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By default, Signal doesn't recall
- contact9879 1y agoit is absolutely insane that we're forced to DRM our own applications to protect ourselves from our own computers
- baby_souffle 1y agoAgreed. Reading this makes my head explode a little. 15 years ago, DRM was all about the DVD restricting where and when it could be played. Now it seems like we're using DRM to reassert our own rights? This timeline is cursed.
- gruez 1y agoIt's not even real DRM in any meaningful sense. It's just asking the OS really nicely to not allow the window to be screenshotted.
- contextfree 1y agoI think there was always a similarity or homology between DRM and many privacy scenarios that people care about: Party A sends information to party B intended for use in a specific context, but wants to limit the risk of it being stored or forwarded for use by other parties or in other contexts. DRM typically connotes that party A is a media company and the information is a movie or something, but - as in the case the article is about - party A could also just be a regular person and the information could be private personal info.
- enfuse 1y ago[dead]
- kristofferR 1y agoWell, it's not so much our own computers we need to worry about, it's more computers we think of as ours, but we actually borrow from our school/work. Windows Recall would be a pretty good feature if it somehow only worked for real personal computers.
- lenkite 1y agoGo back 10 years and tell people that MS periodically takes screenshots of your apps and sends them to MS and there would be heavy lawsuits. AI has made people idiots in more ways than expected.
- xp84 1y agoThey're "Sending them to MS"? Huh?
- mmcnl 1y agoNo, you can just turn Recall off. You don't need DRM for that.
- orangecat 1y agoYeah, I'm a bit confused at all the Recall outrage. It's an opt-in app that only stores data locally. If you think they're lying and are going to secretly upload the screenshots, well they can do that already.
- ThePowerOfFuet 1y agoEnabled by default ≠ opt-in.
- mmcnl 1y ago> To use Recall you need to opt in to saving snapshots, which are screenshots of your activity https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/retrace-your-steps-with-recall-aa03f8a0-a78b-4b3e-b0a1-2eb8ac48701c https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/retrace-your-ste...
- TiredOfLife 1y agoIt is absolutely insane that FUD and misinformation is the default now.
- chii 1y ago> we're forced to DRM our own applications to protect ourselves from our own computers it's an interesting irony, but it has an apt comparison to GPL - forcing the laws of copyright to enforce freedom. It's a classic "hack" of the system!
- weird_trousers 1y agoForced to DRM for security... And people will still argue that Windows (and I will generalize to "Microsoft products") is not evil?! Come on guys, come on...
- k__ 1y agoWhat would be the alternative? Build your whole machine at home?
- weird_trousers 1y agoIs it a joke? There are multiple alternatives, for Microsoft Windows or other Microsoft products like Office or Azure.
- ranger_danger 1y ago>To help mitigate this issue, we made the setting easy to disable (Signal Settings → Privacy → Screen security), but it’s difficult to accidentally disable It's easy to disable, but it's difficult to disable?
- weird_trousers 1y agoThere is a difference between "disable" and "accidentally disable".
- ranger_danger 1y agoYes but as I understand it, "easy to disable" and "difficult to accidentally disable" are opposites. EDIT: Apparently people have different definitions of easy. Fair enough
- qntty 1y agoChild-proof caps are easy to take off but difficult to accidentally take off.
- ranger_danger 1y agoI don't consider those easy to take off but ok
- em-bee 1y agonot at all. "easy to disable" means you can easily find the place where and how to do it. "difficult to accidentally disable" means you can't disable it without intentionally going to the place and making that choice. of course there are cases where easy to change something also means easy to accidentally change it, and those are annoying. but they don't have to be like that.
