Recall to take screenshots every 2 seconds

[phenomlab]

This is such a bad idea in terms of privacy and and security that the ICO has already begun an investigation. And clearly for very good reason.

https://news.sky.com/story/microsoft-ai-feature-investigated-by-uk-watchdog-over-screenshots-13141171

Any nefarious actor with access to the target machine could easily gain access to these screenshots and use them to exploit a victim directly. This is literally like leaving the keys under the mat, and all your personal information in clear view ripe for picking.

This is nothing more than spyware in my view and should be stopped.

What’s your view?

[crazycells]

@phenomlab Microsoft is trying hard to be the next Facebook… the one everybody is hating more and more due to privacy concerns… They should realize that people do not like this much sudden invasion… (although we are usually ok with this being done slowly - I mean “boiling frog” apologue)…

what about the companies using Windows with copilot? would not it be equivalent to give away their secrets?

[phenomlab]

@crazycells said in CoPilot to take screenshots every 2 seconds:

what about the companies using Windows with copilot? would not it be equivalent to give away their secrets?

Yes, exactly. Whilst it’s generally bad for the consumer, it’s even worse for corporate environments and will likely instantly violate any sane and effective controls they have in place. Browser history is sufficient in most cases but taking screenshots of a user desktop is an absolute no from any perspective.

What is the user is handling their own (or worst, someone else’s) personally identifiable data at the time and a screenshot is taken of that.

This then raises obvious important questions

1. Where is it stored?
2. Who has access?
3. Is it encrypted?

These minimum three questions would apply to locally held or uploaded data. This is just waiting to be exploited and should be made illegal practice immediately. You wouldn’t want a keylogger on your system recording keystroke and talking screenshots, so why would you even consider allowing this?

[DownPW]

you talking about Recall ?

[phenomlab]

@DownPW Yes, exactly

[phenomlab]

Seems as though Microsoft has started making positive changes to recall.

Microsoft is making changes to a controversial feature announced for its new range of PCs powered by artificial intelligence after it was flagged as a potential “privacy nightmare”.

Source

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd11rje1mrro

[DownPW]

Good point to roll back

[phenomlab]

Latest update in relation to recall

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c869glx8endo

[Madchatthew]

This is a terrible idea! Doesn’t MS already have enough issues with spyware getting on their OS, why do they need to encourage it even more, but not only that, help out those that would exploit this. I seriously don’t know how all these companies that run MS still choose MS. Are there plusses to running all MS, yes there sure are, but the security is c**p and I would rather have secure over the plusses of MS.

[phenomlab]

@Madchatthew I think this is probably “one for the purists”. I do run Windows at home for work reasons, and will be disabling this.

[Madchatthew]

@phenomlab yeah I have windows as well. It is windows 10 so next year I will have to delete it and install linux on it. I really hate the windows 11 requires the new tpm but what do ya do. I know there is a way to still install windows 11 and bypass the tpm part, but then I have also read there can be issues with that and OS upgrades aren’t as easy. Unless I missed something. I would be disabling this feature as well.

[phenomlab]

@Madchatthew Yes, Windows 11 has very strict requirements around TPM and even processor requirements. My current laptop is more than capable of running Windows 11 but won’t because it’s not listed as being compatible.

Not that it matters to me - my laptop runs KDE Neon

[Madchatthew]

@phenomlab said in Recall to take screenshots every 2 seconds:

Not that it matters to me - my laptop runs KDE Neon

That is a really nice distro.