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Microsoft will switch off Recall by default after security backlash
- notaustinpowers 2y agoArchive: https://archive.ph/xlh7n https://archive.ph/xlh7n
- st3ve445678 2y agoIt could still just be switched on and used to spy on an unknowing spouse for example... its just so creepy. Who asked for this feature?? No one did.
- k8sToGo 2y agoIn theory you could have always just installed a screen recorder to record your spouse even before this.
- mprime1 2y agoThe AI training team asked for this feature (I’m being a bit provocative and assume today it stores locally only but a future TOS change will secretly and “anonymously” upload your data ‘for training purposes’ —- that’s what everyone else is doing these days)
- st3ve445678 2y agoThe same thought did cross my mind... would not surprise me.
- skc 2y agoThe first big mis-step of the Nadella era. Will be interesting to hear what he has to say when he's inevitably asked to comment in his next public appearance.
- ffhhj 2y agoFrom the lack of security we could assume Nadella himself created Recall over the weekend with the help of Copilot.
- fooey 2y agoThis is something nearly on par with the xbox launch debacle Mind bogglingly tone-deaf and out of touch with what users want
- ragnese 2y agoI remember the giant astroturf campaign when he first took over and Microsoft started "heart"-ing open source and Linux. Everyone/bot on the internet said that Microsoft had really changed and that anyone who was still skeptical of them was being irrational and out of touch. That's all.
- layer8 2y agoWindows 11 and its hardware requirements arguably is a big misstep already.
- 3lit3krew 2y agoNot at first, anyway.
- mrjin 2y agoJust clean wiped one of my Win11 PC for linux, so far everything looks good. The fan is not running in most of the time, and before that it was running like crazy. Go M$, go faster. I have one more Win11 installation to wipe, probably two Win10 too.
- squigz 2y agoI wonder how many other privacy-invading features Microsoft has announced, walked back slightly, then shoved in the next version of their OS as something that isn't opt-in?
- JohnFen 2y ago> Microsoft developed the Recall feature under its new Secure Future Initiative (SFI) that the company has put in place to overhaul its software security after major Azure cloud attacks. The irony here is thick enough to cut with a knife. But good on Microsoft for changing their minds and deciding to make this opt-in. That's progress for sure.
- sharpshadow 2y agoAs Opt-In Opt-Out ever mattered on Windows. One tiny update later and your settings are messed up again.
- jrepinc 2y agoExactly, even if it shows being turned off you can't be sure it really is. And yeah they have a tendency to secretly turn malicious features on with little updates. One would really be naive to believe them after their past bad behaviour. It is just another step in slowly boiling the frog to death. Maybe it will be off by default only for as long as people get used to it and normalise it and then, next step turn it on again, more quietly of course.
- vinyl7 2y agoThen they'll enable it by default once people forget
- aeurielesn 2y agoDoubting they'll even disable it at all.
- nerdjon 2y agoIt’s one thing to be critical of the feature. But this is a pretty cut and dry announcement. There isn’t any ambiguity they could stand behind if they are lying. I would fully expect it will be disabled by default (for now)
- Citizen_Lame 2y ago[flagged]
- bonton89 2y agoThey'll just say it is a bug when it is turned on.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wongarsu 2y agoPeople will opt-in to it during setup the same way people opt-in to logging in via a Microsoft account instead of a local account.
- nerdjon 2y agoWill have to wait and see if the extra security measures actually improve anything or not. However regarding it being opt out… what would prevent a virus from just enabling it on a bunch of machines silently. Sure it would be caught but the damage done and most won’t be bothered to go in and disable it after. Or Microsoft just decides they need to really market the hell out of AI and it gets turned on my default anyways.
- cybrox 2y agoIt will be re-enabled accidentally by an update anyways.
- Rinzler89 2y agoPlease stop with these kinds of made up fantasy scenarios. There's no such thing as "accidental enablement" for stuff like this, as if it's a switch every employee at Microsoft has access to, and one of them one day can end up flipping by accident with their elbow and it ends up in production without anyone else noticing. Either they decide to intentionally enable it or not. There are no accidents , when stuff like this needs to go through a committee of people for approval before it makes it into production.
- i_s 2y agoI'm not sure the use of 'accidentally' was sincere. But I like this choice of words in your post in your first version: > unmercenary assumptions
- Tool_of_Society 2y agoYet despite all that I've witnessed accidents still make it in production...
- meowster 2y agoI think OP forgot the quotes around "accidentally". You're right it won't be a true accident; it will be intentional and just called an "accident".
- malshe 2y agoOn LinkedIn someone in my network pointed out that, apart from the security and privacy disaster, the name Recall was a bad choice because of negative events like product recall.
- leprials 2y agoThey should take note and recall Recall.
- permo-w 2y agothis is one of the first things mentioned in the article
- jonny_eh 2y ago"Total Recall", aka "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale"
- dylan604 2y ago"Total Recall" in quotes makes me think you're trying to get your ass back to Mars and that you're trying to remember something because you had your memories wiped. It makes me think of nothing about a friendly service being offered forcefully upon you from your friendly and malevolent OS provider.
- jonny_eh 2y agoIt's a story about false memories, and how that can change your identity. Regardless, it's the first thing I thought of when I heard about the feature.
- unpixer 2y agoThe Philip K. Dick short story was a direct inspiration for the Paul Verhoeven movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, as it happens.
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- leprials 2y agoHopefully any debloat tools will remove it quickly. Can't wait until Microsoft force pushes this spyware to the masses.
- arusahni 2y agoLooking forward to the update that accidentally re-enables it.
- creativeSlumber 2y agoThis. I won't be surprised at all if i' silently enabled in a future update that has nothing to do with it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- organsnyder 2y agoI still don't understand how this got this far. Enabling this in any corporate setting would be a compliance nightmare.