- vel0city 1y agoThey aren't opposites though. Its entirely possible to have something "easy to disable" and "difficult to accidentally disable". Easy to disable, in that there are some easy to understand and find steps to disable it. Difficult to accidentally disable, meaning its not something that would be disabled as a side effect of some other change, isn't just a single click, isn't poorly labeled or described, etc. In this case, it is first presented as a check box in the Privacy Settings area. It is titled "Screen security" and says "Prevent screenshots of Signal on this computer for added privacy.". Well documented. Click the check box, and it presents a modal window. The window then says, "Disable screen security? If disabled, this may allow Microsoft Windows to capture screenshots of Signal and use them for features that may not be private." You then have a Cancel or Disable buttons. Its two steps to change it after navigating to that part of the menu. The positions to click are different between the two steps. It confirms if you're really wanting to disable it, and tells you things may be able to take screenshots of the app. This reminds me of platforms which require you to type the name of a resource to delete something potentially important. It's easy to do, but one wouldn't accidentally click a button, type the full name of the resource, then click the confirm button. My electric lawn mower is both easy to start the blade and difficult to accidentally start. You have to hold a button and then pull the start lever. Its two actions that you reasonably have to do with two hands in a particular order. Both actions are easy to do, doing both of them are easy (assuming you have two somewhat functional hands). Once going you just need to continue to hold the lever and just release that to stop the blade.
- Peacefulz 1y agoOne of the driving forces of my full windows exodus was Recall. I knew they wouldn't seriously scrap the project. Glad to see measures are being taken to avoid the spies. Shame it comes to DRM though.
- neilv 1y agoYours is the real solution. What Signal did is a temporary kludge around the underlying problems, which include that Microsoft is hostile towards customers and users whenever it thinks it can get away with it. Also, as you get into mechanisms like DRM, which treat the owner and user of the device as adversaries, you make it harder to detect when the device or something on it is misbehaving against the interests of the owner/user (such as for secret surveillance).
- mistrial9 1y ago> Microsoft is hostile towards customers and users MSFT is implementing hierarchical control and monitoring on their desktop computers. Executive branch, legal and finance are the drivers. Users are serfs.
- godelski 1y agoI mean what else can signal do? You can't win against whoever controls the OS or hardware. They have effective absolute power. They do have to treat the "owner" as an adversary because companies like Microsoft make claim that they are the owner, not the user.
- bilbo0s 1y agoFrom a security perspective, you shouldn't be using anything you don't control from the bottom up. That includes Windows and Signal. Full stop. But in a pragmatic world, we can't have that level of security. You're reduced to deciding where you are willing to tolerate the security weaknesses. Obviously, no software or hardware will be 100% secure. But absent having an existential state level need to roll your own, you just have to pick from what's out there and accept that none of it is fully secure.
- dist-epoch 1y agoWeird way of attacking Microsoft, when this is a feature users will soon want everywhere. The latest Android update already introduced screen sharing with Gemini. Their web app has that too. It wont be long until people complaining here about DRM/Microsoft will have an always on AI watching their screen by their own choice.
- scubbo 1y ago> this is a feature users will soon want everywhere Some users - the less privacy-conscious. Many others (who probably frequent this site) actively do (and will) not.
- Firehawke 1y agoI'm normally not one to attack the messenger and just attack the message, but lay off the crack. 99% of users don't want anything even remotely like this. The thought of a single database (even encrypted) that could contain random login/password information, personal information, etc. and easily exfiltrated by whatever new zero-day of the week is NOT pleasant in the slightest.
- BriggyDwiggs42 1y agoIf I could run the model locally I would do that, but sending screenshots of everything I do + metadata to microsoft is way too much for me because, to start, I don’t want them selling my data to advertisers.
- fwip 1y agoRecall only runs locally - it doesn't send any data off-device, and doesn't work if you don't have an "AI+" chip.
- cosmic_cheese 1y agoIt’s still not fully user-controllable, which is a critical distinction. It remains local-only until Microsoft decides otherwise, and MS can always put in hooks that makes it easy for them to exfiltrate specific data that was technically harvested locally on a per-user or per-demographic basis. The level of trust required is truly extraordinary.
