this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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If you thought that Microsoft was done with Recall after its catastrophic reveal as the main feature of Copilot+ PCs, you are mistaken.

Microsoft wants to bring it back this October 2024. Good news is that the company plans to introduce it in test builds of the Windows 11 operating system in October. In other words: do not expect the feature to hit stable Windows 11 PCs before 2025 at the earliest.

While Recall may have sounded great on paper and on work-related PCs, users and experts alike expressed concern. Users expressed fears that malware could steal Recall data to know exactly what they did in the past couple of months.

Others did not trust Microsoft to keep the data secure. We suggested to make Recall opt-in, instead of opt-out, to make sure that users knew what they were getting into when enabling it.

Microsoft pulled the Recall feature shortly after its announcement and published information about its future in June. There, Microsoft said that it would make Recall opt-in by default. It also wanted to improve security by enrolling in Windows Hello and other features.

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[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 101 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Who thought they were abandoning it?

I doubt they secured it particularly well either, because the nature of proper security is building it from the ground up with security as a core principle, but it was always coming back.

They delayed because "oh shit, people noticed we didn't even bother with security theater" and to let the backlash die down. They still consider it a major selling point.

[–] stankmut@lemmy.world 43 points 2 years ago (1 children)

By the comments I've seen, it seems like no one read their previous announcement where they said they were delaying the feature while they continued work on it. We already knew they were still going to ship it.

Just having it disabled by default is a massive improvement. It's crazy that they initially considered releasing it with no encryption and it on by default.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 15 points 2 years ago

They did abandon it but it backed itself up

[–] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 83 points 2 years ago (7 children)

While Recall may have sounded great on paper and on work-related PCs,

Ah yes, all those IT people were probably thrilled with the prospect of Microsoft getting sent constant screenshots of their employees' machines, with all those company secrets, sensitive information, and everything

[–] Azal@pawb.social 37 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Boy howdy I'm just imagining HIPAA with this.

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It never sounded great on paper to me...

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[–] ulkesh@lemmy.world 77 points 2 years ago (3 children)

They never said they were doing away with it. It's a feature literally no one asked for, it's insecure, it's invasive, a privacy nightmare any way you look at it.

And people who willingly use it will deserve all the shit that it is. And meanwhile, I'll be enjoying my privacy-respecting Linux operating system.

[–] PhreakyByNature@feddit.uk 23 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I am keeping Win 10 until I can't safely anymore then Linux may be my next stop. Been looking at CachyOS for gaming.

[–] Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 12 points 2 years ago (12 children)
[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 2 years ago

IDK why they want to but to me the name seems pretty catchy

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[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 76 points 2 years ago

"has enough time passed that we won't get bad press for this?"

[–] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 66 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 19 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Linux is just as bad though


.zsh_history records every command you run!

(/s, obviously...)

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[–] Clbull@lemmy.world 63 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

So imagine you're on PornHub and then out of nowhere, Clippy shows up and says "hmmm looks like you need some help pleasuring yourself", then starts flicking through similar nude pictures and videos to what you've been looking at before. The idle animation of the AI assistant even changes to Clippy morphing into the shape of a penis and shagging a rolled up piece of lined paper is if it were a fleshlight. You can't tell if Microsoft are mocking you for being a coomer, nor can you tell whether to find Clippy's sexual deviancy funny or creepy.

Somehow that hypothetical dystopia of Clippy watching you masturbate is only slightly worse than what Microsoft plan to do with Recall. If the mere thought of a machine learning AI taking screenshots of your desktop every few seconds and learning from your computer usage habits isn't absolutely fucking terrifying... Then imagine that these are likely being uploaded to a server for the perusal of advertisers, intelligence agencies and any hackers skilled enough to break into Microsoft's servers.

Even if it was stored locally, all it takes is one dodgy web link for you to inadvertently send all your Recall data to a hacker and have it ransomed.

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[–] Abdoanmes@lemmy.world 55 points 2 years ago (3 children)

<Insert how you'll use Linux> <rest of the population uses Windows because they don't know shit about tech and how shitty this is> <realize work loves Microsoft and you can't change that>

[–] Zeoic@lemmy.world 18 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Work is the only reason I still have windows in my life, and thankfully, they will be trialing linux as an option for employees in the next month or two. I signed up so damn quick lol.

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[–] pyre@lemmy.world 14 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (39 children)

people not knowing shit about tech is not their fault. I've been using tech for 30+ years, and I'm usually the most tech savvy person in my circle of family and friends, except for a friend in IT.

the reason I'm not getting into Linux is no longer gaming, it's that whenever i see some fuckers talking about Linux it's completely indecipherable with proper names, commands, and jargon. it's straight up technobabble, and when it's not insufferable elitism it's certainly disinviting.

you think people are going to listen to a bunch of nerds talking about distros and shit, using 40 different acronyms within two sentences, and think "ah this is my new home" ... like do you fucking hear yourselves at all‽ you sound exactly like a character from the hackers, and not in a good way.

if anything is preventing people from switching it's Linux users, and probably developers as well. if you make it look like people have to have a degree to get into your shit, they're not gonna do it.

[–] simple@lemm.ee 13 points 2 years ago

Even more annoying is how many people in the Linux community often recommend distros that are terrible for beginners. People who constantly try to tell newbies to download base debian or arch should be removed from the conversation instantly.

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[–] yessikg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 49 points 2 years ago (23 children)

Finished migrating to Linux right on time

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[–] tigerjerusalem@lemmy.world 47 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This tool stinks of management requesting a better way to spy the employees. It has little to no benefits for the user.

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 21 points 2 years ago

I'm not sure any company wants to have recordings of their employees screens feed to Microsoft servers. It could never happen at my company because of the amount of private information we deal with. Privacy laws, NDAs, you name it. There's no way we could enable this without a shit storm of risk.

[–] hornedfiend@sopuli.xyz 33 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I wonder why are they so invested into this "feature".

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago

Building a fully trained model on user preferences/habits is the holy grail of marketing.

You can infer user intelligence, addictive personalities, and vices. You can couple that with income and likelihood to spend.

When you pull that kind of data from email or even from web browsing, you don't get the kind of depth that you can get from a trained model.

There's models with all your habits and preferences, they're worth serious money. And that's why Microsoft is pushing so hard to make sure you log in with a online account.

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[–] henfredemars 33 points 2 years ago

Their feature may come back to their OS but their OS isn’t coming back to my hardware.

[–] veeesix@lemmy.ca 28 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Since Recall is constantly watching what you do, is it plausible that it could summarize and quantify for an employer how much work is being done on the machine during work hours?

[–] spread@programming.dev 28 points 2 years ago

The tendency of the rate of profit to fall is here again. They really do need to squeeze those dollars out

[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm glad I don't use Winbloat

[–] olympicyes@lemmy.world 18 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Honestly this might be useful to the home user but everyone is right to be skeptical. The bigger value for the software is corporate surveillance. They will be able to see exactly how much time WFH workers are actually working and will probably want it for exfiltration prevention. The target user might not be able to avoid using it no matter what.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 15 points 2 years ago

It's 1000%going to be used for corporate surveillance.

Features to do this from other vendors are already in use.

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[–] Assman@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 years ago

Another day I'm thankful I don't work for a company that uses microshit anymore

[–] Kuvwert@lemm.ee 17 points 2 years ago
[–] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Of course it is coming back.

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[–] undrivendev@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago

I use Arch Linux... btw

Seriously, the alternatives are there... It's time to take the leap and never look back.

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