Microsoft’s Recall feature is still threat to privacy despite recent tweaks
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I think there's something to the idea that Apple walls its garden so well people outside the wall don't care about what happens inside it even when they disagree with it on principle.
I think you're underplaying how big the garden is, though. You are thinking about this just in terms of PC OSs, but that's not where Apple's biggest presence is.
I got apple devices, but it is more a take or leave it type situation where I wouldn't feel like I'm missing out if I didn't have them. Its just one of those nice options, but not irreplaceable tech to me.
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Honestly it's what drove me over the edge. I'm on endeavorOS and it has been great honestly. Would recommend
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I've disabled windows update completely so I can pick and manually dl updates. Never going to put that recall shit on my pc.
How'd you do that? I've made registry tweaks, group policy tweaks, etc and my windows machine still eventually hits a limit where it forces updates around the 12 week mark. Granted it's still longer than before, it isn't completely disabled.
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Linux activists deficiently root against Windows
Have you seen Linux users whenever anything controversial happens? Like rust in the kernel, C devs being jerks, Wayland, Pipewire, Flatpaks, or tbh anything else that causes Linux users to loose their minds?
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Nobody acturally expects privacy from Apple, if you use an Apple device they know Apple has all your information.
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Linux activists deficiently root against Windows
Have you seen Linux users whenever anything controversial happens? Like rust in the kernel, C devs being jerks, Wayland, Pipewire, Flatpaks, or tbh anything else that causes Linux users to loose their minds?
Oh, they love to chew each other up.
But, you know, it's in that left-of-centre, obnoxious-software-engineer way where they all think they have the right answer to whatever the issue is, they're going to save the world and make Linux the One OS and everybody else is an idiot. That doesn't count.
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Nobody acturally expects privacy from Apple, if you use an Apple device they know Apple has all your information.
You may want to have a conversation with Nobody, I don't think he got the memo.
Regardless, the point is Apple gets more of a pass. If I say "nobody actually expects privacy from Microsoft" that's undeniably true, but hardly works as an excuse, does it?
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How'd you do that? I've made registry tweaks, group policy tweaks, etc and my windows machine still eventually hits a limit where it forces updates around the 12 week mark. Granted it's still longer than before, it isn't completely disabled.
At that point it's easier to install Linux.
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At that point it's easier to install Linux.
I run Linux too, but I have to use windows for some contract jobs.
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You may want to have a conversation with Nobody, I don't think he got the memo.
Regardless, the point is Apple gets more of a pass. If I say "nobody actually expects privacy from Microsoft" that's undeniably true, but hardly works as an excuse, does it?
Sure but Windows users are far more likely to demand privacy while Apple users just accept thats not a thing on Apple.
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Oh, they love to chew each other up.
But, you know, it's in that left-of-centre, obnoxious-software-engineer way where they all think they have the right answer to whatever the issue is, they're going to save the world and make Linux the One OS and everybody else is an idiot. That doesn't count.
Well you see my distribution of choice is the perfect choice, my window manager is the best one, and my specific choice of utilies (ex: Terminal, shell, text editor, file manager, toolkit, etc) are the best ones. Clearly you're the one trying to divide Linux users :3
(And of course my standard is the best one, yes there are thirty other universal standards but mine is better)
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How'd you do that? I've made registry tweaks, group policy tweaks, etc and my windows machine still eventually hits a limit where it forces updates around the 12 week mark. Granted it's still longer than before, it isn't completely disabled.
around the 12 week mark.
Not all computers need to tell the date & time, just uninstall clock.exe
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How'd you do that? I've made registry tweaks, group policy tweaks, etc and my windows machine still eventually hits a limit where it forces updates around the 12 week mark. Granted it's still longer than before, it isn't completely disabled.
It was a combination of things between policies and taking over folder and file permissions. I can look up the specifics I used if you are looking to replicate it. It's a bitch to undo unless you write down everything you change.
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The same has been true of email for years, but less bad. Activists will need to be even more careful in who they trust.
In what sense?
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Part of why i knew so-called "digital rights management" was fucking bullshit was because very little software ever came out that empowered me to manage MY OWN rights in the digital space.
I need there to be FOSS applications that allow me to root-level BLOCK applications from perceiving what I'm doing, to just fucking SANDBOX ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING BY DEFAULT and let me whitelist what specific things are allowed to directly access the hardware.