- Rinzler89 2y agoCorporate is never on the bleeding edge of Windows feature updates. They bring security updates first, but feature updates are at least one generation behind, maybe more waiting for Microsoft to fix bugs and doing their own regression testing, plus they get to choose wich features employees receive or are enabled by default via group policy. In other worlds, recall was never making it into any corporation anyway.
- oldpersonintx 2y agomaybe 50% of US business users have an admin of any kind who oversees their IT ops everyone else just gets a laptop, unboxes it, turns it on, uses it, does whatever they want to it see: any retail location in a strip mall, any mom/pop business, etc etc
- nativeit 2y agoThis is generally true, but Windows is the standard for far more SMBs than larger enterprise customers, and in that context it’s not nearly so straightforward. I have a client, a health insurance benefits broker for other local businesses. They do very well for themselves, but it’s just 2-3 full-time people, so there’s never been much cause for a full-on domain with GPO policies to maintain a strict, stable state across their equipment. Traditionally, off-the-shelf systems with SMB-targeted software had been more than sufficient. When Microsoft decided to push a feature upgrade last year that automatically enabled OneDrive backups for their home directories, it technically violated HIPAA by moving electronic patient health information contained within their scanned files folder onto OneDrive servers without any prior consent or authorization. They literally called me when they were unable to find their files, Microsoft had (laughably, if it weren’t so serious) placed a text file on the desktop titled “Where Did My Files Go.txt”, and then directed them to the OneDrive folders where it had moved their desktops, documents, and pictures without their knowledge or approval. I have since moved them to Microsoft 365 accounts where I can apply GPO, but my clients were understandably unhappy about having a new annual subscription that didn’t add any tangible benefit, rather they’re now on the hook for a couple hundred bucks a year for what’s essentially a shake down. Pay for the new service that adds nothing meaningful to their experience, or else face the consequences of Microsoft ruining your business on a whim.
- croes 2y ago[flagged]
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- mac3n 2y agono problem we'll find a way to turn it on, and share it with our corporate partners
- lordofgibbons 2y agoDoesn't Microsoft have a long history (and present) where they just enable privacy invasive "features" after a windows update even though the user has disabled or removed the "feature"?
- 7thaccount 2y agoYeah. You tell everyone you learned your lesson and then just go back and do it anyway a year later.
- lawlessone 2y agoIt must be the year for all this. Bethesda are basically trying again to make paid mods stick with their Fallout 4 update. Softwar never changes.
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- ceejayoz 2y agoTwitter used to do this all the time; they'd make the notification email options more granular and opt you in to the three new options that used to make up the one option you already unchecked.
- resource_waste 2y agoYes. Windows is soo low quality. It feels cheap. It feels like you are at a car dealership. Fedora, feels like you are at some futuristic office that has buttons that do multiple steps. I was literally angry last year that it took me so long to learn about up-to-date linux. Canonical's marketing of debian-family linux gave Desktop Linux a bad name.
- giancarlostoro 2y agoYeah, which is why I'm over on Linux now.
- deafpolygon 2y agoWhat exactly is a good usecase for Copilot Pro (I'm assuming Recall will be powered by that in some form)? I'm on the free trial and I'm not finding it to be any more useful than the free version, and pretty similar to ChatGPT. It can't really do anything. Can someone smarter than I chime in on this?
- wkat4242 2y agoIt'll be the other way around I expect. Recall will provide more context to CoPilot. It's not really about looking back at your own activity in case you forgot. But the AI will use it to learn about your habits, wants and hates, interests, people you deal with, usual schedule etc. An assistant is after all much more effective if it knows you through and through. The one problem is: I don't want Microsoft to be that assistant and know all that about me. Even if "it's all local". They still control what gets done with that info and can change it at any time.
- autoexec 2y agoLawyers, law enforcement, and three letter agencies everywhere are going to be extremely disappointed by this development.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- russdpale 2y agoand abusive partners/stalkers.
- webwielder2 2y ago[flagged]
- iaabtpbtpnn 2y agoBut Satya got the stock price so high!
- satvikpendem 2y agoMy 401k is doing great! The reality is that most people who aren't tech people don't care about the changes Microsoft has done, and shareholders especially don't care. Clearly what Satya is doing is working.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rolph 2y agowithout seeing an actual data file created by recall, i would expect it to quickly become large. if so, i would not keep it on a system drive, when you can store it externally, to be plugged in when the owner feels they actually need recall data, and left physically out of band when its wise to do so
- dylan604 2y agohow would the recall data get expanded if it is not plugged in all the time? hopefully you can see while it's not designed that way
- rolph 2y agoideally it wouldnt be expanded, the whole point is to have definite denial of recording at any time, or a cut off period, such as archiving the system portion after 12, or 24 hours. this saves system storage space, and preserves data for the owner should they need what they were doing 6months ago.
- terrut 2y agoI've been a Windows user since 3.1, but this was the straw for me. They have always provided an OS that just worked for my home needs, even with the creeping privacy invasions in the last update. I've been dual booting for a while and last weekend I went full Linux at home. My day job revolves around being truly good at solving Windows issues, and I will happily continue doing that, but at home I'm still just liking for something that "just works" I hope I'm part of a trend, and that 2024 is the year of the....
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- lawlessone 2y agoAny Recs? i've just gotten a Kubuntu image. I am thinking if i dual boot that and SteamOS i should have everything i want covered.
- tapoxi 2y agoNo reason to use SteamOS, it's just immutable Arch with an A/B partition scheme. Modern SteamOS is designed specifically for the Steam Deck and they only ship it as a recovery image for the Deck. You can install Steam on whatever distribution you want, I use the Flatpak, and just enable Proton in the compatibility settings.
- exitb 2y agoAnd if someone’s after that console-like functionality, ChimeraOS is the right choice in this area. It behaves like SteamOS, but is more compatible with PC hardware.
- lawlessone 2y agoOk awesome suggestions. I got set on SteamOS as i was contemplating buying an SBC with similar hardware and giving it a custom case. But this looks better!
