Microsoft Teams will soon encourage users to point their phones at their screens from off camera during meetings
Yeah seriously; this won’t even stop normies. Everybody knows how to take a picture with their phone. Why bother?
Hell a lot of people would probably default to using a phone because they don’t know how print screen works.
Microsoft is working on adding a new Teams feature that will prevent users from capturing screenshots of sensitive information shared during meetings.
Clickbait title
No, the title is quite accurate. There is no magic to discern “sensitive” data from that which is not.
It’s not accurate because it will be an optional feature.
What part of the headline suggests the feature is mandatory? Assuming its mandatory doesn’t pass the critical thinking “sniff test” because what is sensitive is purely subjective. Microsoft has no way of knowing what data you consider sensitive. As in, there’s no way Microsoft could make it mandatory on only “sensitive” data.
That’s a charitable reading, and likely justified by the article, but based only on the phrasing, it’s just as likely to read that as assuming Microsoft will block all content in order to ensure the safety of sensitive data. Sniff tests have to be adapted when things tend to stink in general, or companies regularly try to cover up their smell.
it’s just as likely to read that as assuming Microsoft will block all content in order to ensure the safety of sensitive data.
Hang on. If you’re rejecting rational use cases that companies use Teams for, then your assumption must be that Microsoft will block ALL screen capture when a teams meeting is occurring whether its of the Teams meeting content being shared or not. As in, even the presenter would be blocked from doing screen captures of their own system. Why isn’t that your conclusion?
Why are you, again, from the headline only, assuming that screen capture would mandatory for just content shared to you by a Teams presenter? You chose a middle ground, but why didn’t you choose full blocking?
Sniff tests have to be adapted when things tend to stink in general, or companies regularly try to cover up their smell.
So are you adapting yours back now because yours was proven wrong?
“Microsoft” “will” “block”
Those parts of the title.
The source though indicates that it will be a Feature and it even has its own name. Sadly it doesn’t point out that it will be optional.
Additionally you can see in the comments of the article that people think this will be mandatory.
Yeah, not seeing this as the big bad everyone thinks it is. We regularly have Teams meetings with other companies when they’re sharing their proprietary info. I’m okay with a screen capture disabling function just like we’d want to use from time to time.
From the article:
Those joining from unsupported platforms will be automatically placed in audio-only mode to protect shared content.
and
“This feature will be available on Teams desktop applications (both Windows and Mac) and Teams mobile applications (both iOS and Android).”
So this is actually worse than just blocking screen capturing. This will break video calls for some setups for no reason at all since all it takes to break this is a phone camera - one of the most common things in the world.
This has always been the case for anything that restricts screen capture. The tech makes getting detailed information more difficult, that’s all.
Adobe does this with PDFs by restricting printing. You can still record the screen and flip through each page.
Also, you’ll look odd holding your phone up to the screen.
Also, you’ll look odd holding your phone up to the screen.
just connect another display, set it to mirroring, and point a camera at that. or just use a video capture card.
Like I said, there’s always been a way to defeat this type of protection. This feature makes doing so more difficult.
That’s pure speculation. Did you even read the article?
this is true, if you have privacy categories setup and you use something that isn’t rated for someone, they won’t be able to see it. Kinda like permissions. Government and Medical environments is where I’ve seen it applied. It’s a beast to implement.
Doubt it will prevent flameshot from working if I use teams in firefox
“This feature will be available on Teams desktop applications (both Windows and Mac) and Teams mobile applications (both iOS and Android).”
Knowing ms they’ll just make browsers audio only going forward
Rules for thee not mee
Pointless.
I’ll have to use the camera phone again then.
Don’t worry, Recall will record everything done on the Windows machine.
The important bit:
Those joining from unsupported platforms will be automatically placed in audio-only mode to protect shared content.
And I presume everything except Windows 11 Teams will be considered “unsupported”.
So now my clients will have a harder time engaging with my product. Great.
Stop using microsoft teams, ya dolt.
My workplace barely groks opportunity cost on their main product, and I’m not responsible for the IT. When it breaks constantly, I say “yeah we know it breaks like this, get them to fix it.”
Not my circus, I just stamp the tickets.
Aahhwww, that is so sad, I run Linux and soon our entire office will.
Guess we won’t be using teams then, ooaaahhhwww, so sad
i trust signing in through the browser on linux will be supported since that’s the official way to use teams on linux
except on firefox of course, because fuck you for even trying to protect a little bit of your privacy
I use Edge on Linux for working with Microsoft stuff on my corporate laptop. For everything else I use Firefox there. Privacy preserved, basically.
Privacy preserved, basically.
only if the browser cannot run in the background, and it cannot access any of your fikes, the DBus of your regular user’s session, and other facilities
You lock it with flatpak as much as you can. Also, don’t keep it running if not needed.
Also, don’t keep it running if not needed.
can you enforce that with flatpak? I often see the notification that “X program is still running in the background” or something similar, but the flatpak permission settings did not seem to have such a setting
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Did you even read the article.
I used to be able to join teams meetings in the browser version of teams from my Linux machine. I did my last job interview this way
This still works, it is my only method of interaction with Teams
There’s also the unofficial flatpak, which works rather well.
No, it sucks. The Linux app does not support screen sharing on Wayland, but it works fine in the browser
I use Wayland at work, and haven’t had any issues sharing my screen on Teams.
