this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024

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Microsoft will try the data-scraping Windows Recall feature again in October | Initial Recall preview was lambasted for obvious privacy and security failures (arstechnica.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Microsoft will begin sending a revised version of its controversial Recall feature to Windows Insider PCs beginning in October, according to an update published today to the company's original blog post about the Recall controversy. The company didn't elaborate further on specific changes it's making to Recall beyond what it already announced in June.

For those unfamiliar, Recall is a Windows service that runs in the background on compatible PCs, continuously taking screenshots of user activity, scanning those screenshots with optical character recognition (OCR), and saving the OCR text and the screenshots to a giant searchable database on your PC. The goal, according to Microsoft, is to help users retrace their steps and dig up information about things they had used their PCs to find or do in the past.

The problem was that other users on the same PC, or attackers with physical or remote access to your PC, could easily access, view, and export those screenshots and the OCR database since none of the information was encrypted at rest or protected in any substantive way.

Among the changes Microsoft has said it will make: The database will be encrypted at rest and will require authentication (and periodic reauthentication) with Windows Hello before users will be allowed to access it. The feature will also be off by default, whereas the original plan was to turn it on by default and make users go into Settings to turn it off.

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[–] AceBonobo@lemmy.world 99 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

They always keep trying again until we forget about it and it sticks forever

[–] LostXOR@fedia.io 37 points 2 weeks ago

I saw a comment back when they announced they were "canceling" it, saying the same thing. It seems they were right. Microsoft will do anything to get their grubby hands on as much user data as possible; of course they're not going to give up that easily.

[–] TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org 29 points 2 weeks ago

Remember how Microsoft went to court way back in the day over monopolistic practices? Yeah whatever happened to that...

[–] tiramichu@lemm.ee 10 points 2 weeks ago

That's the strategy, yes

[–] Defaced@lemmy.world 53 points 2 weeks ago

For those who want to escape this bullshit, Linux welcomed you with open arms and gives you control of your PC. Microsoft doesn't respect you, ditch them and move to something that will.

[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 48 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Microsoft should permanently recall the Recall feature.

[–] Gork@lemm.ee 8 points 2 weeks ago

The headlines write themselves.

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[–] 1984@lemmy.today 39 points 2 weeks ago

None of these companies invent things for the user anymore. It's all tracking.

[–] ASDraptor@lemmy.autism.place 35 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Guys guys, I think you're exaggerating a bit with this feature.

I mean, what's so bad in it to be hated like this?

Whatever is so wrong in giving a company known for their awful privacy respect and incredibly high data collection they do on the computes a history of literally everything you do on your pc, key presses included?

It's encrypted! They surely won't be able to do anything with it, right?

...

Right???

Edit: typo

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[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 23 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

So do they like plan to do something with the massive amount of hospitals using Windows?

Like it seems to me that scraping PHI might be a bad idea

[–] beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 2 weeks ago

Yes. They plan that all the HIPAA lawsuits they’ll fight off will cost less than all the money they’ll make from selling everyone’s private data

[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 17 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

The solution: https://www.debian.org/

[–] Contort3860@links.hackliberty.org 22 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Mint is always an option too.

[–] feddylemmy@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Mint is my go to suggestion for new people switching over.

[–] Contort3860@links.hackliberty.org 4 points 2 weeks ago

Absolutely. I don't use it myself, but it's where I started and it's what I suggest.

[–] Magister@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

or better, MX 23 :)

[–] TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Googling this brings up a motorcycle driving school.

[–] Magister@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

MX Linux is a great distro

[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Haven't tried it myself, but it looks interesting. I figure that GNOME and KDE are probably more comfortable than XFCE for general users and gamers, respectively.

[–] Magister@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I don't game so I'm using Xfce only, I love it

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[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 16 points 2 weeks ago

I'm a fan of powerful assistive solutions, but I'm not comfortable with something closed source and proprietary running this intimately.

[–] LucidNightmare@lemm.ee 15 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

In case anyone has to use Windows for certain things like I do,

HERE is a link that will provide ways to turn off Windows bullshit until you can either move over to Linux full time, or at least make your Windows partition slightly better.

[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

Dude nice

[–] FunnyUsername@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I stupid. Is there somewhere that says everything this does?

[–] LucidNightmare@lemm.ee 3 points 2 weeks ago

You’re not stupid! I think they have a dedicated user guide that explains what the options do. You can also see what they do when you run the PowerShell command, and hover over one of the tweaks.

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

It’s like Microsoft doesn’t want people to upgrade to Windows 11.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago

You will be assimilated.

[–] don@lemm.ee 7 points 2 weeks ago

No matter what, and at the cost of absolutely everything else, the line must go up. In no way, shape, or form does anything else matter. The line. Must. Go. Up.

[–] EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I already have the registry entries added to disable that shit completely

O&O ShutUp10++ is a very good tool

[–] Wooki@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Linux Mint is better. No hacking necessary. It does what you want exactly as you set it.

[–] EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

I'm well aware of how awesome linux is.

But there's too many things I use that won't work on linux

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[–] pmc@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 weeks ago

Can't get me this time! Between last time and this time, I successfully removed Windows from all PCs in my life.

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

Less voicy people will be left actually running windows.

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