Sadly I am not as tech savvy as I used to think I was. I might've been technologically clever twenty years ago but I hadn't managed to keep up... I think what I've described might be referred to as a "hypervisor"? And I'm told it's an overbearing, clumsy, heavy-handed overkill measure that would be difficult to implement and make everything a pain in the ass to do. So ... shit, man, I dunno... i'm just so damn tired of my hardware being bossed around by people I didn't authorize.
Programs ran through Flatpak can only access permissions and directories that it has explicit permission for. This is perfect for a very small program that only does one thing, it can get rather awkward when you need it to access multiple storage volumes. For example, I wanted to have my Steam games stored on different hard drives, but they were never visible through Steam. I had to override the Flatpak permission to give access to my mounted disks for it to work.
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I've disabled windows update completely so I can pick and manually dl updates. Never going to put that recall shit on my pc.
I've disabled Windows completely so I can be safe and sound. Never going to put that shit on my PC.
-- sorry, it seemed funnier in my head.
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It's a centralized search that can dig through your activity cross-platform and parses it through a centralized AI. Whether the data is stored in a log or as screenshots is a difference, but not as big of a difference as people make it out to be. It just feels intuitively weirder because one is humanly readable and the other one isn't.
To be fair, that's my takeaway from a lot of AI backlash. A whole bunch of it is people finally getting an intuitive grasp on activities that big data has been doing for years or decades and it finally clicking into shock because they can anthropomorphise the inputs and outputs better.
No wonder the techbros have lost their intuititon for what will trigger backlash. In many cases they've been doing far worse than those things with zero awareness or pushback.
Don't worry, Microsoft is bringing semantic search to Windows too. That way you can have the worst of both worlds.
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In what sense?
- if you send plaintext, their email service could spy on them
- once they decrypt, they could accidentally reply with the decryped text, or it could get backed up if they store a copy somewhere
- screen readers could store decrypted email
In general, if you don't trust the receiver, you shouldn't send sensitive information. Windows Recall doesn't change that, if they're competent, Windows Recall won't be enabled.
I think this is more an issue for less technical users instead of activists, because activists will be more careful about who they trust than a secretary or something for a powerful individual.
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Access controls is the big difference. Apps with sensitive data can choose to hide stuff to a system wid search API. It can do so on an individual level, even. And even if it previously was accessible it can be drumroll recalled. Exposure happens when a search is made.
Microsoft Recall is all or nothing. Once it has been displayed Recall has it and you can't selectively erase stuff. Exposure is immediate. It's just purge the whole database, or leave it all in there. Apps can't retroactively flag stuff.
... But leaving AI summaries on by default was very stupid by Apple
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Access controls is the big difference. Apps with sensitive data can choose to hide stuff to a system wid search API. It can do so on an individual level, even. And even if it previously was accessible it can be drumroll recalled. Exposure happens when a search is made.
Microsoft Recall is all or nothing. Once it has been displayed Recall has it and you can't selectively erase stuff. Exposure is immediate. It's just purge the whole database, or leave it all in there. Apps can't retroactively flag stuff.
... But leaving AI summaries on by default was very stupid by Apple
I'd argue that this is way more nuance than the public in general puts into the issue. In fact, the goalposts have moved quite a bit. "The big difference" used to be the local encription of the data, but it became not it once Recall implemented that. Or the opt-in, which went the same way.
That's not to say I don't think it's a better idea to have per-app support (which is incidentally how Microsoft implemented the feature in Windows 8 the first time), but I will say that's not why people are mad at one and not the other.
I don't actually know if you can selectively erase specific screenshots from the database because I, again, can't find any traces of Recall on my supported PCs for the life of me. Coverage had made it seem that they could, since presumably the much criticised side effect of having a local, freely accessible database with just a bunch of pictures is that you could... you know, access those. Did they obscure it further in the reimplementation?
And also, I think people believe I'm being argumentative, but I'm not. Can somebody point me at the Recall opt-in and/or some explanation why my Copilot + device running 24H2 would not seem to have it available anywhere? I'm confused about the rollout here. I don't want it on, but I'd like to try it and see what the practical implementation is for myself (and be double sure I have it turned off once I'm done with that).