Microsoft’s Windows Recall feature is attracting controversy before even venturing out of preview.
Microsoft said in its FAQs that its snapshotting feature will vacuum up sensitive information: “Recall does not perform content moderation. It will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers. That data may be in snapshots stored on your device, especially when sites do not follow standard internet protocols like cloaking password entry.”
Mozilla’s Chief Product Officer Steve Teixeira told The Register: "Mozilla is concerned about Windows Recall. From a browser perspective, some data should be saved, and some shouldn’t.
Jake Moore, Global Cybersecurity Advisor at ESET, noted that while the feature is not on by default, its use “opens up another avenue for criminals to attack.”
Moore warned that “users should be mindful of allowing any content to be analysed by AI algorithms for a better experience.”
Cybersecurity expert Kevin Beaumont was scathing in his assessment of the technology, writing: “In essence, a keylogger is being baked into Windows as a feature.”
AI expert Gary Marcus was blunter: “F^ck that. I don’t want my computer to spy on everything I ever do.”
This is going to be terrible for work place security.
Hopefully this will get more people into looking at Linux as their OS.
Even if we believe them and all the data stays local to your machine, what’s to stop your average bit of malware accessing it?
So now not only is any data compromised going forward, but all your data going back as well.
So currently only Edge users can filter what gets picked up by Recall by site, and Chromium users get private browsing mode blocked out of the box? In the article, the Mozilla rep they interviewed says that Microsoft didn’t reach out to them or hasn’t made available any documentation on how to get non chromium browsers to pick what gets included in Recall.
Even if this is something thats off by default and is encrypted if you do turn it on, boy would I never want to turn it on.
Me either, and at least in my experience with Windows these things have a way of ‘accidentally’ turning themselves on after a random update or something
It completely depends on their implementation. Apple released Local Snapshots for OSX with Time Machine in 2007. Granted, they’re created hourly rather than every few minutes, but there hasn’t been a vulnerability or exploit as a result of the feature.
That’s pretty much a completely different feature though? It creates local backups. It respects passwords and encryption. It doesn’t take periodical screenshots of what you’re doing and reads their content to feed an LLM.
I assumed the Copilot integration was elective. The article states it’s not on by default.
Otherwise it’s the same. Local backups through Time Machine can be accessed a la carte through a screenshot-based GUI, so the screenshots are part of the Local Snapshots stored on your local drive. They’re password protected and decrypted by user login.
Time Machine doesn’t use screenshots, it shows a folder at different states throughout time. The folders and files are fully interactive too. It’s much more akin to how git works.
Have you used it with an application? You can look at all revisions made to a document in Pages, a spreadsheet in Numbers, etc. It makes Local Snapshots for all foreground applications.
https://support.apple.com/guide/pages/restore-an-earlier-version-of-a-document-tan7f1de6ec5/mac
That is an iterative backup of a file within a file system. It is not the same as periodic screenshots.
Recall is done with a local model. It’s not uploaded to the cloud.
We built privacy and security into Recall’s design from the ground up. With Copilot+ PCs, you get powerful AI that runs locally on your device. No internet or cloud connections are required or used to save and analyze snapshots. Your snapshots aren’t sent to Microsoft. Recall AI processing occurs locally, and your snapshots are securely stored on your local device only.
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. Windows sets a maximum storage size to use for snapshots, which you can change at any time. Once that maximum is reached, the oldest snapshots are deleted automatically.
I just don’t believe them. And even if it works as described, they’ll change the terms quietly to screw you as soon as they need the next quarters line to go up. I’m tired of watching their every move to protect myself.
I don’t believe them either. I watched the talk video, and there are some serious weasel words around local processing. Something like “the promise is this could be processed locally”
Linux is easier and more manageable than you think. Not to be the Lemmy stereotype…
I’m actually rather new to Linux, but my experience has been great and it feels amazing to be free of Microsoft bullshit (outside of my work laptop ugh)
Been using it as my daily driver for a couple months now. And even though my day job involves Microsoft servers and enterprise applications, I’ve become an anti Microsoft advocate when it comes to consumer OS stuff.
But Recall is recording screenshots, not data stored on disk. That’s not the same as Apple’s hourly data snapshot which is just a automated backup of what you have already stored. Recall will be recording the videos or images you watch, even when you don’t keep them locally. It will store the things you decided not to save, and every time you have to open your password manager to check a password, or create a new one. It might be limited to your account, but that still means it’s accessible to anyone who can figure out your password or access your unlocked PC behind your back. Or to that virus you accidentally downloaded, if it’s not immediately detected.
Well, that sounds like a one helluva bloatware
So not only is it training AI on your data, but you’re the one paying for the storage and the energy to do so.
