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Microsoft will switch off Recall by default after security backlash

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Re: Microsoft will switch off Recall by default after security backlash

#521

Post by stuartriffle »

axus wrote: post #113
GordonS wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your browsing history is unlikely to contain personal information, secrets, porn images etc. And if you use Chrome, they get your full browsing history by default. I get your point, but Microsoft's Recall can capture anything onscreen - emails, personal info, porn, passwords and the like. And it feels, bizarrely for 2024, that little thought has gone into privacy or security.

It's analogous to phone call metadata vs. the contents of the phone calls.

The language spoken by participants during a phone call is also easily classified as “metadata” and could be defended as non-identifiable info with a straight face. So are the number of speakers on the call, the topics of conversation, the intensity of emotions displayed, voice stress levels, and the presence of certain keywords, if you squint a little. The lack of a literal call transcript does not matter much in terms of privacy.

I don’t know anything about this system, but the fact that screen shots are not ultimately stored on the user’s PC doesn’t mean anything if the content has already been classified and indexed. It will be fished.

Re: Microsoft will switch off Recall by default after security backlash

#522

Post by consumer451 »

rbits wrote: post #520
consumer451 wrote: post #416

When Recall is enabled, it should have an overlay stating that it is active so that all users are aware. Something at least as obvious as the old Windows activation overlay.[0] Otherwise, every creepy roommate, bad partner, bad friend, etc... will take advantage of this to do bad things. [0] Ideally more obvious, like when Windows screen recording is running.

They can already do that. Look at ActivTrak

Yes, but that's a third party app which requires install.

Recall will be pre-installed on Windows 11. The ubiquity is what scares me, and should make MS take a second thought about liability, as far as treating their uses right.

Re: Microsoft will switch off Recall by default after security backlash

#523

Post by consumer451 »

balencpp wrote: post #518
noagainlate wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's a giant banner saying that screen recording is on, while there's nothing for recall? im not sure im following your question.

There are many screen recorders that do not show a "giant banner", and even if there weren't, it's ~200 LoC to implement an efficient screen recorder for Windows that's hidden.

You can install any app to do anything on Windows. The issue here is that this is built-in, so it will be everywhere, all the time.

Re: Microsoft will switch off Recall by default after security backlash

#524

Post by copperroof »

Timber-6539 wrote: post #500
disqard wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take a shot (not at MS, so I have no inside info). GenAI is hotter than anything else right now. As Satya publicly stated, "we made them dance" -- which shows how high-priority it is to maximize "AI innovation" at MS. If you disagree, think about how badly "Tay" blew up in MS's face and yet they still went ahead and bundled OpenAI LLM tech into all of Office365, just so they could have bragging rights about beat…

You are absolutely right. This AI race has been sort of funny to watch among the big tech incumbents. Google kept on launching faked demos and hurriedly released an openly race biased image generator all in a bid to catch up with OpenAI. Meanwhile Apple has been sort of lethargic. Recently annouced a deal with OpenAI to add GPT to their devices. They seem happy to continue playing catch up in this regard. I think Met…

You forgot Amazon eating paste in the corner.

Re: Microsoft will switch off Recall by default after security backlash

#525

Post by tracerbulletx »

russdpale wrote: post #81
herf wrote: post #58

It's interesting to compare this to the Chrome/Safari/Edge browsing history, which is stored in an unencrypted SQLite database, and tracks what you do for the last 90 days. It's just a bit less visual, Incognito/Private modes work, and some users clear it more often. But a whole lot of the surveillance attacks people imagine about Recall apply just the same to the browser. I think it's the "little brother" casual att…

no it isnt the same, you may know I went to my health care provider's website, maybe even to make an appointment depending on the url, but with recall, everything that is on the page will be stored, not just the url. It's totally different. So the message I sent my healthcare provider that is discussing some of my most sensitive medical issues will be available to read and a record is kept of it... not just the url.…

Don't worry it's ok if you don't want to use Recall, someone will just get that information by hacking your provider anyways.

Re: Microsoft will switch off Recall by default after security backlash

#526

Post by workfromspace »

chinathrow wrote: post #140
workfromspace wrote: post #138

It's sad that Microsoft (or any big company) wouldn't take a step back from such privacy intrusive or anti-user behavior unless there's a public backlash. Can't we just have a peaceful life without wasting time on constantly following and analyzing every single move from these companies?

