Ya, a PR nightmare for the next 15 minutes until the next unbelievable thing comes along and the ADD nature of people forgets windows is watching everything they do.

Microsoft has built a number of safety features into Windows Recall to ensure that the service can't run secretly in the background. When Windows Recall is enabled, it places a permanent visual indicator icon on the Taskbar to let the user know that Windows Recall is capturing data. This icon cannot be hidden or moved.

Oh my, that one is really cute

I mean 95% of their customers probably don't care or even know what Recall is but...

My dad is now pissed at both Microsoft and Adobe, and curious about Linux. If I can find a Lightroom alternative, he might actually switch.

You guys trusted MS before this???

I figured on my gaming and VR rig that I’d begrudgingly upgrade it to W11 when W10 stopped receiving security updates and support but at this point the recall feature (which will be used to train LLMs regardless of what Microsoft promises or guarantees) has ensured that I never install that kind of spyware as an operating system.

I’d rather spend forever troubleshooting and getting my Valve Index to work with Ubuntu than deal with a giant backdoor.

I’m telling everyone I know it’s time to move to Linux, or worst case Mac.

A lot of people here seem to be missing the nuance.

Sure, it’s problematic for their consumer market share, but you’re right that that’ll probably be forgotten by the mostly tech-illiterate populace over time. But that’s not the problem.

Step 0 of MS’s plan for this should have been “make sure there is an absolutely bulletproof and ironclad way to disable that stuff completely for enterprise customers”. And they didn’t do that. So now, enterprise IT writ large is going to… you know… just not buy any of these devices. Which is absolutely their right.

But the really frustrating bit is that MS may have significantly harmed the rollout of ARM-based laptops (as well as x86 chips with beefy NN-optimized tiles) with this, and additionally done real, massive harm to Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm by doing so. All three of those manufacturers have gone to ENORMOUS lengths to roll this tech out, largely at MS’s behest. They’re all going to take this on the chin if the rollout goes poorly. And the rollout is already going poorly.

But MS thought they could Apple-handwave away the details. And they can’t, because a lot of people who understand the absurd security implications of continuous capture and OCR and plaintext storage of the OCR output. It’s not something you can handwave away. It’s entirely a non-starter in the context of maintaining organizational security (as well as personal data security, but we’ve already talked about why that’s a bit of a moot point with the general public). But enterprise IT largely does try to take their job seriously, and they are collectively calling MS’s bluff.

The problem for the long term is that MS has pretty much proven to the IT industry with this stunt that they can’t be trusted to make software that conforms to their needs. That’s a stain that isn’t going to go away any time soon. It might even be the spark that finally triggers enterprise to move away from MS as a primary client OS. After all, Linux is WAY easier to manage from a security perspective.

TL;DR: the issue is that MS has significantly damaged their reputation with this stunt. And you can’t buy reputation.

Edit:

The article has an update:

Update noon ET June 7, 2024: Microsoft has released a statement noting it is making three significant changes to how Recal works including making it opt-in during setup, requiring Windows Hello to enable Recall, proof of presence is now required to view your timeline, and search in Recall, and adding additional layers of data protection including “just in time” decryption protected by Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS) so that snapshots will only be decrypted and accessible when the user authenticates.

It’s definitely a move in the right direction… but it also begs the question of why didn’t they do that in the first fucking place? Seriously, some heads are gonna roll over how badly this whole release was planned, and the very clear lack of due diligence.

it isn't a nightmare for them. they will be fine. they normalize everything they do

Pfffttt, Microsoft has been there, done this, and got a whole closet full of tee shirts for stuff like this many times over the years. In the end the users don't care and can't stop it. And they are, by in large, too lazy to change to something else to completely avoid it.

It hasn't ever affected the bottom line enough to matter to them. They will just pull this ~~bug~~ feature and wait for a better day. Or perhaps they will figure out a way to introduce it piecemeal to disguise it better.

All I want from an Os is to launch my programs of choice and not suck up my battery running unnecessary junk I couldn't care less about.

It's also important to remember that Microsoft has no monetary incentive to force people to use Windows Recall.

With that in mind, there would be no reason for Microsoft to automatically enable Windows Recall in an update down the line. If it does happen, the user will be able to instantly tell thanks to that that visual indicator and turn it off again.

This article is nothing but propaganda. There is huge monetary incentive to force people to use Windows Recall and collect their data, and Microsoft routinely uses Windows Update to enable data collection. They began that practice years ago on Windows 7. It's a ridiculously simple matter for MS to disable the visual indicator and force This Week's Plan on their users to monetize their data.

Windows Central pretends to be critical of plans to enable a feature that can be made into malware by Microsoft in a couple of minutes, but then back peddles and says it can't be done (utter BS) and if it could be, it wouldn't be that bad.

