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Microsoft Edge will start blocking screenshots on the job

22 points by nobody9999 2y ago

al_borland 2y ago
>It’s all designed to prevent you from sharing screenshots with competitors, relatives, and journalists using Microsoft Edge for Business. I don’t take screenshots at work to share with any of these people. I take them to share with co-workers for business purposes. If this is blocked and someone wants to share something with competitors, relatives, or journalists, can’t they just take a picture with their phone or a camera? Then it’s never on equipment the company has control over. My dad worked at a place that blocked the ability to take screenshots on a company phone. The IT department needed proof he was on a certain release of the OS, and they asked him take a screenshot of his settings. He explained they blocked this feature. They told him to use another phone/camera to take a picture of the screen and send that. He tried to point out how silly it was to lock down screenshots when the work around is so obvious, but that didn’t matter. It was all about the illusion of security, not actually stopping anything.
- pwg 2y ago
  > It was all about the illusion of security, Correct. The "IT security" group was practicing what I've termed "checkbox security". They have a long list of "requirements" and beside each is a check box. If they can check the box by reading the marketing brochure for product X, then they are "secure". In this case one of their check boxes was "screen shots disallowed". So they turned off screen shots, and were able to "check the box" and therefore they were "secure" (at least by their definition, which is "if the box is checked, we are secure"). The fact that trivial workaround exist make no difference to the IT security checkbox specialist.
  - hyperman1 2y ago
    I've seen the term checkbox security in docs from the 1980's. Vendors delivered an insecure products, e.g. with default passwords. It turns out nobody knew how to secure these products, so vendors reacted by blame shifting: Provide lists about how to secure your products, and niw blame your customers for the insecurity. Customers didn't want to be blameable so did anything to check all boxes. All in all, I think it's a step up from what came before. A security problem is invisible until you get attacked. Then random unrelated people get caught up in the fallout. Checkbox security moves the pain to inside the company, where internal forces will provide pushback if a requirement is too onerous. That pushback is exactly what happens for this overly onerous requirement here.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  https://old.reddit.com/r/videography/comments/17zuk6d/recording_hdmi_with_passthru/ https://old.reddit.com/r/videography/comments/17zuk6d/record...
- pylua 2y ago
  I am constantly screen shotting debugger screens or error logs with our product team. It’s a very effective way to share that type of information.
- MaxikCZ 2y ago
  My responses would be: "I can't take screenshots, you disabled it. No, I can't take photo, my camera is not working. No I can't ask anyone else around, they are all busy with their work. You send someone." Nothing will change unless they feel the pain of their own decisions.
pcloadletter_ 2y ago
>Soon, you won't be able to take a screenshot using Microsoft Edge for Business for your company says no. huh
uberman 2y ago
If only there was a ubiquitous device that everyone could carry that included a camera that allowed sharing of photos...
- Kye 2y ago
  It'll even OCR the whole thing for you.
Qem 2y ago
Now it will be a lot of fun to produce training materials for novice colleagues without being able to take screenshots.
Tempest1981 2y ago
So are they thinking corporate users will enable their "Recall AI tool"? (Is it possible to disable it?) And Edge for Biz will make it palatable?
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
Reminds of Island, the "enterprise browser" [1]. [1] https://www.island.io/product https://www.island.io/product
nelblu 2y ago
Microsoft Edge (and windows 11 enterprise) overall is such a piece of garbage and spam. Just recently my work computer got Enterprise 11 and I had to jump through hoops to remove the spam (news articles on home page). I work with clients and I have to share my screen and when I open a new tab I don't want to see what f#cking Trump or Biden did. It's extremely unprofessional. And here Microsoft is worried about screenshots.
- Nifty3929 2y ago
  I use Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD (the latter two CLI only) all day long. I like them all, including Windows. 11 is great, but I don't use Edge. And you do have to go a little out of your way to avoid signing into a Microsoft account and dealing with pre-installed crap or backup offers. But then again, there is effectively no way around using an Apple account on a Mac.
  - simfree 2y ago
    Or you could just run Debian and not have to make an online account at all. Opting out is possible, and the barriers to doing so have dropped massively as hardware vendors have brought full support to Linux and software vendors like Steam have built out native support. Meanwhile Microsoft keeps shoving ads in Windows in new and interesting places while Apple forces your computer to report back to them every time you open an app (which sometimes bricks causing a litany of issues).
  - ysleepy 2y ago
    I'm not logged in on macOS, works pretty well.
jarsin 2y ago
As a web dev this is mind blowing. Almost every change request is accompanied by a screenshot.
pipeline_peak 2y ago
“We can’t get people to willingly use our chromium wrapper, so we’ll add features that only make sense when they’re forced to use it”.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
siva7 2y ago
> Screenshot prevention policies will secure against data exfiltration in the browser by blocking the ability to take screenshots on pages labeled as sensitive or protected,” This seems to be about spyware and not against individual employees manually screenshoting, right? They can’t be that dumb?