- formerly_proven 1y agoAs per the aicorp jurisprudence copyright doesn’t apply to AI usecases, so I’m sure they’ll fix the DRM „no screenshots“ flag preventing AI capture — it’s only legally self-consistent. Teams probably gets its own private API to exclude itself anyway (all Teams content must be privy only to the TeamsAI).
- wmf 1y agoThis isn't a copyright issue.
- hedora 1y agoFrom a legal standpoint, it's also not a privacy issue, since the US Supreme Court eliminated the right to privacy at the same time as Roe v Wade. Certainly, it's not trademark related. So, what legal recourse is left?
- wmf 1y agoUninstalling Windows?
- formerly_proven 1y agoDRM isn't about technical enforcement of copyright?
- GuestFAUniverse 1y agoDumbest announcement. Signal lost it's track...
- wetpaws 1y ago[dead]
- WD-42 1y agoIt’s really come to this? As if accepting the 4 different data sharing Eulas required to install windows wasn’t enough, now apps need to DRM themselves…
- k__ 1y agoI'd presume, this is a logical conclusion of trusting trust. The moment you don't build your own device, TEE with provable encrypted executions or FHE is the only way to run reasonably secure apps.
- IshKebab 1y agoIsn't Windows Recall opt-in?
- fwip 1y agoYes. "To use Recall, you will need to opt-in to saving snapshots, which are images of your activity, and enroll in Windows Hello to confirm your presence so only you can access your snapshots."
- hedora 1y agoOh, good. Local activities that used to be anonymous and private are now public with non-repudiation.
- ziml77 1y agoWhat's public here?
- jajuuka 1y agoI understand people not liking Recall. I'm one of them. But for something that is opt in now and even if opt later can still be disabled. So changing OS's because of that seems like an overreaction.
- mrmuagi 1y agoIt's the straw that breaks the camel's back I think for most people. Constant nagging by the operating system for Windows products (I have enabled onedrive personally, but for some reason it installed two file explorer quick access links, and the workarounds online fail to persist reboots) -- hijacking file extensions, hijacking program aliases (I just had to remove a windows store alias in my env variables for "python" despite having it already installed months prior), the constant cat and mouse to have local account-only possible, inability to remove edge/stop being pestered about it, and now recall (which is not truely opt-in since it gets installed whether you want it or not).
- 1y ago
- godelski 1y agoI wonder if 2025 will be the year of Linux. Windows has turned itself into spyware. Apple is too expensive and going the same way. Meanwhile the user experience of Linux has dramatically increased. Put on a good skin and most people wouldn't notice the difference. You don't need to reply that you can, I know you can. You're on HN. But most people just use their computer for the browser and most people can't tell Chrome from Firefox. Most people get their lockin by their tech friend or child. Really, Microsoft's only lockin remains Office. It won't be a complete shift but the signs of growing userbase is there. Would be a huge win for open source! If you haven't tried Linux in a few years try giving something like PopOS a go or if you want to say you use Arch then try EndeavourOS. Both are very stable, latter slightly less. Edit: enfuse was right, I should have suggested EndeavourOS instead of Manjaro.
- TacticalCoder 1y ago[dead]
- x0xrx 1y agoScammers successfully sell reskinned Android phones as iPhones to unsuspecting marks, I’m sure you’re right that many people wouldn’t notice.
- andy_xor_andrew 1y agojust saying, the comment you just wrote could have appeared, word for word, on any HN discussion in the last 20 years. The only words that would have to change are "PopOS" / "Arch" / "Manjaro" for more timely distros. (and Chrome didn't exist until ~2009)
- fsflover 1y agoThis has been indeed more or less true for a long time, if you speak of preinstalled GNU/Linux, not using a "Windows-certified" hardware.
- godelski 1y agoI really don't think so. We didn't have GUI installers 20 years ago. I think you're undermining the advances linux has made. I think it is harder for us on the techy side to see but having been getting people to switch to linux over the last 10 years I can say that the last 5 have been significantly easier.