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- danielcampos93 2y agoThis seems to be a feature that execs wanted, and people find creepy, and no one has the gumption to push back on the exec request.
- dylan604 2y agoHow can you have the number of employees they do and not have a single non-sychophant employee?
- riscy 2y agoThe layer of management reporting to leadership are yes-men.
- fingerlocks 2y agoCompany-wide internal push to shoehorn AI into every product and service. All recognition and rewards are given to the sychophants, no matter how ludicrous their proposals. Even Principal and Senior developers are dragged into meetings with senior leadership to provide suggestions on how AI can be used in their microcosm. Whether it should be used is completely out of the question. It’s a complete circus right now. Plenty of us just ignoring it and opting-out but it might reflect on our bonuses.
- therein 2y agoYeah, it is weird. About a year ago my mom had said "you worked at these powerful international companies, I'd expect you to have confidence in the people working in their ranks to protect the things that you deem valuable", my response was "unfortunately that's exactly the reason why I have no hope that anyone will stand up".
- pluc 2y agoBecause you get fired when bringing dissenting opinions
- dylan604 2y ago
- nerdix 2y agoI only have a windows partition for games. I would occasionally use it for other stuff because it's sometimes inconvenient to switch back and forth. After recall, I'm only using it for gaming and nothing else.
- pipes 2y agoI'm surprised by how good proton is at running windows games on steamdeck. Because of this and nonsense like recall and the adverts in windows I'm considering just getting rid of windows all together, I'll just run mint Linux probably.
- ryukoposting 2y agoI run Ubuntu on nearly all of my machines, but I build it up manually from the Ubuntu Server installation to reduce bloat. If anyone was going to have problems with Proton on an Ubuntu machine, it's me. Yet, every game I've tried works fine. Everything from Among Us to Metro Exodus runs great. Some games require a little fiddling, sure, but I've never had an issue that couldn't be resolved using some copy-pasting from ProtonDB. As you may have surmised from the way I set up my machines, I may have a higher tolerance for fiddling than most folks. YMMV.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoI am curious about your Ubuntu setup. Any particular technical reason? Any especially thorny bits? Do you see improved performance or fewer background processes? I am well past the point of enduring this kind of OS pain, and will use the path well trodden by others. I have always assumed that distros layer on so many extensions, customizations, etc that Gnome or KDE would be alien if naively installed.
- ryukoposting 2y ago> Any particular technical reason? Fully de-GNOME'ing desktop Ubuntu is Sisyphean. It's easier to build up Ubuntu Server from a plain terminal. > Any especially thorny bits? Nvidia drivers. Just check that all apt packages with the word "nvidia" in them have the same version number. Otherwise Xorg and/or torch will go boom. > Gnome or KDE I'm using neither! I have no login manager. I type my username and password into a login shell, run "startx" and that starts i3. And yes, it is somewhat alien. GTK and Qt based applications will have no theme, so they all default to that black-on-gray circa Windows 95 look. > Do you see improved performance or fewer background processes? Yes and yes. With i3wm loaded, my desktop idles at about 100MB of RAM used. My desktop compares favorably to similarly-specced entries on openbenchmarking, especially in IPC-related tests.
- zrn900 2y ago[flagged]
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- resource_waste 2y agoOh man this is totally going to affect: >My workplace It wont affect me personally, because I dont use crappy operating systems on my personal time. Microsoft products are just an efficiency loss, I still bill the same. I literally get everything done faster on Fedora, no linux prayer needed anymore. Its just better.
- herf 2y agoIt'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 attacks that are so well enabled by Recall - it makes it faster, easier, and way more visual.
- EGreg 2y agoBrowsing history doesn't contain what's displayed on the page, and what you input into the input boxes, or POST requests. It's sorta like telephone metadata. On the other hand, I am always freaked out by Chrome extensions that "can read and change your data on all websites". Can't they have more granular permissions? You gotta have a lot of trust for those extensions LMAO. They can read your bank passwords, probably!! And if they are ever sold...
- herf 2y agoExactly - knowing the content of each webpage is pretty easy if you're "big brother" surveilling millions of people, even more so if you have a Chrome extension to help. It's "little brother" that benefits a lot here: bosses, spouses, parents, etc., who otherwise wouldn't click on 1000 links in your history.
- ls612 2y agoTo be fair for me the extensions that get that are uBO, Privacy Badger, and Tampermonkey. I trust gorhill and the EFF to not fuck me over on my data, and Tampermonkey kinda needs those sorts of permissions to work. My password manager has read access to every website but I'm already trusting it with all of my passwords so...
- EGreg 2y agoSeems like a very juicy target. These extensions should not store any data without a master password that you input every time. What if someone stole the signing key, and submitted an update to Chrome store, even for a little? Oh wait that is only for Chrome Apps. For extensions, they can literally update themselves anytime. Someone would just have to steal the certificate. If an extension that reads all data uses a CDN (like CloudFlare) that CDN can execute a MITM attack against it and download new code, that would he catastrophic even if it was caught 1 day later.
- hernandipietro 2y ago[flagged]
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- AlexandrB 2y agoAll I can say is LOL. Off by default for Windows 11 24H2, on by default in Windows 11 25H2, impossible to disable in Windows 11 26H2 (except in enterprise versions of course). Microsoft's history with respecting the user's wishes speaks for itself.
- bonton89 2y agoNot to mention all the dark pattern lying nag dialogs that will trick you into turning it on, or just wear you down.
- the_snooze 2y agoI saw a yellow dot alert next to the restart/shutdown button on my Windows machine the other day. Those historically indicate a request to restart to apply critical updates. But no, it was a message recommending I sign into a Microsoft account. That was the last straw for me when it comes to Windows BS---designs that only serve Microsoft, and disrespects all the other times I've said no to their crap. I switched everything over to Linux the next day.