I don't want to be the guy that always says Linux, but... ...Linux

This is status quo for every large corporation. Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, EVERY SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM, Roku.... They all, ALL, push boundaries to see what they can get away with to not only sell you something, but also make you the thing they sell. Sometimes they're bold enough to make it public what they're doing, sometimes, it's a leak that happens when people find out how little the company actually cares about it's users (Apple, so many user data leaks).

Just think they might go from owning 98% of the market to 97% of the market. I am sure this is a nightmare for them.

You can only piss on our faces and tell us it is raining for so long.

TL;DR:

• Windows Recall, part of Microsoft's new Copilot+ PC initiative, has sparked major privacy and security concerns.
• The feature uses AI to capture and store screen data locally, allowing users to search for past activities using natural language.
• Despite assurances that data is not uploaded to the cloud or used by Microsoft, user trust is lacking.
• Microsoft has a history of practices that have eroded user trust, including obtrusive ads, ignoring user preferences, and requiring Microsoft Accounts.
• Users are skeptical, fearing future misuse of the collected data for advertising or AI training.
• Windows Recall reportedly stores data unencrypted, making it vulnerable to access by third-party apps and potential malware.
• The open nature of Windows amplifies these risks, unlike more secure systems like iOS and Android.
• Users have compared Windows Recall to spyware, with many threatening to switch to other operating systems like Linux or Mac.
• Microsoft's attempts to keep the development of Windows Recall secret did not help build trust.
• Windows Recall will only be available on new Copilot+ PCs, requiring specific hardware not present in existing PCs.
• Users will have the option to disable the feature, but there are concerns about it being enabled by default.
• Despite security issues, the feature is effective in helping users find lost or forgotten data.
• It could improve productivity if trust and security concerns are resolved.

Linux ftw!

Outside of the "Microsoft bad" comments, this is a prime example of why big tech companies need to stop promoting AI leads to a position where they are able to have influence over initiatives outside of AI.

The worst thing to happen to basically every product/service in tech right now is AI. It's made Google unreliable in the eyes of normal people for the first time in decades, it's destroying trust in Amazon content across reviews and Kindle, it's adding features to Facebook that no one ever wanted, etc.

Stallman just keeps being right*

*About software freedom

I finally switched to Linux Mint a week ago. I've just had enough of Microsoft and I couldn't think of any more reasons why I shouldn't switch.

I've got Libre Office for all my productivity needs. All my Steam games work under Linux. My VPN works just fine. Firefox for web browsing. Thunderbird for email. And Wine to run those 1-2 Windows programs that I just can't do without.

You know what would be a nice thing to put into windows?

A fucking decent way to search for files.

Also, grep and tail, as implemented in Linux. It's 2024 and there's no native equivalent to tail -f *.log. How embarrassing.

Microsoft: oh no we might loose 0.0000001% of users, it doesn't matter since we can shove our software down people throats

Buy a mac or support steamOS adoption or just get a linux distro. This will drive the improvement of nontechnical consumer GNU/Linux

I wish Linux weren't completely fucking impenetrable for casual users.

I know it's WindowsCentral but the article has some pretty naive takes. Given the propensity of threat actors to target Windows due to its market share it's impossible to not see a system that records user activity as a huge treasure trove for both malware and hackers.

It also doesn't mention that Microsoft claimed that it would be impossible to exfiltrate Recall data and of course researchers found it not only possible but trivial, with the data lacking even basic protections. Assurances that there are mechanisms to prevent Recall from secretly monitoring you mean nothing when prior assurances about safety have been found to be paper thin at best.

Further it ignores that telemetry gathered by Windows has dramatically increased in the last several years with methods to disable it being eliminated or undone by OS updates. Microsoft is hungry for user data and it would be absurdly naive to think that Recall won't be a tool they use to gain more of it. If not now, then definitely later.

The author does point out that Recall has been weirdly under wraps, avoiding the usual test bed for new feature rollout. Microsoft has been acting shady about the feature and then the feature itself does shady things (like record PII, credit card data, etc.), of course users are going to think the worst. At this point it's a survival tactic.

Microsoft doesn't have trust issues because of bad PR or a few missteps. Microsoft has trust issues because they have violated user trust repeatedly for decades. They have done nothing to make users feel like they care at all about keeping Windows secure and safe and they clearly have no regard for user privacy. This only question is whether this backlash will do anything to make Microsoft reconsider the way it treats its users. I predict they will learn all the wrong lessons from this.

Both Apple and Microsoft are two sides of the same coin....

One went left, the other went right, both going to the same location....

The only thing to consider is how you prefer to travel and how quickly you want to arrive....

TIL: There are still people that trust Microsoft.

The day Windows 10 loses support is the day I primary (or solo) boot Linux on my gaming desktop. The more news I read the more certain I am in this.

and here i am, happy that i could buy a notebook for 200 bucks less w.o. a windows preinstalled on it, enjoying my beginner friendly linux distro.