Have you not seen Windows 11 lately? I have, and I am still happy to be on Linux as my daily driver for over 20 years now.

Honestly I haven't. Thankfully my company still allows MacOS and for my personal PC I have Arch Linux at home. However luckily I follow enough HN, so I don't need to test it myself.

Re: Microsoft will switch off Recall by default after security backlash

#527

Post by filleduchaos »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #475
filleduchaos wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I confused about what browser history is or what? Unless you open a static image in a new tab to look at it or you download it (as opposed to simply looking at it on the page it's on), then how on earth would its URL show up in browser history , which by definition tracks user-visited webpages (i.e. top-level links) and not every single URL the browser makes a request to? Sure, info about non-top-level links is ex…

It sounds like you're mostly just confused about how web pages work. Here is the URL of an image as it appears in your browser history: https://cheezburger.com/10357071872/if-i-fits-i-sits See if you can figure out what image I was looking at.

That's not the URL of a static image, that's the URL of a web page that happens to have a static image as the only content of worth in it and puts the description of said image in the URL.

Calling it the URL of an image seems to me like quite a bit of confusion about how web pages work.

Re: Microsoft will switch off Recall by default after security backlash

#528

Post by LogHouse »

autoexec wrote: post #485
LogHouse wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this context, “feedback” means reputation compromising news cycles.

It's so weird to me that a company like Microsoft would care that much about "reputation". Everyone basically hates them already. Many of the most successful companies in the US are widely (if not universally) hated by the people who pay them. Nobody loves comcast, or exxonmobil, or centurylink, or EA, or equifax, or facebook. People feel trapped and unable to avoid paying some companies or using their products no ma…

So much of the youth use nothing but mobile OSs and Microsoft lost that - they’re not even a player! Macs have been selling more each year. Valve/Proton is bringing gaming to Linux. Microsoft is losing the non-corp consumers. The features are aimed at non-corp consumers.

Re: Microsoft will switch off Recall by default after security backlash

#529

Post by csdreamer7 »

pixelpoet wrote: post #252
csdreamer7 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm aware that other OSes exist, but I happen to hate Windows least on the whole :/ Have you given Linux a try? Unless you have an Nvidia card or an Adobe workflow; it is usually good. The Nvidia issue may go away in a year.

Yeah, a few times. Got burned very early on installing Slackware from about 10 billion stiffie disks, and have kept up reasonable effort to be a responsible nerd and keep trying it, but every time there's some roadblock; when I was younger gaming was one example, being an MSVC dev has been a constant throughout, and yeah the ordeal with drivers is also more or less a constant. I'm an OpenCL guy, not even using CUDA,…

> Yeah, a few times. Got burned very early on installing Slackware from about 10 billion stiffie disks

Please do not use Slackware. With respect to Slackware, almost no one uses it because it is very old school. If I remember correctly you have to use a 3rd party tool to even download updates or packages. It took years for the maintainer to actually have a release. Please use a modern developer distro that has a regular release cycle and modern tools. Fedora or Ubuntu. If you need to use Nvidia, go with Ubuntu.

Also when did you use it? Linux distros haven't used floppy disks in so long.

> I'm an OpenCL guy, not even using CUDA, and have had a decent enough experience with AMD's drivers

That is not my field, but Fedora added the ROCm packages in 40. You can install those and give it a try.

> I still think MSVC, again with all its flaws, is the best C++ IDE (I've similarly tried them all, repeatedly over decades).

I still remember during my time in college (where they required us to use Visual C++) a friend and I were playing with the latest C++ features. We had this very difficult runtime bug. I later found notes in the news that Microsoft's implementation of C++ at the time was incomplete. Tried it in GCC-worked out of the box.

Re: Microsoft will switch off Recall by default after security backlash

#530

Post by csdreamer7 »

causal wrote: post #230
csdreamer7 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm aware that other OSes exist, but I happen to hate Windows least on the whole :/ Have you given Linux a try? Unless you have an Nvidia card or an Adobe workflow; it is usually good. The Nvidia issue may go away in a year.

What do you mean about NVIDIA? I find their drivers have become pretty good. Especially so if you're using them with containers.

> What do you mean about NVIDIA? I find their drivers have become pretty good. Especially so if you're using them with containers.

Have they? What GPU? Are you using the new open source kernel driver? Wayland or X?

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