- ASalazarMX 2y agoGiven their eagerness, I'd guess: > on by default in Windows 11 25H1, impossible to disable in Windows 11 25H2
- anticensor 2y agoTheir GA branch is now the annual channel, not the semiannual, so the next release would be "on by default in 25H2, impossible to disable in 26H2, not available in 27H2".
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- wishfish 2y agoI'm a little more optimistic. Cortana was mandatory at first. Not easy for the average user to disable. Then Cortana was optional. Easy to turn off and uninstall. Then Cortana was just gone. Floated off to the big orbital in the sky. If Recall continues to inspire grumbling and receives very little praise, I could see it unceremoniously removed in a Windows 12 26H2 Feature Update.
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- modeless 2y agoIt is puzzling to me that so many people seem to think this concept has no value. To me the concept is obviously good and something I have wanted for a long time. Of course the security of the implementation is important and I agree with some of the criticism there. But I see a lot of people arguing that the feature is worthless, or that it doesn't make sense at the OS level, or that Microsoft specifically should not be allowed to add it to Windows, and I have to strongly disagree.
- mschuster91 2y agoThe concept itself has value, but the ethical and legal concerns are severe, not to mention the issue of Recall also capturing sensitive stuff like passwords. Microsoft, Google, Apple - everyone is scared shitless of some AI startup kicking their nutsacks, and is launching products that should have gone through extensive ethics discussions beforehand in a matter of weeks.
- russdpale 2y agopasswords are the last of it, think about women inquiring about abortions in states where they aren't legal. Or people trying to get away from an abusive partner, on and on it goes.
- mschuster91 2y agoAgree on the "abusive partner" scenario, but regarding abortions, local police already can abuse dragnet orders on Google Maps [1] - even though they promised to auto-delete anything regarding abortion clinics, there are more than enough other ways for police to target pregnant people. [1] https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1110391316/google-data-abortion-prosecutions https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1110391316/google-data-aborti...
- LegitShady 2y agothe concept is valuable but so ripe for abuse that even it existing at all is a threat to everyone's privacy. I have been a windows user basically my whole life. 3 years ago I got an ipad pro (2018, 12.9") for drawing and I hate the operating system. 7 months ago I got a steam deck and its fine for games but doing anything in the OS is confusing and annoying. Microsoft announced recall and suddenly I'm using a spare computer to test linux distros, and I suck at everything to do with linux and I'm doing it anyways. It's too dangerous, to much an invasion of privacy, and too easily enabled completely outside of my control.
- aikinai 2y agoI switched to Macs in 2006 and haven’t felt like Windows’ grass is greener once since then. Until today. Maybe it shouldn’t be on by default, but this looks amazing.
- mackrevinack 2y agomake it a separate program that people can install if they want to. if its really that great then people will download it
- ffhhj 2y agoAnd how are they going to convince people to be surveilled voluntarily? This needs to be behind a switch they can silently enable in some update, ofcourse.
- ratg13 2y agoThis isn't new technology. Apple has had "Rewind" for some time, which is basically the same thing, and it's widely used. The major difference is that it's a 3rd party software, not bundled with the OS, and you would have to intentionally go out and buy it and install it. Microsoft has just taken it for granted that everyone would want this and then forced it on everyone.
- LordKeren 2y agoWe will never see Microsoft ship a major product like this and not have it bundled in to a windows update. (Rather than specific install) After their success with installing Teams, Microsoft has seen that the regulators will not proactively stop this kind of thing anymore
- foxandmouse 2y agoDo we know anything about Linux support for Snapdragon X.. Personally, I don't trust Qualcomm with Linux support. Their WiFi adapters don't work properly with Linux. Their mobile SoC that supposedly have mainline support only have the CPU part working, but GPU, modem, Bluetooth, etc. won't. Also, wasn't their history of closed source drivers and their short support timeline was the reason Android devices only ever got 2 years of updates only a few years back?
- wishfish 2y agoHere's what Qualcomm is saying: https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/blog/2024/05/upstreaming-linux-kernel-support-for-the-snapdragon-x-elite https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/blog/2024/05/upstreaming-... They claim they're all in on making Linux work seamlessly on the Snapdragon X. I'll leave it up to you on whether or not to believe them.
- foxandmouse 2y agoFunny enough, that's the article I read before commenting. They've made bold claims in the past and failed to deliver.
- SavageBeast 2y agoIn all the MS Recall drama, I've yet to hear or read one single person utter something to the effect of "Wow - great!!! - I've been waiting for something like this for years! This will solve at least one of the major issues I face regularly!". In fact, it seems to me the only people that really want this feature are the ones trying to push it down everyones collective throat. Why is MS pushing something so hard when nobody asked for it?
- WorkerBee28474 2y agoI use the search inside Windows all the time. To me, this seems like a 2% improved version of that. Probably useful, mostly mundane, something I would use but not get excited about. I assume they would push it for the same reason they would push any other mildly-useful feature improvement.
- LordKeren 2y agoRewind.ai is the Mac version of this and many is the same talking points apply. However, it’s a third party tool, and as such isn’t enabled by default. I think most, if not all, of the overwhelmingly negative feedback is tied to this being enabled by default, and shipped by default
- rchaud 2y agoI've heard Microsoft wants to do away with on-device Windows entirely for consumer devices, and go with a "dumb client" form factor that is always connected to a remote Windows server. I'm not sure who at the org is pushing for this as it would essentially hand the PC games market to SteamOS. I suppose they saw how well it's worked for enterprise customers that essentially already use a Windows VM through Citrix or some other provider, and think this would solve the virus/malware problem once and for all.
- nottorp 2y ago> as it would essentially hand the PC games market to SteamOS ... or they will just stop developing windows games and do only xbox/playstation games ...
- 2y ago
- hedgehog 2y agoIt's interesting that for years Safari stored page screenshots in its history to allow a "coverflow" view and there wasn't broad concern.
