are already many things that record our data and actions that most of us are otherwise fine with. Browsing history, Undo in any number of productivity software, search histories both local (eg: Windows) and remote (eg: Google, Bing), password…

Explain "hypocrisy". As far as "overblown" goes, there's no other realm of social balance wherein concession to something means an obligation to an extreme. Last, your statement falsely presupposes that most are happy with any tracking / intrusion.

>Explain "hypocrisy".

Recall is neither the first nor the last thing to record and store your actions and data. Why is it such a big problem?

>Last, your statement falsely presupposes that most are happy with any tracking / intrusion.

Most people are in fact fine with tracking, it has been demonstrated time and time again ad nauseum that the commons do not fucking care about digital privacy and especially if they are inconvenienced.

As for intrusions (presumably you mean attacks, whether digital or physical?), it's not so much most people are fine with it so much as they don't/can't care as it's all far above their paygrades.

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

#360

Post by okanat »

grishka wrote: post #206
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.

Then you install one of those slimmed down builds of Windows that removes almost everything that isn't required to run win32 software.

Custom builds are not trustworthy. I have less trust to random nobodies on the Web than a corporation who still has to have some profits and acquire some trust. It doesn't mean they wouldn't use that trust and do things against my intentions, but the way they do things is more predictable.
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