- vel0city 1y agoI'm happy to have this setting. It's a great setting and I appreciate Signal adding it. However, if an attacker has the ability to directly query the Recall database, they almost certainly have access to read all your Signal messages on your device. The locations where Recall files live are even more protected and isolated than your %APPDATA%\Roaming\Signal directory is. Everything running as you on your computer has full control of all your Signal messages and your identity assigned to the device. This is untrue of your Recall data, which from last I saw required a lot of finagling to get the permissions right for you to access it raw.
- advisedwang 1y agoAt least this gives forward secrecy, so if someone takes control of your computer they can only spy on signal messages AFTER that point, and can't access prior messages that Recall has captured.
- vel0city 1y agoThis is only forward secrecy for messages that were deleted and would have been captured by Recall and are still within the snapshot history which has a maximum number of days. All the messages you've previously synced to the device exist in that Signal AppData directory and can be trivially searched and read by any application running as your user account. And all attachments are also just sitting there. For example: https://vmois.dev/query-signal-desktop-messages-sqlite/ https://vmois.dev/query-signal-desktop-messages-sqlite/
- acdha 1y agoGiven how popular the disappearing messages feature is, a lot of messages are going to be deleted where Recall is a second, less tested copy of things which the user believes are gone. Given the past history of AI tools it seems dangerously likely that someone would find that their Recall history was retained longer than necessary or could be retrieved through some creative misuse of Recall which doesn’t require system access.
- mmooss 1y agoI agree with Signal here and love their commitment. Strangely (to me) they do 'recall' things in other ways: * They have a message retention setting, 'Disappearing messages'; it works on message correspondents' devices too (if Ali sets Disappearing messages' to '1 day' for the chat with Barry, and then texts Barry, 1 day later Signal deletes the message on both Ali's and Barry's devices). However, 'Disappearing messages' applies only to text messages. For every voice and video call, Signal retains a record of the date and time and the participants, and Signal saves it on the devices of each participant. Beyond a doubt, Signal's developers are well aware of the value of such metadata - as valuable as call content, in different ways - and the need for confidentiality (if you aren't familiar with that particular issue, I promise that every security professional is). I'm shocked that they do it. What about a human rights dissident who is arrested - or whose phone is stolen - their phone won't show any sign of the text messages but it shows everyone they called and when, implicating all those other people and putting them at risk, and also evidence against the phone's owner. And even if they are disciplined and manually delete each of those records - afaik you can delete each call record one at a time - the other call participants' phones still retain the records. There is nothing someone can do to protect themself. Better security here doesn't seem hard to implement. Also, I think having different settings for text messages and for voice/video calls makes retention settings more confusing for users. Many will believe they are safe without realizing the risk of this metadata - they trust the experts at Signal to understand these things and keep them safe - and many will assume everything disappears. Just have one setting for all data and metadata in the chat. * Also, afaik if you delete the entire correpondence with someone - delete their entire chat history and delete them from the Signal address book - Signal retains information on them, such as settings for that chat. It seems that an attacker could identify all the deleted correspondents; again, there's no way to protect yourself.
- lblume 1y ago> Better security here doesn't seem hard to implement. You seem to assume it would be very simple to implement this — how do you come to this conclusion? My priors would suggest that the vast amount of effort that went into the Signal protocol renders low-hanging fruit regarding privacy fairly unlikely.
- kiririn 1y agoIt's nice to see them add an option to disable this behaviour, now if only we could get an option to include Signal messages in iOS backups...
- hedora 1y agoYeah; the lack of backup support is getting really old. I was hoping the article meant that you could optionally set it to recall your chat history across backup/restore. iOS <-> Android account migration would also be good. I last used Windows in the Windows 8 days. That was when they added the telemetry "feature" that lets MS engineers copy files off your box without your permission (and without notifying you). At the time, they claimed it's only for debugging software failures, and even then, only with managerial approval. My reading of the US CLOUD Act says they're obligated to let the US gov't copy arbitrary data off your machine, regardless of what country it's in. I'm not sure if they still do it. The documentation of this stuff is well-buried.
