The new “Recall” feature really does look good on paper, but the taking in mind that it catalogues almost everything you do on your computer, it could turn out to be a privacy nightmare. “logging things you do in apps, tracking communications in live meetings, remembering all websites you’ve visited for research, and more,” according to the Verge. What could this mean for future computing? It would certainly make digital forensics a whole lot easier……
In case anyone read the headline and was worried it would pop up on your computer overnight, it does appear to need some hefty and recent processors and between 6-25GBs free in order to run at all, so I don’t think it’ll sneak up on folks any time soon.
On the bad news front, I thought this was standard AI bad until I got to the part where it won’t obscure passwords. But, surprise, it will obscure DRM content (and private browsing, but just if you’re using Microsoft Edge).
Terrible for privacy aware consumers but I really anticipate the worst of this will be in a corporate setting. Plenty of employers already spy on employees but this would be pretty next level.
Yeah it takes screenshots periodically and all the storage and analysis is done on your local device, which is why it requires the newer CPUs with NPUs from Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm. There’s a setting to turn the whole feature off, and you can also choose to turn it off for only certain applications, etc. Microsoft seems to be making an effort to encourage chip manufacturers to make better NPUs so that their AI features can run as locally as possible. That’s likely why their new surface devices will be using the snapdragon x elite processors because they’re the only ones that have NPUs with enough TOPS to run all the AI features Microsoft wants on device, instead of having to send the data for processing to a Microsoft server. I think beyond trying to quell privacy concerns, it would be a huge cost for Microsoft if they had to have enough compute available to run all these AI tasks for users for free. I’m sure there’s still some way they are logging pieces of info here and there, but they’ll have to include some way to make sure the OS is secure enough for business operations that are handling secure information.
People are acting as if auto saving, web history, reopen last used windows, etc aren’t already features on all modern apps and OSes. If the claim about everything staying on device is true then this is no different.
Every time I think Microsoft can’t get any worse they just find a way to innovate.
The sad part is that this tool would be very useful if it wasn’t being made and operated by ghouls. If it was fully self hosted and encrypted then this would be amazing.
The default allocation for Recall on a device with 256 GB will be 25 GB, which can store approximately 3 months of snapshots.
this comes out to about 2 GB / week. it’s honestly terrifying they could be generating 2 GB of activity data for just a weeks worth of computer use. it’s both a privacy nightmare and an optimization nightmare
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I don’t know why people are surprised. They had a different version of this feature, “Activity History” in Windows 10. This is the same thing but they added “AI” to it.
Okay, time to look into Unix distros.
New Recall feature inWindows 11 is a privacy nightmareFixed
It’s anti-libre software.
Guys, you’re paying extra for a keylogger. And a bad key logger at that. WTH
Uhhhh. Governments use w11. I’m betting they get this disabled or freak the fuck out. If the former it’ll mean it’s able to be turned off at least.
Healthcare too. This thing sounds like a HIPAA violation nightmare.
Well if they stick to their promise of keeping it in device, encrypted, and only accessible to the user then it might be OK for HIPPA.
But it’s still ripe to get hacked and will probably eventually be accessible to Microsoft or is accessible by then but they just say they won’t.
True. I wonder if it would be viewed as making an unauthorized copy of protected data?
If they do screw up or get greedy and upload protected data they could be in very hot water.
Theirs no way theirs going to compile all that jucy data and not sell it.
We know this what the real purpose of this is, it seems like they’re going to sell it as a necessary tool for people who are too stupid to use a basic search function? Per The Verge:
“Microsoft’s launching Recall for Copilot Plus PCs, a new Windows 11 tool that keeps track of everything you see and do on your computer and, in return, gives you the ability to search and retrieve anything you’ve done on the device.”
Oh, and apparently “Microsoft is promising users that the Recall index remains local and private on-device.” Something something Brooklyn Bridge…
“the ability to search and retrieve anything you’ve done on the device” combined with “people who save everything to desktop” …
Your computer already does all of this, It’s just that you are now able to access the data yourself
Windows is doing all this. The computer does not.
Does the ped in your username stand for pedantic? :P
Offer an important distinction to make in regards to tech-illiterate Windows users
Which is barely a demographic for Lemmy though :D
This, running locally (which should be feasible in 2-3 years) would be so cool. I would really dig this on my Fedora computer, I think this is a genuinely good idea and a rare good use case of AI and object detection.
Edit: it seems it is actually running locally thanks to the Snapdragon X Elite’s AI accelerator. Pretty cool stuff though I am sure Microsoft still found a way to make this another intrusion to the users privacy.
Is anyone else reminded of the time they tried to save the Undo history in Word documents, only to realize that this was a massive security risk?