Ah. I haven’t switched to Wayland yet so I wasn’t aware of that issue.
My company is transitioning to teams. Most of our engineering is on Linux.
Can Microsoft please hurry up and break teams so we can’t transition?
Don’t worry, teams is always somewhere between 10%-30% broken, always something n doesn’t work, there are always a bunch of people that can’t get in the meeting, that can’t share screens all of the sudden because fuck you, that’s why
Teams is the absolute worst and not a day goes by without people shitting on it, and we’re only using it because most of our customers do but internally we will switch to something open source soon, because I get to make that decision 😎
I have looked but I just couldn’t find an open source alternative that supported Teams core features like showing an error every time I login.
you know, sometimes I wonder if Matrix could be used in a business setting, and worry about its rough edges and buggy features of Element. but you know what! it would probably be fine! not worse than teams, and at least they don’t want to fuck you over!
OK, I’m really curious on what programs your engineers use then. Engineering has been one of the use-cases for me, that made it basically impossible to switch to Linux full-time. If you know, please tell me.
We have Linux. We just use the in browser app. Works fine.
All the EDA tools for silicon design are Linux based.
If Co is willing to use it in current state, all the breaking in the world is not going to change their mind.
Most of our engineering is on Linux
God I wish my company allowed that
I have a Linux work laptop which they let us have but we still have to use the MS crap. Fortunately most of it is accessible through the browser but a lot of the Office apps are broken, or missing features on web.
This is fairly common in software development.
Those joining from unsupported platforms will be automatically placed in audio-only mode to protect shared content.
I think this has gone and done it for you
So take a fucking picture with your phone
Welp, there goes any accountability.
This is why they require a TPM, your motherboard will be DRM against you owning the operating system and it will only run signed software.
I installed Windows 11 with an unsupported CPU, kinda funny how it just worked despite all their screeching that it wouldn’t work and updating not working, but installing with installation media was flawless.
It’s a real bitch, automatically logging me into my partner’s account for the whole system and overriding my local user settings when I open MS Office apps Excel or Word (but that’s just Windows), and it cries about my lack of TPM on those apps and the Start menu when it does log in and cries about me not being logged into a MS account otherwise, but you know what? Everything still actually operates.
…for now.
I don’t want to be that guy, but why use Windows at that point?
An OS is a tool.
And you are a tool if you use the wrong tool for a purpose.
E.g. an essential program that only runs on windows and is either impossible or troublesome to run elsewhere.
What CPU?
The list of unsupported CPUs is for OEMs licensing new computers as Windows 11 certified.
Nothing stopping you installing Windows 11 or upgrading to Windows 11 with an incompatible CPU.
The only item that requires a hack is the lack of TPM. Now that I still don’t understand.
Also, Office by default installs with licensing configured per machine but can be installed so it is licensed per user.
“This feature will be available on Teams desktop applications (both Windows and Mac) and Teams mobile applications (both iOS and Android).”
What about Teams browser?
OBS Studio has been able to record Teams meetings so far, on Linux.
regarding the quote, will they just not let linux users connect to the call when that restriction is turned on?
edit: nvm, the article talks about that too
So does running teams in a windows vm prevent me to take a screenshot on the Linux host? I can’t imagine it would.
I can’t see how it would. Can a VM tell it’s a VM?
There are plenty of ways for a VM to tell that it’s a VM and not on baremetal, but there’s not really a way for a program running on an OS in the VM to block the Host OS or hypervisor software from capturing an image of the screen of the VM.
Got it, thanks. I could imagine that certain software could just exit if it detects it’s not on the host OS.
Anticheat games are notorious for handing out bans if they detect they’re running in a VM.
It’s too late for this philosophical questions
So many commenters here and at the article get a hard on to bash MS for anything.
MS won’t make this a requirement, nor will they make using the Teams app a requirement. This isnt some backhanded way to get people to switch from Linux to windows.
This is MS responding to an enterprise feature request.
The reflexive hate for M$ is not irrational fan-boys bashing a rival, but bitterness over prolonged and profound annoyance, suffering, and downright abuse experienced through using the products produced by that dogshit company.
I switched because I wanted software that didn’t hate me and my values.
What’s irrational is the Stockholm-syndrome Windows user who thinks it’s normal and right to run software that spies, advertises, and generally treats users like a resource to be exploited.
Both are irrational IMO. Don’t make up reasons to hate a feature, but do attack the features that spy on you.
One man’s dogma is another man’s irrationality
One man’s feature is another man’s anti-feature.
Yeah, commented on the sister thread of this over on the technology subreddit that this wouldnt be a default on feature, and probably be either something the meeting owner has to enable (or tenant admins set to enabled in a policy) or it will be part of sensitivity labels or DLP policies.
Instant downvote.
Because Lemmy Linux bros like to get their titty in a twist.
The moment a certain company is mentioned in an article, lemmy will go rabid, it doesn’t really matter what the article is about. I am a Linux nerd and if MS crashed and burned tomorrow I wouldn’t exactly shed a tear but the knee jerk reactions are pretty weird to observe.
I bet they will still make it default.
i mean if someone really wanted to commit espionage they’d just take a photo of the screen with their camera.
I suspect running teams on Windows in Parallels on a Mac would still let me use the Mac’s screen record feature.
