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LOL Another stupid feature (enforced by regulations/law/policies) that has no real world use, besides making us users angry :-( Like Google collecting all of o
by NKosmatos 1y ago
LOL
Another stupid feature (enforced by regulations/law/policies) that has no real world use, besides making us users angry :-(
Like Google collecting all of our location history for their own usage, but not allowing us to see it via web anymore (only on mobiles), or having the android dialer not allowing us to record our own phone conversation (easily circumvented), or movie/music/game publishers not allowing us to backup our own media… you get the point.
All these are due to laws and regulations that are there to protect the big companies and don’t take into consideration users and the common sense ;-)
- Henchman21 1y agoThis is why I advocate for International DCO EPO day! Because if we shut it all down, a huge chunk won’t start up, and humanity gains huge amounts of electricity generation back, but somewhat more importantly: maybe we could stop carrying smartphones! (This is mostly in jest, here’s a “/s” for those who can’t tell)
- Aurornis 1y ago> All these are due to laws and regulations that are there to protect the big companies and don’t take into consideration users This feature is not due to laws and regulations. The user in this case is the presenter who clicks the button to enable screenshot protection on their meeting. This is Microsoft trying to deliver a feature their users want, not laws and regulations making them do something their users don’t want.
- hedora 1y agoSome people might want it, but it doesn’t actually work. It’s probably also required by some compliance theater in some places.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jasonlotito 1y ago> Some people might want it, but it doesn’t actually work Why do you think they can't prevent on-device screenshots/screen recording can't be prevented when you control the entire stack?
- brookst 1y agoWould it work on Mac?
- jasonlotito 1y agoYes. Edit: But yeah, nothing to say why it can't work. So, yeah.
- brookst 1y agoBut MS doesn’t control the whole stack there.
- saagarjha 1y agoApple provides APIs to do it.
- jasonlotito 1y agoDoesn’t matter. I don’t know why you think stating random things matters.
- brookst 1y agoMaybe read the comment I replied to for context?
- c-hendricks 1y agoIt's kind of like locks isn't it? It'll deter honest folks, but will it prevent screen capture when Teams is running in a VM? What about over VNC?
- adolph 1y agoYeah, some enterprise admin will click it and make it clickable for others. It’s a classic ratchet of enshittification until things reach a magic intolerability point and folks evacuate to other systems leading those to get rolled into one of the borgs: lather, rinse, repeat.
- lolinder 1y agoIt doesn't work against which threat model? Yeah, if you've got corporate espionage going on this isn't going to stop someone from lifting your slides and taking them elsewhere. But the most common culprit of corporate information security violations isn't a spy, it's a well-meaning employee who didn't hear, remember, or correctly interpret the request to not record the meeting. Blocking the most common way in which this kind of well-meaning but ill-informed employee would break the expected security rules does work. It's just getting flak here because people are imagining a much more exciting threat model.
- hedora 1y agoIt doesn’t work against employees with camera phones.
- Aurornis 1y ago> Some people might want it, but it doesn’t actually work It probably works as well as the company firewall blocking sites or the data exfiltration detection blocking companies from being stolen. Everyone knows they’re not perfect and can be defeated by a sufficiently motivated attacker, but in practice they stop most casual attempts and discourage others.
- NKosmatos 1y agoThere isn’t a single user (presenter) that would ask something like this. Only a presenter that has to follow some strict “high security” procedures would enable something like this. A politician, for example, will have an excuse in case something leaks. The fact that with a simple mobile having a camera you can copy whatever is being presented (or with slightly more technical ways) is irrelevant for laws and procedures ;-)
- cheschire 1y agoYou don’t get invited to the right meetings, I see.
- guappa 1y agoYou mean with people who have more paranoia than sense?
- Aurornis 1y ago> There isn’t a single user (presenter) that would ask something like this. Asking participants not to screen record or take screenshot was standard practice at every company I’ve worked at where we discussed anything like financials or sensitive business plans.
- FireBeyond 1y agoPretty common where I have worked. Most commonly when reviewing internal product roadmaps to our sales teams because we've burned too many times when customers complain that we haven't implemented something we never announced but a sales person mentioned/showed.
- guappa 1y agoYou think forbidding screenshots is going to stop salespeople from promising random stuff? Have you met salespeople?
- jasonlotito 1y ago> The fact that with a simple mobile having a camera you can copy whatever is being presented (or with slightly more technical ways) is irrelevant for laws and procedures ;-) That you think the only attack vector here is a 3rd party device means you haven't really considered everything. Consider screenshots that might happen for many reasons, including malicious software, or even normal software someone might be using, and accidental exposure.
- tw04 1y agoBut it’s literally the dumbest feature ever. There’s absolutely nothing preventing a user from pulling out their phone and taking a picture of any slide they want. Or having a camera recording the whole session out of view of their webcam. It is security theater at its peak.
- tmpz22 1y agoIn a 1:1 format this would be effective in preventing some forms of misuse because it would be obvious if an individual took out their phone and pointed it towards the screen.
