Skip to content

Microsoft's AI Secretly Copying All Your Private Messages

Technology
4 3 0
    • In December, an investigation by Tom's Hardware found that Recall frequently captured sensitive information in its screenshots, including credit card numbers and Social Security numbers — even though its "filter sensitive information" setting was supposed to prevent that from happening.
    • In December, an investigation by Tom's Hardware found that Recall frequently captured sensitive information in its screenshots, including credit card numbers and Social Security numbers — even though its "filter sensitive information" setting was supposed to prevent that from happening.

    Just a tip: if you must use consumer editions of Windows regularly, consider adding an automatic provisioning tool like AME to your workflow.

    The example above uses customizable “playbooks” to provision a system the way docker compose would a container image, so it can fill the role of a VM snapshot or PXE in non-virtualized local-only scenarios.

    The most popular playbooks strip out AI components and services (there are many more than just Recall) but also disable all telemetry and cloud-based features, replace MS bloatware with preferred OSS, curtail a truckload of annoying Windows behaviors, setup more sensible group policies than the defaults, and so forth.

    I have a few custom playbooks for recurring use cases so that, when one presents, I can spin up an instance quickly without the usual hassle and risk.

  • Just a tip: if you must use consumer editions of Windows regularly, consider adding an automatic provisioning tool like AME to your workflow.

    The example above uses customizable “playbooks” to provision a system the way docker compose would a container image, so it can fill the role of a VM snapshot or PXE in non-virtualized local-only scenarios.

    The most popular playbooks strip out AI components and services (there are many more than just Recall) but also disable all telemetry and cloud-based features, replace MS bloatware with preferred OSS, curtail a truckload of annoying Windows behaviors, setup more sensible group policies than the defaults, and so forth.

    I have a few custom playbooks for recurring use cases so that, when one presents, I can spin up an instance quickly without the usual hassle and risk.

    You for sure feels so good being this helpful. But TIN really don't understand SHT if you use so many Technical terms(TT)

    But there's a solution in brackets I just presented, that's commonly accepted in academia if you still want to use TT like that

  • You for sure feels so good being this helpful. But TIN really don't understand SHT if you use so many Technical terms(TT)

    But there's a solution in brackets I just presented, that's commonly accepted in academia if you still want to use TT like that

    Forgive me for not explaining better. Here are the terms potentially needing explanation.

    • Provisioning in this case is initial system setup, the kind of stuff you would do manually after a fresh install, but usually implies a regimented and repeatable process.
    • Virtual Machine (VM) snapshots are like a save state in a game, and are often used to reset a virtual machine to a particular known-working condition.
    • Preboot Execution Environment (PXE, aka ‘network boot’) is a network adapter feature that lets you boot a physical machine from a hosted network image rather than the usual installation on locally attached storage. It’s probably tucked away in your BIOS settings, but many computers have the feature since it’s a common requirement in commercial deployments. As with the VM snapshot described above, a PXE image is typically a known-working state that resets on each boot.
    • Non-virtualized means not using hardware virtualization, and I meant specifically not running inside a virtual machine.
    • Local-only means without a network or just not booting from a network-hosted image.
    • Telemetry refers to data collecting functionality. Most software has it. Windows has a lot. Telemetry isn’t necessarily bad since it can, for example, help reveal and resolve bugs and usability problems, but it is easily (and has often been) abused by data-hungry corporations like MS, so disabling it is an advisable precaution.
    • MS = Microsoft
    • OSS = Open Source Software
    • Group policies are administrative settings in Windows that control standards (for stuff like security, power management, licensing, file system and settings access, etc.) for user groups on a machine or network. Most users stick with the defaults but you can edit these yourself for a greater degree of control.
    • Docker lets you run software inside “containers” to isolate them from the rest of the environment, exposing and/or virtualizing just the resources they need to run, and Compose is a related tool for defining one or more of these containers, how they interact, etc. To my knowledge there is no one-to-one equivalent for Windows.

    Obviously, many of these concepts relate to IT work, as are the use-cases I had in mind, but the software is simple enough for the average user if you just pick one of the premade playbooks. (The Atlas playbook is popular among gamers, for example.)

    Edit: added explanations for docker and telemetry

  • 8 Stimmen
    3 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    I
    Reminds me of a quote from the game Alpha Centauri: I think, and my thoughts cross the barrier into the synapses of the machine, just as the good doctor intended. But what I cannot shake, and what hints at things to come, is that thoughts cross back. In my dreams, the sensibility of the machine invades the periphery of my consciousness: dark, rigid, cold, alien. Evolution is at work here, but just what is evolving remains to be seen. Commissioner Pravin Lal, “Man and Machine”
  • The Enshitification of Youtube’s Full Album Playlists

    Technology technology
    3
    1
    108 Stimmen
    3 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    dual_sport_dork@lemmy.worldD
    Especially when the poster does not disclose that it's AI. The perpetual Youtube rabbit hole occasionally lands on one of these for me when I leave it unsupervised, and usually you can tell from the "cover" art. But only if you're looking at it. Because if you just leave it going in the background eventually you start to realize, "Wow, this guy really tripped over the fine line between a groove and rut." Then you click on it and look: Curses! Foiled again. And golly gee, I'm sure glad Youtube took away the option to oughtright block channels. I'm sure that's a total coincidence. W/e. I'm a have-it-on-my-hard-drive kind of bird. Yt-dlp is your friend. Just use it to nab whatever it is you actually want and let your own media player decide how to shuffle and present it. This works great for big name commercial music as well, whereupon the record labels are inevitably dumb enough to post songs and albums in their entirety right there you Youtube. Who even needs piracy sites at that rate? Yoink!
  • 108 Stimmen
    3 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    M
    A private company is selling cheap tablets to inmates to let them communicate with their family. They have to use "digital stamps" to send messages, 35 cents a piece and come in packs of 5, 10 or 20. Each stamp covers up to 20,000 characters or one single image. They also sell songs, at $1.99 a piece, and some people have spent thousands over the years. That's also now just going away. Then you get to the part about the new company. Who already has a system in Tennessee where inmates have to pay 3-5 cents per minute of tablet usage. Be that watching a movie they've bought or just typing a message.
  • 2 Stimmen
    8 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    F
    IMO stuff like that is why a good trainer is important. IMO it's stronger evidence that proper user-centered design should be done and a usable and intuitive UX and set of APIs developed. But because the buyer of this heap of shit is some C-level, there is no incentive to actually make it usable for the unfortunate peons who are forced to interact with it. See also SFDC and every ERP solution in existence.
  • Instacart CEO Fidji Simo is joining OpenAI as CEO of Applications

    Technology technology
    2
    1
    20 Stimmen
    2 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    paraphrand@lemmy.worldP
    overseeing product development for Facebook Video So she’s the one who oversaw the misleading Facebook Video numbers that destroyed a whole swath of websites?
  • WhatsApp provides no cryptographic management for group messages

    Technology technology
    3
    1
    17 Stimmen
    3 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    S
    Just be sure to add only the people you want to be there. I've heard some people add others and it's a bit messy
  • 48 Stimmen
    9 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    F
    Being “locked down” is irrelevant for a device used to read and write on. All those devices are also significantly more powerful than this thing. They all also have keyboard attachments readily available across all sizes and prices. Linux isn’t at all necessary for the use cases the author talks about. Windows would be massively overkill.
  • 119 Stimmen
    55 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    D
    I bet every company has at least one employee with right-wing political views. Choosing a product based on some random quotes by employees is stupid.