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

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.

  • LucidNightmare@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    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.

      • LucidNightmare@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        2 months 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.

    • LostXOR@fedia.io
      0·
      2 months 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.

  • ASDraptor@lemmy.autism.placeEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    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 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???

  • 1984@lemmy.todayEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

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

  • Defaced@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months 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.

  • Frozyre@kbin.melroy.org
    0·
    2 months ago

    “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.”

    So it can be turned on again whenever another update comes.

    • Pika@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Yeah, like OneDrive which was supposed to be off by default, Skype which was supposed to be off by default. They love their “Off by defaults” , because for the first few updates they’re off and then suddenly during a major update you have 20 new processes running because they all have services that run even if the program’s off

  • FaceDeer@fedia.io
    0·
    2 months ago

    So they fixed the major issues that people were complaining about. Let’s see if people therefore stop complaining.

    • Arghblarg@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Or, please consider Devuan as well, to ensure there are distros without hard dependencies on systemd, an expansive attempt to cement IBM/RedHat’s control over the direction of Linux through foundational changes to the init, filesystem, login, homedir, and other components…

      Please don’t bother replying to change my mind… never gonna like systemd no matter what. If it works for you, fine. Some of us still find it wholly unnecessary.

      • Justin@lemmy.jlh.nameEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        I specifically pointed out Debian instead of Fedora because of my discomfort with what happened to CentOS, even though Fedora comes with more out-of-the-box for desktop-users/gamers.

        Linux has already switched to systemd, whether you like it or not. 99.9% of new users will only ever learn systemd, if they even learn what an init system is at all.

        Debian switched to systemd in 2013, and IBM was not involved with systemd before 2019. Poettering works for Microsoft, not IBM.

        The changes to init were necessary. The init scripts were legacy bloat, even in 2013. Furthermore, the work from the systemd project on creating separate daemons for other parts of the OS have brought a lot of new features and innovation to Linux.

  • MajorHavoc@programming.devEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

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