- relwin 1y agoEasily circumvented: Use two monitors, one positioned out of view. Use a teleprompter mirror with a camera behind the mirror. Use a video capture device, record on a separate computer. I'm sure there's sneakier ways to perform this...
- josephg 1y agoYour “easy” circumvention requires a second monitor, a teleprompter mirror, a camera, a separate computer and a video capture device. Remember, most people who use Teams don't work in tech. And for them, that’s not “easy”. Barely any normal people have that kind of equipment just lying around, along with the expertise and desire to set all that up, ready for a teams meeting. For every 100 people who might decide to take a screenshot during a teams meeting, I doubt there’s 1 person who has all that equipment set up and ready to go. You don’t need to make something 100% effective to get a benefit from doing so.
- ThrowawayR2 1y agoThese comments are akin to pointing out that the privacy door on a public bathroom stall can easily be bypassed by looking over the top of the stall walls or underneath the gap between the ground and the bottom of the wall. In their rush to be clever, they instead demonstrate that the poster completely missed the point.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- modzu 1y agohahaha nobody asked for this
- csomar 1y agoYeah, because blocking screenshots is security. How dumb could the world get? If you have sensitive information and a committed individual to leak those, then there is no way around if the picture is shared. What is next? Startup idea: i-Secure. Your camera can only take/show photos of approved targets. All photos will be analyzed for safety. Unapproved/Unlocked camera devices from China are now illegal.
- buyucu 1y agoIt's a pointless and stupid feature. It's trivial to take a picture of the screen with your phone.
- 7bit 1y agoIt's about convenience. You would be surprised how much information is leaked simply because it was so convenient to.
- buyucu 1y agostupid security theater liket his makes everything less secure. people who used to take screenshots will now resort to taking screen pictures with their phones. this means microsoft teams is incentivizing everyone to 'leak' content outside of corporate networks. creating a unworkable 'secure' system causes ordinary people to to go around the security to get their job done. which makes everything less secure in the end.
- WWLink 1y agoWhat's really going to happen is IT people will enforce this by default because good users aren't supposed to take screenshots, apparently.
- 7bit 1y agoI am a sysadmin and we will enable this. This is because many meetings discuss confidential or strictly confidential information that must not be leave the meeting. In-house, you would simply hand out papers that you collect before concluding the meeting. In Teams meeting it's not possible hence you block people from creating screenshots. This requirement comes from legal and compliance, and many other positions from CEO downwards.
- guappa 1y agoIf you don't frisk people to check if they have microphones and make everyone leave their phones at the entrance, you're just wasting everyone's time. Information hasn't leaked because people didn't bother to leak it, not because of your security measures.
- const_cast 1y agoThe lede you're burying here is why a lot of this confidential info is so. Yes, protecting IP is important, but you're also primarily targeting whistle-blowers, abused employees, discriminated against employees, etc. I mean, if HR says they won't make an accommodation because they think you're faking your disability than it's as if it never happened. Less transparency always benefits the immoral. And this type of stuff does happen. A lot. We don't hear about it because: 1. Companies have gotten really good at just covering their tracks, like this. 2. It's a lot of effort to fight back and it's almost never worth it. You pretty much need baby killing material for someone to whistle blow. Lowly transgressions like discrimination aren't worth the effort. I thought after Blizzard this would be a sort of wake up call.
- hulitu 1y ago> to enable screenshot protection on their meeting Nobody forces them to make a presentation. They can always spend their time doing something else.
- watwut 1y agoLets blame laws and regulations for features private companies decide to implement, because I guess that will help us destroy the state. Stop making up laws and regulations that dont exist.
- 6P58r3MXJSLi 1y ago> easily circumvented) Or, you know, just take a picture of the screen with your phone. Or record the session, or film it, etc etc etc
- kwanbix 1y agoAnd what is the point? If I want to capture something, I can use my cellphone even if print-screen is not working.
- WillieCubed 1y agoAFAIK, Google stopped making Timeline accessible on the web in favor of local-first storage to avoid having to give location data when subpoenaed by law enforcement (since they can't give away data they literally don't have access to). And they didn't want to deal with the headache of user privacy-related lawsuits, so they defaulted Google accounts into auto-deleting location history (which was already opt-in for years).
- Grazester 1y agoDon't know why Android doesn't allow you to record the call with the dialer. Google voice on the other hand allows this. Just hit 4 and you call is recorded. It is announced to all parties however.
- genewitch 1y agoThe workaround for that was to press 4 as soon as the ringing started. Obviously this doesn't apply when receiving calls.
- Helmut10001 1y agoI could not figure out how to record phone calls on Android! No app worked. I know it is forbidden in the EU, but I forget so many important details from calls that this would be very important.
- AlgebraFox 1y agoGrapheneOS allows call recording. I believe LineageOS also allows.
- djmips 1y agoOr image search not identifying people which was actually kind of useful. But I understand the downside.
- qgdfhu 1y ago> phone conversation (easily circumvented) Well, is there a reliable way to circumvent it without using a separate device? I cannot find anything that would just work on Android and not be paid.