Yup, I’m setting up a dual boot when my thumb-drive arrives.
Actually really excited to get back to computing the way it was in 2010. :)
Actually really enjoying OpenSUSE Tumbleweed… first time on a rolling release distro and so far no major complaints.
Probably would have started with Arch (btw) but I felt a little daunted by the install process. In contrast with my ~2010 attempt, all my data is on a separate drive with automatic backups to NAS — so when I upgrade to an NVMe drive I’m going to give it a whirl.
Nice!
I just want something that’s similar to Windows, regularly updated, easy to use, and comes with proton already installed.
2010 sounds so fantastical, and such a far away time of mystery in the future. We’ll have flying cars, and robot monkey maids, and brain chips that can drive cars, and…it was 14 years ago??? It’s currently 2024? Well that sounds like a depressing year!
Yup, I couldn’t have imagined the extent of the enshittification.
I’m glad I can turn back the clock a little on my PC at least.
As much as I want “Jarvis” OS system, I really don’t want the version made by Microsoft, Google, or, Apple.
I want to be able to talk with my AI PC, but I want secure AI that’s just for me and won’t steal all my data for any Corporations to browse.
I think the would becomes a lonely place if everyone started only talking with their AI friend. And you know that’s what would happen. Humans would isolate from each other ever more.
if everyone started only talking with their AI friend.
This would be super great for the ruling class behind the AI curtain. Your AI pal would compliment and flatter you while guiding you down the corporate cattle chute.
Is this a Black Mirror episode yet?
You want something that will never happen.
Why is this upvoted. It’s a wrong statement. Maybe there’s no recall open source local AI yet but voice chat with AI is already possible without sending your information to anyone else.
Why never? There are already AI models you can run locally on your own machine.
WTF? You can make your very own private, locally run, AI assistant on a Raspberry PI, and make your own interface with an ESP32. Right now.
To a way you can already do AI audio chat with sillytavern or tavernAI and oobabooga llm in the backend. Its a little setup required but you can find online tutorials. For example from aitrepreneur on YT. It’s not perfect yet, but we’ll get there. It’s already fun to use, I just wish I had a better PC to run with a bigger and newer language model. Now using a recall function, that’s too new, but I’d not surprised if we get that in a few months.
What’s the point of this feature ? If it were not evil, what problem would it solve ? How often do you go to your PC and think “what was that thing I saw but never thought to create a bookmark or save the link/image”.
Even if people use it, it would be for something they missed because they thought it was unimportant or didn’t interest them, which is a very rare use case.
And still it is a highlight feature !
I wonder if it is lack of ideas or lack of commitment to create a good idea , given a technology, when these kinds of useless features are launched.
Use case: I remember doing something yesterday about this, but I can’t find the email/document/etc.
But I honestly don’t think the value outweighs the cost, so if I still used Windows, this would absolutely be something that drives me away.
I can’t remember the last time Microsoft Imolemented a good idea into windows other than small UI changes.
Windows 11 has better window shadows than Windows 10. That is literally the only improvement I’ve found
Just do what video game companies do. They have an old game. It runs on old hardware. Some parts of the game feel very outdated in modern day. So they update the graphics, retool some outdated game mechanics, update it’s availability to run modern hardware.
They take 20 year old games, update them, and then sell it back to you at full price as a remaster.
I guess what I’m saying is…forget trying NEW ideas. Just give us Windows XP 2.0 that works on modern hardware with ongoing security updates.
That’s all anyone wants.
The thought of Microsoft remastering XP scares me, you and I both know they’d still be throwing Copilot into it.
I can’t think of a single reason why I would need detailed snapshots of everything I did with my own computer.
But I can think of plenty of reasons why corporations, advertisers and governments would want that.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The user can then scroll through the archive of snapshots to find what were doing some time back, or query an AI system to recall past screenshots by text.
The Windows 11 feature is supposed to eventually expand to allow users to pull up anything that happened recently on their Copilot+ PC and interact with or use it again, as the system logs all app activity, communications, and so on, as well as by-the-second screenshots, to local storage for search and retrieval.
The IT giant also says that for the relatively small number of users running its Edge browser – with a market share of just under 13 percent, according to Statcounter – InPrivate sessions won’t be snapped, nor will DRM content.
Other Chromium-based browsers can filter out private browsing activity but lose the ability to block sensitive websites (such as financial sites) from Recall.
Microsoft did not engage our cooperation on Recall, but we would have loved for that to be the case, which would have enabled us to partner on giving users true agency over their privacy, regardless of the browser they choose."
Industry must consider data protection from the outset and rigorously assess and mitigate risks to people’s rights and freedoms before bringing products to market.