- OtherShrezzing 2y agoI think the main difference there (apart from the feature being deprecated over a decade ago) is that Coverflow stored a single thumbnail, from which you couldn't derive much information - it's metadata alongside your browsing history, but not much more than that. Meanwhile Recall takes a stream of high-quality images, from which a full reconstruction of your entire computer-use activity over the last 90 days can be reconstructed in high fidelity and searched through. From a security point of view, the threat models are a world apart.
- gigel82 2y agoGood progress, but to take it just over the trust threshold for me, I'd like it to be a component that you can add/remove (like Hyper-V or IIS); removing literally uninstalls the associated services, applications, DLL registrations, scheduled tasks, etc.
- chrisjj 2y ago> requiring that users prove their identity via its Microsoft Hello authentication function any time they either enable Recall or access its data, So now I need MS permission to read my own data stored on my own machine? Insane.
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- workfromspace 2y agoIt'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?
- chinathrow 2y agoHave 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.
- bee_rider 2y agoI almost want to start using Windows as a daily driver just so I can leave again.
- workfromspace 2y agoHonestly 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.
- rationalfaith 2y ago[dead]
- grugagag 2y agoMicrosoft will go ahead with Recall, will temporarily make it opt-in. Eventually, when weather is good they’ll default it to opt-out. If new backlash ensues they’ll PR that it was a a bug and turn it off only to bundle it later with something that can’t be turned off. At this point MS is a toxic company that you’re better off, as a user, to steer away from.
- PKop 2y agoI think they'll abandon it after a few years like they did with Cortana, when the reality of no one wanting to use it sets in.
- postepowanieadm 2y agoRecall got recalled(ba dum tss).
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- nativeit 2y agoMicrosoft keeps attempting to violate HIPAA on my clients’ behalf. Before this, they turned on OneDrive backups via updates, and began moving sensitive documents onto their servers without prior authorization or consent. I documented the incident, because I honestly wasn’t sure whether or not a lawsuit would result from it. I notified Microsoft, but never got a response.
- bongodongobob 2y agoIf your clients are storing sensitive PII on their desktop or my documents folders, they're already likely way the fuck out of compliance. Nice FUD though.
- jug 2y agoI hope it can be uninstalled altogether. Actually I wish it was a Microsoft Store app. I mean, I don't want that codepath dormant in my OS for malware to enable via a Windows Registry value or whatever. No, not a screenlogger please.
- karaterobot 2y agoWould love to know if any product research was done on this at all, or if it was a mandate from someone high up in Microsoft. I cannot imagine they'd go very long talking to potential users without hearing the exact same fears they seem to be surprised about today.
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- kylehotchkiss 2y agoRecall certainly validates China's government decision to try to get rid of Windows on government computers (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-reportedly-seeks-to-block-intel-amd-and-microsoft-tech-from-being-used-in-government-computers-52957bee https://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-reportedly-seeks-to-...). Of course recall wouldn't have been enabled on those, but the company providing the OS has made it clear they're willing to make such a sloppy attempt to AI all the things
- chx 2y agoThis is nothing. An abusive spouse will easily switch it to on. It's very likely Windows will downright push you to do so anyways. How does Microsoft intend to mitigate that harm? Because AirTags worked out just fine: > AirTags have been a tool for stalkers and domestic abusers since Apple launched them in 2021. Police records show that this is a problem, and the legal system has failed women who were targeted by stalkers using AirTags. There have been several instances where AirTag stalking has turned violent, and in at least two cases, resulted in the tracker murdering their target. https://www.404media.co/email/ce4cec4d-51c3-4101-b2b4-2c9a64aee5e8/ https://www.404media.co/email/ce4cec4d-51c3-4101-b2b4-2c9a64... How many women will beaten and murdered because of Recall? Why is it that Microsoft reacts to software security concerns but not to the concerns of women?
- bigstrat2003 2y agoThis is sheer moral panic. Of course tools can be misused by bad people, but that doesn't make it the tool's fault ("how many women will be beaten and murdered because of Recall"). It is the fault of the person misusing the tool to do bad things.
- pessimizer 2y agoThank god. I've been selling front door locks that don't actually work, and I'm glad that when people are robbed, it will be the criminal's fault, not mine. Instead of me selling locks that work, what needs to be done first is that all potential criminals should be made not to be criminals.
- chx 2y agoYes, much as airtag was sheer moral panic. Techbros never admit their myopic view.
- skazazes 2y agoKnowing you could turn on recall to spy in this way implies an individual with the technical know how to grab a freeware keylogger anyways. Similarly with airtags, you have been able to buy cheaper cellular based GPS trackers for years prior to airtags existing. In the airtag case, those GPS tags also do not alert the individual that there is a beacon following their person, and as such most likely go unnoticed and under reported.
- jrepinc 2y agoEven if it shows being turned off you can't be sure it really is. And yeah they have a tendency to secretly turn malicious features on with little updates. One would really be naive to believe them after their past bad behaviour. It is just another step in slowly boiling the frog to death. Maybe it will be off by default only for as long as people get used to it and normalise it and then, next step turn it on again, more quietly of course.
- Foobar8568 2y agoI am done with Windows, I really love .net, SQL Server, WSL, but I have been burnt on so many of their tools, features etc, Windows 11 was the last straw (task bar unmovable? Are you kidding me? ), and Recall will be the never look back for my personal computing.
- k8sToGo 2y agoAre you switching to Mac?
- Foobar8568 2y agoAlready bought a MBP 16" M3 Max a couple months ago
- jgalentine007 2y agoI did - I had a Macbook air on and off on the side, but Windows was home base for 30 years. I ditched Windows for good when 11 came around, it has become untenable.
- neonsunset 2y agoYou don't need Windows for .NET, there are teams which actively use Rider and VS Code while using Mac or Linux laptops.
- lowbloodsugar 2y ago>If you’re faced with the trade-off between security and another priority, your answer is clear: Do security,” Nadella's memo read Just insane that this wasn’t already the rule.
- _zoltan_ 2y agoI think Recall is really cool and it's a shame that it's disabled.
