this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2024
1651 points (97.5% liked)

Technology

59446 readers
3622 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
L3s@fry.gs
L4s@fry.gs
L4s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
1651
A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back (www.windowscentral.com)
submitted 5 months ago by lemmee_in@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world
480 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

It's a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a new AI tool designed to remember everything you do on Windows. The feature that we never asked and never wanted it.

Microsoft, has done a lot to degrade the Windows user experience over the last few years. Everything from obtrusive advertisements to full-screen popups, ignoring app defaults, forcing a Microsoft Account, and more have eroded the trust relationship between Windows users and Microsoft.

It's no surprise that users are already assuming that Microsoft will eventually end up collecting that data and using it to shape advertisements for you. That really would be a huge invasion of privacy, and people fully expect Microsoft to do it, and it's those bad Windows practices that have led people to this conclusion.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] naeap@sopuli.xyz 108 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

Microsoft has built a number of safety features into Windows Recall to ensure that the service can't run secretly in the background. When Windows Recall is enabled, it places a permanent visual indicator icon on the Taskbar to let the user know that Windows Recall is capturing data. This icon cannot be hidden or moved.

Oh my, that one is really cute

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 70 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Malware will disable that icon. Law enforcement will buy [that] malware.

[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 53 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Well find out in 10 years that that wasn’t true and that it did capture data when the icon wasn’t present whoopsies.

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 21 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) 
If chkCaptureData.checked then
   recall()
   bigNotify()
Else
   recall()
End
[–] ParanoiaComplex@lemmy.world 15 points 5 months ago

This icon cannot be hidden or moved.

Or what? Your computer will take out a club and beat you to death?

You can't convince me someone couldn't do it with a simple registry edit, or even just replace the icon with something else by swapping an icon file somewhere in Windows/