The original article contains 1,057 words, the summary contains 209 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
But the C-suite folks think it’s a great new way to spy in their employees, so I’m guessing it’s here to stay.
I bet their lawyers might not think it’s a great idea.
Why? Their company, their computers.
But AI is “somebody else’s computer,” at least that’s how most work. What’s to guarantee that it’s actually local and stays local going forward?
Not that I’m defending it but the data and the model itself on Recall stays all local and encrypted, according to Microsoft. It also says it won’t use it for ad targeting or will sell the data. Of course, the caveat is that is what they are saying right now and may not be saying in the future. We’ve obviously seen strategies where gradually things move down the spectrum as it continuously normalizes.
With MS we’ve seen the “Start” menu advertise Candy Crush forever and then “recommended apps” and it isn’t a far step to show “sponsored recommended apps” and then just “sponsored content” as things continue to become more normal for everyone, especially if its for the “Home” version or whatever. People will just argue to pay whatever for a Pro license.
Going to full blown ads now though? It’ll piss the consumer off. Do it gradually over a decade? There will be some rumblings, sure, but it probably won’t matter. By then they might be able to give you a “free” cloud VDI (with lots ads from the OS) with less ads and CPU/GPU power based on subscription tiers and you just need to buy a cheap $30 thin client and everyone will just be OK with that.
…corporate good will to be on the side of the peoHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Sorry, could say it with a straight face.
Seems like all hospitals and medical providers would need to avoid the OS in order to remain in compliance with HIPAA.
I give it two weeks, tops.
Microsoft’s bread and butter has been selling and servicing to businesses.
So with that in mind, the hell are they thinking? Windows 10 end of life guarantees that businesses specifically will have to switch. Then the next option in line is one that will by default vacuum up all your proprietary information to feed into an AI, effectively “copyright laundering” it?.
Even if there’s ways to deactivate the feature, the non-tech savvy managers will just go off of the headlines and the tech savvy ones will recognize the security risk. And government/healthcare computer might just fork Linux into a non-open source version.
Ironically it feels like they’re focusing too much on consumers (on extorting them) and shooting themselves in the foot for their business clientele.
Ironically it feels like they’re focusing too much on consumers (on extorting them) and shooting themselves in the foot for their business clientele.
It’s like they saw all the shittiest things about apple products and said “game on motherfuckers!”
imagine how many people are going to get doxxed by this feature.
literally every cybersecurity expert is saying this would be a bad idea that could be used maliciously by anyone. I really hope the executives listen to them.
yeah, sure, it’s supposedly encrypted and supposedly stored locally exclusively and supposedly not turned on by default, but even if that does turn out to be true, scammers can use it with remote desktop to snoop, anyone who plants a RAT on your system could look through that shit too.
“I really hope the executives listen to them.”
Oh man. Needed a good laugh tonight. Thanks champ.
Ah, it’s not even on by default.
So don’t turn it on.
Not on by default… For now.
Oh whoops somehow it got turned on 🤷
Whoops, it turns out you consented to have this analytic data harvested and sold.
Yes just like cortona, Microsoft account and other shit.
It’s not on by default… Yet
I think the problem with big companies like Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda, etc is that once all the smart & creative people have gone, all you have left are the “line must always go up” business idiots, who have no idea what their company does or how to fix it.
CoPilot is exactly the kind of End-stage, “let’s screw our customers to death” idea the CEOs come up with right before their company implodes.
The reason I know that’s true is because when this stupid idea for CoPilot came up, there were no smart people who immediately said, “do you have any idea what a terrible f*cking plan this is?”
all you have left are the “line must always go up” business idiots, who have no idea what their company does or how to fix it.
boy does this seem to describe google nowadays
Ironically the business people are terrible at business. I genuinely think LLMs (despite their economic evils) are stunning pieces of technology.
But they are money sinks and the only plans for profit are subscriptions or advertisements. It’s Social Media/Streaming/Tech Startups panicked hype investing all over again. Subscriptions and advertising just simply do not pay the bills for huge server and gpu farms.
But sustainability isn’t what they want is it? They want the stock to go up to then cash out when it’s about to fall. sigh
I’m sure some did, but, unfortunately, those people aren’t the ones making the business decisions.
The “line must go up” people are in charge because “line must go up” investors are saying the “line must go up”.
This is something that steve jobs talked about in an interview that I cannot find at the moment. Its ironic coming from him, but he was talking about when a company truly begins to die. His theory was that when a company is founded, the people that made and designed the product/service are in positions of power. But as a company grows and lives on they get replaced with marketing people. They dont know how to make anything, but they do have that “line go up” mentality. Instead of making something better, the marketing and sales people find ways to sell worse things. Again, hilarious coming from him but i think he had a point.