- plingbang 1y agoFighting with the OS is futile. The OS is always in control and apps can only ask it nicely to do things. Microsoft can simply change Recall to capture DRM-marked content too. And to avoid copyright issues, it will store some kind of visual summary (or whaterer the neural network can use) instead of plain screenshots like it is doing now.
- bfors 1y agoMy company now blocks signal.org, it must be a nefarious tool meant for ill intent.
- habitue 1y agoContinue to be happy to have deleted windows from all my computers, including for gaming. There are issues with closed source OSs in general, but microsoft has continually shown that they make bad decisions and just aren't trustworthy.
- vladms 1y agoGaming on Linux using steam works great for me. There are more games than I have time to play and I don't even need to worry how they work (emulation vs native) as I had to do many years ago.
- amelius 1y agoI'm surprised that Signal isn't kicked out of the Windows app store for abusing DRM like that. (saying this as a Signal fan)
- CobrastanJorji 1y agoIs it abuse? Are there rules about what sorts of media can and cannot be protected by DRM?
- contextfree 1y agoYeah, technically this seems like exactly a DRM scenario: Party A sends information to party B intended for use in a specific context, but wants to limit the risk of it being stored or forwarded for use by other parties or in other contexts.
- debugnik 1y agoIt's not even DRM, just a Win32 call that hides the window from screen capture. There's no anti-tamper or protected media path.
- contact9879 1y agoSignal isn't in a Windows app store to be kicked out of, though
- vel0city 1y agoI don't think Signal is in the Windows app store, is it? I've never installed it from there. And this isn't really abusing anything. It's just a flag a window can set to say it's sensitive and shouldn't be included in screen grabs.
- chii 1y agoit's good that microsoft isn't the arbiter of what should be allowed to be installed onto a machine. I actively dislike walled gardens. It's fine to have a store, and to sell via a store, but it should never be an exclusive option.
- CobrastanJorji 1y ago> If you’re wondering why we’re only implementing this on Windows right now, it’s because the purpose of this setting is to protect your Signal messages from Microsoft Recall. To nitpick, that doesn't tell me why you're only implementing this now. That tells me why it's more important now, but it doesn't tell me why it wasn't good before now. But the word "only" suggests that there was a reason you didn't do this before now.
- notable_chuckle 1y agoI think they mean only Windows as in 'Windows but not other platforms yet'. The wording is confusing.
- vel0city 1y agoThey do support this feature on other platforms though. It works on my Android phone.
- artimaeis 1y agoI don't think they meant that 'only' in a temporal sense. Rather, they meant why that's the only platform they're implementing it on for the time being. > "If you're wondering why we're [not implementing this on other platforms right now] [...]"
- tasuki 1y agoYes sure. There isn't much a userland app can actually do if your OS wants to spy on you. I wonder why they spend their time on this? Meanwhile, Signal still requires a phone number to register and use. It's terrible: phone numbers are easy to lose, and not everyone has a phone number. I like the ideas behind the Session[0] messenger: create an account with no authentication (no phone number, no email, no nothing), get a list-of-words-to-note-down, which allows you to access your account from any device. You get a UUID or something as your user id. Share that with a QR code or send a link over an existing channel to connect to someone. To me this seems way ahead of Signal. I'm not affiliated with Session and haven't actually persuaded anyone to start using it just yet, so I don't really know how it is in practice. But the UX of creating an account made me weep tears of joy and hope <3 [0]: https://getsession.org/ https://getsession.org/
- gruez 1y ago>It's terrible: phone numbers are easy to lose At least in the US they're nearly impossible to lose because of phone number portability. >and not everyone has a phone number Most people do, not least because plenty of other services (eg. banks) require a phone number.
