10 ms·

My takeaway is that Microsoft has been trying to boil the frog, but slipped and turned the temperature up too quickly. They're retreating for now, but make no m

My takeaway is that Microsoft has been trying to boil the frog, but slipped and turned the temperature up too quickly. They're retreating for now, but make no mistake that Recall will slowly trickle back into Windows under another name. Every major power broker wants something like Recall to become the norm - bosses to spy on their employees, governments to spy on their citizens/enemies, and tech CEO's to collect training data for AI and target more ads at end users.

ttyprintk 2y ago
I expect it to emerge as an accessibility feature for cognitive memory loss. Imagine not remembering the name of your email client or the color of its icon, but Siri With Screenshots can pull up an important email thread.
- vundercind 2y ago
  Christ. I just went through this stuff with a loved one, for a few years. “Hey Siri, what did mom do today?” “Asked 214 times when you were getting back in town, because she has not seen you in a long time.” “I’ve been back for two months and I saw her this morning.” “That is what I told her, each time.” “Ok. What else did she do?” “Nothing.” Yeesh. Some Black Mirror shit. [edit] not to crap on how nice that really might be for a lot of people. Dementia’s just… well, pretty messed up and sad, I guess, and bringing machines into the mix can be weird.
ugjka 2y ago
There are already Recall type of products on the market, not just that, they also work on the cloud not just locally. All Microsoft had to do was make it opt in by default
- bostik 2y ago
  Yes, these existing products are generally called RATs or spousal stalkerware.
  - ugjka 2y ago
    No
simonw 2y ago
This is a very cynical take. I've not seen anything to make me think this feature is intended for surveillance as opposed to personal utility. The personal utility benefits are very clear to me - the problem is the ease with which malicious attackers might steal the data (if they can breach the system).
- digging 2y ago
  > I've not seen anything to make me think this feature is intended for surveillance It's published by Microsoft
  - nonrandomstring 2y ago
    tbh that's a knockdown argument. All the conversation second guessing the intent and motives of bosses, users and third parties is moot when it runs on an OS that is controlled remotely and insecure by design. Apple are following, (and I exlect you'll have even less choice about that - because its clientsode scanning in disguise) and Google have always been proud of their surveillance based business model, so I think the whole landscape of big provider computing is changing. People are actually starting to question what they want computer devices for
- surfingdino 2y ago
  TPM was met with resistance due to privacy concerns and Microsoft quietly re-introduced it anyway. The same will happen to Recall.
  - brookst 2y ago
    Has TPM been a net positive or negative for users / enterprises / the industry?
    - ekidd 2y ago
      TPM protects against two main threat models: 1. You don't trust people with physical access to the computer. For the average home user, this means you consider the hardware owner a threat. 2. You want to protect against malware that has already taken complete control over the OS at runtime, and that wants to write itself to disk or the BIOS so that it survives a reboot. At this point, the attacker has already won, so... This might make sense on a stateless appliance like a Chromebook where you do factory wipes a lot. So TPM mostly "protects" against the hardware owner, or against malware that already has 100% access to all user data, and just wants to stick around a bit longer. Personally, I'd go with TPM being net negative, because the primary threat model it "protects" against is the actual hardware owner.
tivert 2y ago
> Every major power broker wants something like Recall to become the norm - bosses to spy on their employees... Isn't that already the norm, or at least very very common? It's just a 3rd party package totally focused on surveillance, not built into the OS and used for some user-accessible features. > ...governments to spy on their citizens/enemies, and tech CEO's to collect training data for AI and target more ads at end users. These applications would be novel, at least on a widespread basis in Western liberal democracies.
- segasaturn 2y ago
  >These applications would be novel, at least on a widespread basis in Western liberal democracies. How? We already know Google trains its AI on people's private emails and Five Eyes conducts mass surveillance on Western citizens (see: Snowden). You can be sure that the people behind the PRISM program are salivating at the thought of access to the unencrypted Recall databases, and that they'll be twisting Microsoft's arm for backdoor access.
  - tivert 2y ago
    >> These applications would be novel, at least on a widespread basis in Western liberal democracies. > How? We already know... I think you're making the mistake of interpreting this as a binary thing, which obscures the difference between, for instance, tapping phone calls and installing bugs in every room of everyone's home (a la 1984's telescreens). Or in this case, Google scanning the emails you sent/stored on their servers vs. Microsoft storing and scanning every action you take on your PC. It would be novel because most people outside a corporate environment don't have a keylogger/screen-recorder running on their system.
  - lrem 2y ago
    > We already know Google trains its AI on people's private emails Source?
Hasu 2y ago
> They're retreating for now, but make no mistake that Recall will slowly trickle back into Windows under another name. Not even that. It's still coming, under the same name, just not as soon for everyone.
golemotron 2y ago
I can't believe that no one there didn't anticipate the blowback. It could just have been a way for Satya to put the feature in front of their business customers. They'd likely want that feature even if consumers reject it.
albert_e 2y ago
Employers can collect task/business process staps by recording the screens. This will help train RPA bots and reduce the need for human workforce for repetitive tasks. Microsoft can collect this data across industries with or without informed consent and sell RPA/AI bots back to the same enterprise customers as a managed service. Lot of commercial potential there for the taking. Just needs a innocuous enough cover story ro make it a default offering to server you the individual customer alone and help you gain an edge over your peers.

