If one chats/mails with a person using Windows, despite using secure private protocols, every message will be stored by Microsoft’s Windoze Recall.
What are ways to avoid this except for using obfuscated text?
If the content CNA be displayed, it can be parsed by recall.
The only way I can see to bypass it is to obtain DRM keys and display your content on a website only if widevine is active, like Netflix does. Surely it can’t screenshot DRM protected content, but also this is Microsoft .
You can’t, at that point you assume your correspondent is compromised. It’s not just recall but also malware and credential stealers. Doesn’t matter if recall is taking screenshots, if the messaging client itself is pwned via malware then they have full access to as much history as is available.
Ugh, I didnt think about that😬
Me neither! Microsoft needs to be taken to court over this because it is a serious breach of privacy to not only record the users but even random bystanders as well. Now I am convinced this is just a backdoor for the government hiding in plain sight. Fuck them.
Oh this 100% is the government backdoor that they’ve been begging for. “If you can innovate your way into it, you can innovate a way out of it.”
That was in regards to Apple phones belonging to Boston bombers being encrypted and locked.
It’s no surprise that behind closed doors, the government asked these companies to create backdoors for them to spy on people.
If it leaves your device, you cannot control it.
Right but you could at least be reasonably sure it wouldn’t be outright spied on from the person you’re sending it to. Now it’s almost a guarantee.
Like if I sent something to a friend of mine, I could be fairly certain it wouldn’t end up in the wrong hands unless they got compromised or did something stupid. I could trust their competence.
Now everyone that isn’t actively managing their own windows installation is absolutely compromised, as a rule. Like I can’t just send an email to my mom anymore, from now on its always my Mom and Copilot.
So is there a way for businesses to disable this garbage feature through managed device settings or something? I’m guessing corporate legal departments aren’t going to be too thrilled with this feature.
There’s a CSP for disabling it on windows enterprise devices at least. Not sure if there’s a way for pro and home machines.
There must be. Recall and info sec is mutually excluding by definition!
To my knowledge, there isn’t. But you can ask the person to turn off recall. I’m going to be running 11 in a VM myself so /me shrugs
The code for Recall is in the code for File Manger. Recall cannot be turned off if you want Windows to load and function.
There’s literally an option to turn it off
like all the privacy toggles on facebook? or the “dont upload my start menu searches to bing pretty please” group policy on windows that doesn’t fucking work anymore?
Is this not accurate (anymore)? https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-to-disable-windows-recall#section-how-to-uninstall-windows-recall
That’s just the off button. But you can’t remove it because they tied it to explorer as a depenacy. Off or not, explorer doesn’t work with out recall.
Turning it off is a good step 1, but what’s stopping some malicious software, such as every windows update, from turning it back on and selling our data for profit.
If you tell something to someone else, assume it’s compromised.
“Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”
(Even then I’m not so sure)
Can’t control what other people do so you might be out of luck.
It’s more about what Microsoft enforces—spyware—than what other people do.
Yes, and that’s a valid concern, but there’s no good answer here. That’s why it’s such a problem. From now on, one of the most widely used operating systems in the world is going to be harvesting data from any and everything that appears on it. Meaning any software you use to send any form of electronic communication, if a Windows computer opens it, and the user either hasn’t bothered or doesn’t know how to disable recall, your information has been harvested by Microsoft.
There’s just no way to limit or avoid this. We need regulation.
I meant you can’t stop then from using Recall.
Don’t forget that while they managed the PR better, apple “Intelligence” also has access to damn near everything on your devices.
Yet there’s no backlash because they’re not so stupid as to say “we’re gonna take screenshots as you go so we can improve your digital life kthxbye”.
“Private cloud” as if that isn’t an oxymoron.
People also willing submit to the cult if Apple and just believe everything they say. People are likely more frequently forced to use windows due to work or just the lack of choice for less technically confident people.
It can be turned off so it’s up to the person you’re messaging. Once you send something the person at the other end is in control of what happens to it.
Once you send something the person at the other end is in control of what happens to it.
True, but this is the beauty of trust. I decide to communicate one way or another with someone depending on the level of trust. Them deciding to break that trust is a risk I chose to take. However, I do not choose to communicate with Microsoft, whatsoever. Windows Recall is the most blatant piece of spyware ever; beyond comprehension how this is so normalized.