- ethagnawl 1y ago> At least in the US they're nearly impossible to lose because of phone number portability. If you miss a few payments, you'll be at risk of losing your phone number.
- gruez 1y agoIs this a socioeconomic status thing? Cellphone plans are dirt cheap, on the order of $20-30 for a modest plan. I guess it's theoretically easier to lose than a free email plan, but I don't see either actually occurring.
- jajuuka 1y agoThis requires planning ahead for a disconnection though. Porting out your number requires the source number still be active. It's just so weird to require a paid service to access a free service. Why not just a free service like email that can be accessed via free wifi.
- calvinmorrison 1y agoif signal tried to do something this bad themeselves, we wouldnt really be able to for it or switch to another client. Just another bad actor bitching about worse actors, huh?
- overgard 1y agoMicrosoft really seems out of control. Yesterday I noticed that OneDrive was turned on automatically (I've always been very clear about not turning it on). Which was incredibly shocking to me, that they'd just turn on uploading my data to the cloud on the sly. And of course, it's nearly impossible to turn off Edge loading things. I'm really on the verge of switching to Linux, it's getting too awful
- throitallaway 1y agoI absolutely hate how Windows now basically forces you to sign in with a Microsoft ID in order to facilitate this kind of stuff. I just want a local system; I don't need all this online crap built into my desktop OS. For the last two decades or so I've been running Linux for everything (personal and work) except for gaming. I'm to the point of being sufficiently annoyed with Windows that I'm going to set up a Linux disk for gaming to see how that goes. I've used Wine etc. for gaming sporadically throughout the years. Recently that landscape has improved quite a bit thanks to Valve.
- firen777 1y agoWhile it's been improved a whole lot, it's not all sunshine and rainbow as some game companies decided to drop support after they decided kernel anti-cheat is the way (notably GTA onlin & Apex legend). That being said, I personally use proton compatibility to gauge whether a game is worth my time so I'm not too bothered by this. And I'm constantly surprised by how much the Venn diagram of games that don't run on Linux and games that have off-putting bullshit unrelated to Linux looks like a single overlapping circle.
- fschuett 1y ago> “Take a screenshot every few seconds” legitimately sounds like a suggestion from a low-parameter LLM that was given a prompt like “How do I add an arbitrary AI feature to my operating system as quickly as possible in order to make investors happy?” No, actual AI is smarter than Microsoft managers, it seems: Here are some ideas for adding an arbitrary AI feature to your operating system quickly to make investors happy: - AI File Search: NLP for file/setting search (search files by NLP querying) - Auto Window Layouts: AI-suggested window organization ("coding mode", "research mode" depending on detected usage patterns) - Smart Notifications: automatic notification condensing to reduce clutter - AI Clipboard: Keeping a categorized clipboard paste based on content - Predictive App Launcher: Suggests apps based on daytime, usage, recently opened files - AI Wallpaper/Theme: Smart visual suggestions, i.e. wallpaper based on current weather, mood, etc. - Voice Quick Commands: AI-based voice OS control ("Open browser") - AI System optimization: for example, content-based disk space cleanup Any of the above are better than this nonsense.
- vel0city 1y agoSome of these features already exist in Windows such as the predictive app launcher, voice commands, and system optimization. For example, when a meeting that had an attachment of some spreadsheet is coming up, it's already in my start menu.
- mmcnl 1y agoI think this is quite strange, imo this is just virtue signalling / activism and much less about privacy. I install Signal on the Windows operating system on the computer I trust. If I wouldn't trust Windows, why would I install Signal? Also Recall is an opt-in feature, it's not spyware, that's simply FUD. Second, Apple is doing something similar except they send all your data to the cloud (yes I know Apple says private cloud, but there's no such thing). What's Signal's take on that? I respect their stance on privacy, but this doesn't feel like a rational decision to me.