- o283j5o238ju 2y ago... then you can turn it on for yourself. Unless you think it's a shame it's disabled for other people? Why would you be concerned about that I wonder?
- Slyfox33 2y agoWhy...?
- surfingdino 2y agoOnly to be enabled by default by the IT department of your mistrusting employer. Microsoft better remove Recall altogether if they want to avoid costly lawsuits.
- INGSOCIALITE 2y agowhere they can then verify, minute-by-minute that their remote employees are grinding away for every minute they are paid for. i'm convinced MS has two profit models here: 1) NSA/CIA/FBI/ETC 2) employer monitoring of remote workers.
- surfingdino 2y ago3) schools, and 4) parents.
- SoftTalker 2y agoEmployer IT departments already have access to and can install any number of tracking and screen-watching products to monitor their employess on work-issued computers. It's perfectly legal though in my view pretty scummy behavior.
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- pixelpoet 2y agoWhat makes my blood boil is that they are just going to keep pulling shit like this which they KNOW everyone (with zero exceptions) intensely HATES, and it's up to everyone to push back ferociously (very high threshold) every damn time. It's up there with "not now" instead of "get rekt and never ask me again" choices in terms of user-antagonism. I'm aware that other OSes exist, but I happen to hate Windows least on the whole :/
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- csdreamer7 2y ago> 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.
- causal 2y agoWhat do you mean about NVIDIA? I find their drivers have become pretty good. Especially so if you're using them with containers.
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- csdreamer7 2y ago> 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?
- pixelpoet 2y agoYeah, 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, and have had a decent enough experience with AMD's drivers, but that wasn't enough. I still think MSVC, again with all its flaws, is the best C++ IDE (I've similarly tried them all, repeatedly over decades).
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- nottorp 2y agoHmm the real question is: Will you be warned when sending information to someone who has Recall on? Kinda defeats the purpose of all those confidential communication apps when everything is automatically screenshotted.
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- aners_xyz 2y agoWhat’s funny to me in all of this is I’m pretty sure regular windows search is still really bad and I haven’t heard them mention the feature “search for a file on your pc you know exists”.
- k8svet 2y agoThey should've left it disabled, and then "accidentally" enabled it, or nagged people into enabling it. I think it would've boiled the frog slower and been more successful. Alternative cynical take: they needed to have a compelling story for press/launching the laptops they've been working with software/hardware partners on for years. They got to announce "Copilot+ PCs with Total^H^H^H^H^H Recall"! And now they get to walk it back enough controversy will die down and they can still do the first bit I mentioned. Hm.
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- atribecalledqst 2y agoMaybe a bit off-topic, but I sure wish they'd do this for OneDrive! I installed Windows for personal use for the first time recently (although I use it exclusively at work) and it drove me ABSOLUTELY BONKERS that my home drive was mapping to C:\Users\atribecalledqst\OneDrive. What I hated the most was that the File Explorer just calls the folders in there e.g. "Documents" and "Pictures" without showing the full path. So it was hard to figure out just where in the file system you were looking -- a major annoyance if you do any work in the command-line! Even after switching OneDrive off and doing as much as I can to try and get rid of the OneDrive folder structure, I haven't been completely successful. You can make some -- but not all -- home folders (like Downloads, Documents, etc.) point directly to their place in the local user folder, but others, particularly Pictures, don't seem to be movable. Additionally, some programs still seem to want to use the OneDrive folder by default, like I think Office programs still do their best to use them. In the grand scheme of things it's a small annoyance but god it annoys the shit out of me! I didn't ask for cloud backup and it drives me nuts they tried to force it on me!
- fourteenfour 2y agoYes, my company just went through a merger and for quite a while we had two OneDrives showing up and it was difficult to tell where the default folders were in addition to being a huge mess any time a file dialog opened. I've actually reverted to creating folders in C:\ to store files so I know where they are.
- mrandish 2y agoYes, Onedrive started out as a pretty useful tool but has turned into a deceptive trojan that tries to force whatever growth metric MSFT managers are currently chasing through a combination of dark patterns (like hiding true file paths from view) and also simply refusing to operate in obviously useful ways which many users want and expect (like not having a built-in way to back up only specific sub-folders on different drives (forcing paying users to trick it by using junctions)).
- RajT88 2y agoThere used to be no option to uninstall it - now there is. You will still get it reinstalled during a major OS update, but at least it can easily be removed. Before it was a chore to clean up. I would speculate there is even some way to prevent it from reinstalling during those major updates. That seems like the kind of capability they would build in because a huge Windows customer complained (i.e. realistically, the major check against dark patterns in Windows).
- EasyMark 2y agoI think this will be definitely a "for now" moment until they let us all become a little bit more used to the idea.
- infinitezest 2y agoI have a really hard time understanding the use case for something like this. Stuff that I want to remember I just write down or reference something like my browser history or recently opened files. It's very low tech for sure but it works, is waaay more energy efficient, way easier to understand and audit, and doesnt have the same security concerns. I get that using "AI" has a Wow Factor that existing systems have but I cannot understand the thinking of folks that are OK with the trade-off. Ita just not even close for me.
- crowcroft 2y agoI agree, I think the current state of the AI is absolutely incredible technology, but I just don't see a 'product' yet. If chat and co-pilots are all we get out of this wave of investment, then I'm not sure if it's been worth it.
- TillE 2y agoI see a lot of cool little use cases (eg, LLMs are genuinely fantastic for creative brainstorming), but I'm absolutely not seeing the multi-trillion dollar AI industry that all the big companies are clearly banking on.
- benhurmarcel 2y agoHave a look at Rewind.ai for some idea about the use cases maybe. Some people are already paying for the feature, so it clearly has some value. https://www.rewind.ai/ https://www.rewind.ai/ Personally, data privacy/protection and compliance aside, I’d find it fairly useful on my work computer.