You have to trust the person you’re communicating with has turned it off. That’s my point. It’s an optional feature
Society just needs to get over this AI fad atm. By which I’m not trying to say that AI won’t revolutionize pretty much everything in our lives eventually, but first we need to figure out what it can actually be useful for. Or rather non-tech people need to be fully introduced to both its benefits and its pitfalls before tech companies will have a clear picture of where the red lines are for people ideologically speaking. We the nerds have our moral compass figured out but we’re a minority when it comes to who these products are made for.
Leave it to Microsoft to come up with the most dystopian AI concept yet. But to be honest I’d be way more wary of a company like Alphabet for whom data collection is much more central to their business model and who know how to package their spyware neatly. Microsoft announcing this as a feature from a podium shows how tonedeaf they are but I’d argue it also shows that they’re not following some self-serving plan behind the scenes to take advantage of that thing they’re so proud of publically (a mass espionage at which I firmly believe they wouldn’t be anywhere near efficient enough if they tried). They really must’ve thought that this is what can get Windows back into the limelight. It is Microsoft’s problem of our time that with everyone being on smartphones and tablets now they are losing traction in the consumer market by the day.
Point being (as far as the valid privacy concerns go) that Microsoft were never in the data business. They’re just really really bad at understanding what consumers want out of an operating system. I got my first own PC in 2001 right when XP came out. They’ve always been bad at making things work for the user. And since Vista all they’ve really been doing is copying Apple’s eyecandy. First off of macOS (then OS X), now with Windows 11 they basically want to look like a tablet OS with app icons once again after that idea failed spectacularly under Windows 8. I’m basically just rambling at this point but it should go to illustrate their lacklustre corporate decisionmaking. I wouldn’t be worried about their potential desire much less their ability to compromise that Recall data. Yes it’s a hugely concerning concept from a privacy standpoint and every step to circumvent its analysis should and arguably must be taken, but I also wouldn’t lose sleep over the data it is collecting on other people’s machines.
Then you have to trust the person you are communicating with has turned off windows recall. That has to be the starting position.
Tools will come to block or break windows recall but it will still be based on trust that the recipient is using them. Privacy centred apps like Signal wouldn’t want windows screen shotitng every message for example. There are many apps and tools including in the professional sphere that would not want their data leaking via recall so it will come.
Unfortunately it may come late in the professional realm probably after scandals break. Employers using recall data to investigate staff for example - it’s bound to happen eventually.
My own organisation, a huge health organisation, has opted in to CoPilot. It’s crazy in my view, even if our data is ring fenced in some way. I don’t want private patient information being used to train Microsoft shitty tools, or stored on their servers. Regulation and the law is way behind when it comes to this stuff.
Turn off your computer, move to a cave in the mountains, and abandon society.
A bit extreme but there is nothing you can do to stop your messages from appearing on Windows machines except not sending them to anyone who might view them on Windows machines…which will definitely be nearly impossible in 2024
Works great until some hikers take a photo with you in the background, that gets backed up to iCloud, then they want to show the photo to a friend, download it to their computer, open it and BOOM, Microsoft AI knows your face
I couldn’t wait to post this obligatory fragment of Park and Recreation - Ron vs. Online Privacy: https://youtu.be/8xn1rO1oQmk
I’m in Europe :p
who cares? try to prove anything
I’m afraid this comment shows a severe underestimation of the gravity of the issue. Windows recall doesn’t stop at borders even if it were illegal there.
Well, it’s not here yet. And I do use windows 11, as does my mom, my grandparents and other pc’s I’m the one helping with. I don’t recall any recalls :p
And if they do push it here, it’s probably followed by a news headline “eu fined Microsoft 10 billion for gdpr violation” or something like that
EU fines take way longer then that, give it a couple years of data collection and if we’re lucky they get fined
Wow, valid issue.
Spitballing, potentially a secure app could run memory only, blah, blah, blah. Nope, you’ve given M$ your screen FFS, it’s all over. If you care, move elsewhere, tell your friends…
As you point out, codes are an option, but it’s not a slippery slope, it’s a waterslide.
You must start spreading libre software effectively. You don’t control their device. You must show them how to fix it.
Last year I did so by writing the essay “What if I paid for all my free software?” It came across well. Now I’m thinking of ways to reach a broader audience in order to not only be preaching to the choir.
I would focus on those directly around you first (not online strangers) and showing them by example to do the same, like my last post. Rather than telling them, find ways to make them want to ask you themselves. Make them start the conversation.
Rest assured, I do that too ;)
Either use secure, encrypted VoIP calls (e.g. over Signal or another secure messenger with an end-to-end encrypted call feature)
Or you use a secure messenger that only runs on smartphones and doesn’t have a desktop client
This is just horrible, fuck big tech and their services
Absolutely