- lurk2 1y ago> Apple is doing something similar except they send all your data to the cloud They do? Since when?
- mmcnl 1y agohttps://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence/ https://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence/ > Draws on your personal context without allowing anyone else to access your personal data — not even Apple. Personal context === privacy sensitive data. > Apple Intelligence is designed to protect your privacy at every step. It’s integrated into the core of your iPhone, iPad, and Mac through on-device processing. So it’s aware of your personal information without collecting your personal information. And with groundbreaking Private Cloud Compute, Apple Intelligence can draw on larger server-based models, running on Apple silicon, to handle more complex requests for you while protecting your privacy. They can use nice sounding words such as "privacy at every step" and "protecting your privacy", but that's marketing. The facts are that Apple Intelligence is baked into the core of your iPhone for analyzing personal data and they send the data to the cloud.
- bcoates 1y agoMaybe I'm nuts, but I absolutely love timesnapper (the non-LLM predecessor of Recall, but the same screenshot every few seconds concept). I originally got it for it's main advertised function--making it easy to record hours for contract billing--but once I had it running I was hooked. It's just incredibly useful to be able to pull up what you were doing at any given moment, or how you did a particular thing, a few months after the fact. I haven't used Recall yet but hooking it up to a multimodal LLM seems like an obviously useful thing.
- jasonjayr 1y agoThen it should 100% be a clear opt in, with no weasel words. No yes/no dialogs with "Yes" or "Maybe later". OneDrive being on by default and hoovering up your data automatically has burned at least one family member, and it seems like recall will follow the same path.
- j-bos 1y agoHa I love that DRM is being turned for protection of actual people instead of industry giants.
- DecentShoes 1y agoNo OS or app should be able to stop me taking screenshots. Not my phone, not my desktop. It's MY device. I should be able to take screenshots of whatever the hell I want.
- palata 1y agoThat's off-topic: 1. You can disable that feature in the Signal settings (they say it in the post) 2. They don't have another way because of Microsoft (they say it in the post) Did you read the post?
- RomanPushkin 1y agoSecond this. What's the point of this security aspect when everyone has their pocket cameras in their phones? This is nonsense. The same is true for spyware installed on employee computers. Google laptops will snitch on you if you even attempt to attach USB drive. While there is HDMI and KVMs, there is no point of having these restrictions.
- jasonlotito 1y ago> What's the point of this security aspect when everyone has their pocket cameras in their phones? It's not to stop the people from screenshotting. It's to stop the accidental exposure via some screenshot or some other mechanism.
- alkonaut 1y agoApps take screenshots all the time, e.g for crash reporting. Then they phone home with them. Most apps obviously ask politely when this happens but I’m sure there are exceptions. Not to mention malicious apps. There is no real security or isolation for screenshots that I’m aware of so app one will happily snap a picture of app two, without needing special permissions. That other app can be your password manager or baking browser tab. So apps explicitly opting into being in the picture is perhaps not such a bad idea.
- QuadmasterXLII 1y ago“ To help mitigate this issue, we made the setting easy to disable (Signal Settings → Privacy → Screen security), but it’s difficult to accidentally disable. Turning off “Screen security” in Signal Desktop on Windows 11 will always display a warning and require confirmation in order to continue.”
- pseudosavant 1y agoDoes anyone else feel like Signal is acting like Recall is the only app that could record your screen on Windows? It seems like this is something they should have been stopping for a long time and they are finally addressing this loophole?
- nerdsniper 1y agoThe penetration of other apps that record your whole screen 24/7 is pretty low. Whereas this will be close to 100% of windows users.
- pseudosavant 1y agoWill it though? They are acting like it is already 100%, when it isn't only in a difficult to access preview that only Windows 11 users with Copilot+ PCs can use, and even when installed, it requires opting in. How many hours a day does Zoom/Google Meet/etc record many users' screens? I'd suggest that it unbelievably common for a screen to get recorded many hours every day already. I had always (incorrectly) assumed Signal required a desktop app so that they could block screen capture like they finally do now.