- godelski 2y agoI definitely get the use case. It's naive to ignore that there is utility. But just because something has utility doesn't mean it comes at high costs. I mean it's a super powerful keylogger that is searchable without technical knowledge. Not to mention that it'll probably fail to LLM type of attacks, which even many non technical people are able to figure out. But then again, I don't understand why people so passionately store all their chat logs (not just important/memorable messages) and take millions of photos. We kinda spy on ourselves
- kachurovskiy 2y agoClassic 2-step move, introduce what you want to ship but add a red herring, remove red herring on the outrage, ship it.
- pessimizer 2y agoMicrosoft isn't filled with morons, and they knew this would be the reaction. They always planned this "retreat," and this retreat is actually an advance: if you completely missed the media tempest in a teapot, the story would be that Windows is going to embed AI into every copy that will be able to track everything that is done on the machine and make inferences from it. Now, the story is: Microsoft has been forced to retreat, through public pressure, from tracking everything that its users do by default. Complete success on Microsoft's part. And the public that angrily reads headlines and angrily tweeted twice, vigourously pats themselves on the back for their "victory."
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoHow about they remove ALL AI features, including Copilot? This is clearly illegal bundling that deserves swift anti-trust action. Microsoft is worse than ever, and far more bold with abuse of their market position than they ever were in the 90s.
- oriel 2y agoOff by default, means On by Default When They Change Their Mind [tomorrow, next week, next month, etc]. Antitrust yesterday already.
- jrhey 2y agoSecurity backlash? Should be security concerns
- geephroh 2y agoFairly certain it won't be switched off by default in most corporate environments. Recall is one of the more impressive foot-bazookas to come out of MS since WebDAV in Windows 2000!
- sgtaylor5 2y ago... or make a OneDrive-connected folder have an icon that shows, clearly, that it's been taken over by OneDrive. I'd give a setup option to provide a non-OneDrive Documents folder, that feature would be turned on automatically if OneDrive senses that there is a database residing in the Documents folder (ACT!, I'm looking at you!)
- godelski 2y agoI don't understand how recall even got launched. No one should have spent money developing it. Yes, the idea is cool. But even if you trust Microsoft it's obviously a privacy and security nightmare. How many people would install a keylogger on their own system? And then make that keylogger trivial to search through? It just makes windows computers extremely valuable targets for hackers and I'll ban them on my networks even if relay isn't enabled. Edit: I imagine there's going to be fewer keyloggers developed. Microsoft provides one for you, that's officially signed, legitimate, and won't trip antivirus systems. Attackers now just need to make programs that turn on replay. They can then wait. User sees replay running? They blame Microsoft. Legitimate software is so buggy that it's not going to set off alarm bells. That virus just needs to lay dormant for a week or so. And if the user already had replay running, well then the attacker can extract information prior to their infiltration. Stuff that wouldn't normally be logged even if the user had a keylogger.
- sho_hn 2y ago> I don't understand how recall even got launched. No one should have spent money developing it. I disagree. I would feel quite comfortable using functionality like Recall on my personal computer, on which I of course run Linux, if it was opt-in. It's a great idea. The problem is that it's an idea that's just not compatible with how Microsoft is running the Windows platform, the relationship the company has with its customers, and that it was originally announced as impossible to disable. Recall as default-on for managed corporate devices is preposterous, for example.
- godelski 2y ago> The problem is that it's an idea that's just not compatible with how Microsoft You disagreed but ignored my entire point. No, I don't trust Microsoft, but my point was about even if we did > I of course run Linux I use Arch btw
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- Aachen 2y agoWhat the default was going to be regardless, except by now everyone heard of the product to the value of probably millions if not billions of dollars worth of ads (since so many people block them and here we all still read it on the news and ad-free social media like mastodon anyway)
- midnitewarrior 2y agoThe feature is dead and will only be a drag on Windows, Microsoft, and their public perception. Throw in the towel, it has been besmirched to the point of no return.
- crawfishphase 2y agowait wait wait- Are they going to do a recall on Recall? What a crappy name for anything sold in the history of all the things
- mysore 2y agoi feel like an open source version of this would be really cool. theres a lot of people who have a lot of data they wont want to put into this and run other people's closed source code and you dont really know what its doing. is there an open source linux friendly equivalent?
- wormius 2y agoWhat I think MS should do if they really believed this is a thing people want is make it an actual sold product. Not free. Not a sub. Just like when we used to have boxed software back in the day. Of course it would be on Windows Store or whatever hogwash they use to push software. Remember when you had to actually take market risk to publish something and not just "give it for free"? I get times are past that, but if the market is good enough for Cybertruck, surely it's good enough for Recall. In fact, if I were the CEO I would do this just to allay FTC concerns about big-boi MS and their market power. Like how they made Office for the Mac when Jobs came back and to keep Mac afloat (or like how Google pays Firefox money). Let the market decide, that's what these capitalists claim to love, right (yes, I know we see through their bluff from both left/right sides of the aisle - that's me calling it there).
- disqard 2y agoYes, call them out -- all of these "amazing AI innovations" are bollocks. If they're that essential for our existence, then go ahead and sell it to consumers. As the Rabbit (and Humane) before it demonstrated, none of these things are (a) essential, or (b) polished and ready for daily use.
- consumer451 2y agoWhen 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.
- 627467 2y agoHow is this different from having screen recording on?
- consumer451 2y agoIf you mean Win-G, then clicking screen record, it shows an overlay which clearly indicates that the screen is being recorded. I don't think that you can hide that overlay.
- noagainlate 2y agothere's a giant banner saying that screen recording is on, while there's nothing for recall? im not sure im following your question.
- balencpp 2y agoThere 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.
- consumer451 2y agoYou 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.
- ljm 2y agoIf you had screen recording on by default you’d run out of disk space pretty quick. MS just did what every other micromanagement company did and took screenshots every second or so.