22 points by nobody9999 2y ago

>It’s all designed to prevent you from sharing screenshots with competitors, relatives, and journalists using Microsoft Edge for Business. I don’t take screenshots at work to share with any of these people. I take them to share with co-workers for business purposes. If this is blocked and someone wants to share something with competitors, relatives, or journalists, can’t they just take a picture with their phone or a camera? Then it’s never on equipment the company has control over. My dad worked at a place that blocked the ability to take screenshots on a company phone. The IT department needed proof he was on a certain release of the OS, and they asked him take a screenshot of his settings. He explained they blocked this feature. They told him to use another phone/camera to take a picture of the screen and send that. He tried to point out how silly it was to lock down screenshots when the work around is so obvious, but that didn’t matter. It was all about the illusion of security, not actually stopping anything.

pwg 2y ago
> It was all about the illusion of security, Correct. The "IT security" group was practicing what I've termed "checkbox security". They have a long list of "requirements" and beside each is a check box. If they can check the box by reading the marketing brochure for product X, then they are "secure". In this case one of their check boxes was "screen shots disallowed". So they turned off screen shots, and were able to "check the box" and therefore they were "secure" (at least by their definition, which is "if the box is checked, we are secure"). The fact that trivial workaround exist make no difference to the IT security checkbox specialist.
- hyperman1 2y ago
  I've seen the term checkbox security in docs from the 1980's. Vendors delivered an insecure products, e.g. with default passwords. It turns out nobody knew how to secure these products, so vendors reacted by blame shifting: Provide lists about how to secure your products, and niw blame your customers for the insecurity. Customers didn't want to be blameable so did anything to check all boxes. All in all, I think it's a step up from what came before. A security problem is invisible until you get attacked. Then random unrelated people get caught up in the fallout. Checkbox security moves the pain to inside the company, where internal forces will provide pushback if a requirement is too onerous. That pushback is exactly what happens for this overly onerous requirement here.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/videography/comments/17zuk6d/recording_hdmi_with_passthru/ https://old.reddit.com/r/videography/comments/17zuk6d/record...
pylua 2y ago
I am constantly screen shotting debugger screens or error logs with our product team. It’s a very effective way to share that type of information.
MaxikCZ 2y ago
My responses would be: "I can't take screenshots, you disabled it. No, I can't take photo, my camera is not working. No I can't ask anyone else around, they are all busy with their work. You send someone." Nothing will change unless they feel the pain of their own decisions.

pcloadletter_ 2y ago

>Soon, you won't be able to take a screenshot using Microsoft Edge for Business for your company says no. huh

uberman 2y ago

If only there was a ubiquitous device that everyone could carry that included a camera that allowed sharing of photos...

Kye 2y ago
It'll even OCR the whole thing for you.

Qem 2y ago

Now it will be a lot of fun to produce training materials for novice colleagues without being able to take screenshots.

Tempest1981 2y ago

So are they thinking corporate users will enable their "Recall AI tool"? (Is it possible to disable it?) And Edge for Biz will make it palatable?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

Reminds of Island, the "enterprise browser" [1]. [1] https://www.island.io/product https://www.island.io/product

nelblu 2y ago

Microsoft Edge (and windows 11 enterprise) overall is such a piece of garbage and spam. Just recently my work computer got Enterprise 11 and I had to jump through hoops to remove the spam (news articles on home page). I work with clients and I have to share my screen and when I open a new tab I don't want to see what f#cking Trump or Biden did. It's extremely unprofessional. And here Microsoft is worried about screenshots.

Nifty3929 2y ago
I use Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD (the latter two CLI only) all day long. I like them all, including Windows. 11 is great, but I don't use Edge. And you do have to go a little out of your way to avoid signing into a Microsoft account and dealing with pre-installed crap or backup offers. But then again, there is effectively no way around using an Apple account on a Mac.
- simfree 2y ago
  Or you could just run Debian and not have to make an online account at all. Opting out is possible, and the barriers to doing so have dropped massively as hardware vendors have brought full support to Linux and software vendors like Steam have built out native support. Meanwhile Microsoft keeps shoving ads in Windows in new and interesting places while Apple forces your computer to report back to them every time you open an app (which sometimes bricks causing a litany of issues).
- ysleepy 2y ago
  I'm not logged in on macOS, works pretty well.

jarsin 2y ago

As a web dev this is mind blowing. Almost every change request is accompanied by a screenshot.

pipeline_peak 2y ago

“We can’t get people to willingly use our chromium wrapper, so we’ll add features that only make sense when they’re forced to use it”.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

siva7 2y ago

> Screenshot prevention policies will secure against data exfiltration in the browser by blocking the ability to take screenshots on pages labeled as sensitive or protected,” This seems to be about spyware and not against individual employees manually screenshoting, right? They can’t be that dumb?