- vel0city 1y agoVery few computers support Recall, even if they support 11. So no, it won't be 100% of Windows users.
- andrewclunn 1y agoAs somebody who had to use signal messages as evidence in court, there are legitimate reasons to capture screenshot of signal. If people have spyware then that’s on them. When the OS becomes the spyware… well I support signal’s timing on this.
- trinsic2 1y agoIf you have to have this kind of monitoring on your OS, to circumvent spying on your apps, something is really wrong and you should probably take the nearest exit.
- tempestn 1y agoHopefully Signal manages to turn all the recent press into a positive for user acquisition. It's a fantastic app and service. In an ideal world, laws could be updated for the digital age such that automated disappearing messages were not considered equivalent to deleting records, but rather to an in-person conversation or phone call for which records would not be expected to be kept in the first place. I'm not holding my breath on that one though.
- alex1138 1y agoYou know I understand this is HN so I might get downvoted for saying this (with no explanation) but we should start enforcing computer crimes when corporations do it If Microsoft decides spying on you and inflicting DRM or whatever or any of the other companies they should be liable in criminal prosecution At least some of these you could plausibly argue even violate the CFAA and is about on the same level of some lone black hat hackers
- OsrsNeedsf2P 1y ago> they should be liable in criminal prosecution What's the crime? What's the damage? Nobody is forcing you to use Windows, in fact most developers I know are on a Mac
- OsrsNeedsf2P 1y ago> they should be liable in criminal prosecution What's the crime? What's the damage? Nobody is forcing you to use Windows, in fact most people I know are on Mac
- 14 1y agoI look forward to the first report of domestic abuse or worse caused by recall. I really hope this never happens and pray it doesn’t but I am 100% sure someone is going to utilize this feature to see exactly what their bf/gf is doing when online. Those who are not very tech savvy will ultimately do something online and their partner will look and see exactly what they did and snap. This scenario will be Microsoft’s fault. They are literally installing spyware as a feature. I hope no one gets killed.
- fdlaks 1y agoCan't wait for the day when I can have my gaming PC be on a Linux based OS, thats really the only reason I have it at all
- CHB0403085482 1y agosigh Time to go full *nix? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm51xZHZI6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm51xZHZI6g
- gfhopper 1y agoI switched to Linux permanently in 2015. Didn't know it would get this bad but forced updates was what convinced me to switch. It seems every time I see Microsoft in the news, it's very specifically NOT for good reasons. Grabbing my popcorn...
- 8note 1y agoas the official communication tool for the US government national security team, isnt signal required by law to recall now?
- WuxiFingerHold 1y agoI have a very nice Microsoft Surface Pro running Windows 10. I refuse to update to Windows 11. Has anyone tried a Linux distribution on such a device? Which one would you recommend?
- JohnFen 1y agoI never thought I'd see the day when DRM would actually be used in a positive way. Good job, Signal.
- compsciphd 1y agothis would presumambly also prevent signal from working over RDP/remote desktop. With that said, anyone by default this seems somewhat pointless (though I might be wrong), as by default it seems signal keeps the entire message history in a sqlite DB on the machine. While one can argue that the screenshot history is problematic, the sqlite DB is just as problematic if one views it as a need to have good privacy defaults, and I'd argue that the sqlite DB is much more valuable to exfilitrate than the screenshot history. Now, one can counter that one can purge the message history (all or in part) in a manner that is easier than with Recall, and I'd agree that Recall would be better if it gave the users fine grained ability to purge things from it, but that doesn't change the argument that we are simply seeing virtue signaling here (pun slightly intended), as this change to defaults doesn't really improve a user's privacy.
- josephcsible 1y agoIf an app did this without an off switch, what would be the easiest way to bypass it and take a screenshot anyway, assuming the goal is a higher quality result than taking a picture of the monitor?