- wormius 2y agoFF should create a DRM that uses the bullshit webdrm standards and apply it to the entire sandboxed experience. Lock MS the fuck out. Oh you want passwords? Sorry bucko. It's DRM'd. What's good for Hollywood execs is good for End Users. (but we don't get the phat stacks of cash).
- 29athrowaway 2y agoThe whole of Microsoft should be switched off
- nashashmi 2y agoThe problem is some conservative IT orgs will disable this for their suit and tie posturing approach to providing security, while not really securing anything.
- b3ing 2y agoWhy have it all then? Truth is they will have it off at first then an update will only do the windows folder and slowly creep from there. Another update will “accidentally “ turn it on then more options will be available and more will be defaulted on. There will not be a single option but multiple toggles at some point.
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- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y agoWhat's funny about this and other "recalls" (pun intended) of "products" from so-called "tech" companies as a result of "feedback", or "backlash" as Wired calls it, is that the companies never asked for such input and AFAIK no one is contacting the companies to give it. AFAICT it is obtained through surveillance. To people born after the internet this might seem normal, but to me it is quite odd. The companies claim to be operating in service of "users" but there is generally no direct contact between these "users" and the company.^1 With some isolated exceptions that have increased over time, there is no customer service. And in most cases the "customer" has not paid the company for the so-called "product". Generally, no one is asking a refund on their purchase of Windows because generally no one pays Microsoft for it. Instead people just complain into the ether. No need to pay for being the target of surveillance. The "products" are free. 1. Unless we count the telemetry and "auto-updates". Users never asked for this stuff though, it is not initiated by them. This "product" is broken on delivery hence the alleged need to keep "fixing" it by remotely installing more software, presumably that isn't broken and will not used for surveillance, on peoples' computers. All for free. There is no money to refund if the "product" does not work as expected.
- LogHouse 2y agoIn this context, “feedback” means reputation compromising news cycles.
- autoexec 2y agoIt'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 matter how much they hate them. How many people have paid Microsoft for their OS at all? How much money would they really lose if they ignored the bad press? How many grandmas would start downloading linux? I'm glad Microsoft is making changes, but I wonder how much is out of fear for their reputation and how much is just to try and comfort people and get the news to stop talking about it so that everyone doesn't just disable it as soon as it rolls out.
- kjellsbells 2y agoHeres something I just don't get. Microsoft just got their ass handed to them by the US Government because os (lapses in) security. Extremely more than coincidentally, Satya Nadella told the entire Microsoft org that if anyone had to choose between features and security, to choose security. I'm hearing from Microsoft people that all product roadmaps are deferred for a few months while security features are addressed. Their whole corporate spiel is "Microsoft runs on trust" (see the famous standards of business training on youtube). And then someone goes and invents Recall. This is not the work of a lone engineer and a principal PM fishing for Impact or whatever they call success at Microsoft. This had to have gone through multiple levels of review. Microsoft PMs, CVPs, their corpo legal people, marketing approval. And yet no one stopped to say, "wait, this could blow up in our faces"?
- lucianbr 2y agoWhat's so hard to get? Security and trust are lip service. Corporations lie to make a buck. How is it not obvious? Actions speak louder than words.
- consumer451 2y agoThe user data is just too juicy a potential profit center to pass up on. So many models to create, to theoretically replace many of us. We should assume that everyone is on their worst behavior going forward. Zoom, Slack, MS, Apple, etc.
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- HeavyStorm 2y agoUntrue. Employees are asked to focus on sec. The org tells you that the company runs on trust. This is not lip service - it's not that internally they state otherwise, and it's certainly naive to think so. What happens is that, meanwhile, business is happening. People are making (small) decisions that adds up to big things, and leadership tends to trust those below to make the right calls and implement technology correctly. Which, time and time again, doesn't happen. Yes, maybe it need to be more of a priority, but, it also isn't a conscious decision.
- nothercastle 2y agoDid no one think of recall posting your key wallet passwords in plain text…
- ornornor 2y agoI’m honestly not surprised they came up with this considering MS’ track record on security since the internet exists. One more reason to resist their extend embrace extinguish strategy and not use their tools (vs code etc), this won’t end well and Microsoft will always be Microsoft.
- ankurdhama 2y agoFew things that Recall can do: - Make sure Recall is per user and not something that can be installed system wide for all users. - When a user enable Recall, it should ask to setup a "Recall password" and generate a private public key and use the password to encrypt the private key. - Use the above public key to encrypt all the data it stores. - When user wants to search Recall history, ask for the password, decrypt the private key and use the decrypted private key to decrypt the data and show the data to user. - Show some sort of indicator on taskbar that Recall is running, not a tray icon (which can be hidden), but a proper big red circle kind of thing. To me this seems like another case of MS top executives telling every team that they have to do something with AI. Typical approach used by many executives and managers - "Here is a new tech, figure out a product to build with it".
- moogly 2y agoToo late. I've used Windows for over 30 years. Was never a "fan", it just got the work done without getting in the way. Good tool. But now I'm moving all my computers, including work computers, to Linux. Will miss out on some hardware/software I use for music production (biggest loss will be TotalMix FX for my RME audio interface), but MSFT leadership has shown they don't get it. Also, Fusion360 for Linux when?
- throwaway8877 2y agoFor now and unless turned on remotely or after every damn user is nagged to turn it on or after sneakely turned on with the next Edge update or ...
- jqpabc123 2y agoAnd what happens when very few users opt in? Maybe they should have done some research to determine if this "feature" actually had significant marketplace appeal.
- poincaredisk 2y agoIs this just another case of going half step back after public backlash, only to go two steps forward when everyone forgets about the issue?
- zeruch 2y ago...until they can find a way for it to be introduced without resistance. Let's not pretend several decades of unscrupulous behavior is going to change now. Unless regulatory structures get implemented to brutally, exactingly, unflinchingly and relentlessly punish firms, they won't stop trying. Punitively maul them into submission.
- cebert 2y agoI will let others be the early adopters on this one and see how it turns out.