ttyprintk 2y ago

I expect it to emerge as an accessibility feature for cognitive memory loss. Imagine not remembering the name of your email client or the color of its icon, but Siri With Screenshots can pull up an important email thread.

vundercind 2y ago
Christ. I just went through this stuff with a loved one, for a few years. “Hey Siri, what did mom do today?” “Asked 214 times when you were getting back in town, because she has not seen you in a long time.” “I’ve been back for two months and I saw her this morning.” “That is what I told her, each time.” “Ok. What else did she do?” “Nothing.” Yeesh. Some Black Mirror shit. [edit] not to crap on how nice that really might be for a lot of people. Dementia’s just… well, pretty messed up and sad, I guess, and bringing machines into the mix can be weird.

ugjka 2y ago

There are already Recall type of products on the market, not just that, they also work on the cloud not just locally. All Microsoft had to do was make it opt in by default

bostik 2y ago
Yes, these existing products are generally called RATs or spousal stalkerware.
- ugjka 2y ago
  No

simonw 2y ago

This is a very cynical take. I've not seen anything to make me think this feature is intended for surveillance as opposed to personal utility. The personal utility benefits are very clear to me - the problem is the ease with which malicious attackers might steal the data (if they can breach the system).

digging 2y ago
> I've not seen anything to make me think this feature is intended for surveillance It's published by Microsoft
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  tbh that's a knockdown argument. All the conversation second guessing the intent and motives of bosses, users and third parties is moot when it runs on an OS that is controlled remotely and insecure by design. Apple are following, (and I exlect you'll have even less choice about that - because its clientsode scanning in disguise) and Google have always been proud of their surveillance based business model, so I think the whole landscape of big provider computing is changing. People are actually starting to question what they want computer devices for
surfingdino 2y ago
TPM was met with resistance due to privacy concerns and Microsoft quietly re-introduced it anyway. The same will happen to Recall.
- brookst 2y ago
  Has TPM been a net positive or negative for users / enterprises / the industry?
  - ekidd 2y ago
    TPM protects against two main threat models: 1. You don't trust people with physical access to the computer. For the average home user, this means you consider the hardware owner a threat. 2. You want to protect against malware that has already taken complete control over the OS at runtime, and that wants to write itself to disk or the BIOS so that it survives a reboot. At this point, the attacker has already won, so... This might make sense on a stateless appliance like a Chromebook where you do factory wipes a lot. So TPM mostly "protects" against the hardware owner, or against malware that already has 100% access to all user data, and just wants to stick around a bit longer. Personally, I'd go with TPM being net negative, because the primary threat model it "protects" against is the actual hardware owner.

tivert 2y ago

> Every major power broker wants something like Recall to become the norm - bosses to spy on their employees... Isn't that already the norm, or at least very very common? It's just a 3rd party package totally focused on surveillance, not built into the OS and used for some user-accessible features. > ...governments to spy on their citizens/enemies, and tech CEO's to collect training data for AI and target more ads at end users. These applications would be novel, at least on a widespread basis in Western liberal democracies.

segasaturn 2y ago
>These applications would be novel, at least on a widespread basis in Western liberal democracies. How? We already know Google trains its AI on people's private emails and Five Eyes conducts mass surveillance on Western citizens (see: Snowden). You can be sure that the people behind the PRISM program are salivating at the thought of access to the unencrypted Recall databases, and that they'll be twisting Microsoft's arm for backdoor access.
- tivert 2y ago
  >> These applications would be novel, at least on a widespread basis in Western liberal democracies. > How? We already know... I think you're making the mistake of interpreting this as a binary thing, which obscures the difference between, for instance, tapping phone calls and installing bugs in every room of everyone's home (a la 1984's telescreens). Or in this case, Google scanning the emails you sent/stored on their servers vs. Microsoft storing and scanning every action you take on your PC. It would be novel because most people outside a corporate environment don't have a keylogger/screen-recorder running on their system.
- lrem 2y ago
  > We already know Google trains its AI on people's private emails Source?

Hasu 2y ago

> They're retreating for now, but make no mistake that Recall will slowly trickle back into Windows under another name. Not even that. It's still coming, under the same name, just not as soon for everyone.

golemotron 2y ago

I can't believe that no one there didn't anticipate the blowback. It could just have been a way for Satya to put the feature in front of their business customers. They'd likely want that feature even if consumers reject it.

albert_e 2y ago

Employers can collect task/business process staps by recording the screens. This will help train RPA bots and reduce the need for human workforce for repetitive tasks. Microsoft can collect this data across industries with or without informed consent and sell RPA/AI bots back to the same enterprise customers as a managed service. Lot of commercial potential there for the taking. Just needs a innocuous enough cover story ro make it a default offering to server you the individual customer alone and help you gain an edge over your peers.