Remember when tech giants at least used to pretend that they weren't spying on everything you did?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Now, how a company the size of Microsoft thought adding an automatic 'feature' that takes a snapshot of your desktop screen every five seconds was a good idea is beyond me. I am just sitting here imagining a meeting where someone says some dumb-ass bullshit like: "You know what's better than outright spyware? Feeding that data through our proprietary AI and calling it a feature!"
And yet, somehow, nobody in that room stopped to think about how absolutely bonkers invasive that is. Nobody paused to consider the fact that hundreds of thousands of companies with proprietary information run Windows desktops. Nobody thought anything beyond 'if we slap the buzzword "AI" on it and call it a feature, we'll make tons of money!'
Further yet, it's even more amazing to me that I've heard cringe-inducing TechBros talking about this news with excitement. I have to assume they're on a payroll because who in their right mind would be excited for anything that automatically takes screencaps of whatever you're doing and stores that away so that you can use the dumbest feature on the planet:
will allow Windows 11 users to search and retrieve their past activities on their PC. To make it work, Recall records everything users do on their PC, including activities in apps, communications in live meetings, and websites visited for research. Despite encryption and local storage, the new feature raises privacy concerns for certain Windows users.
WHO IS THIS BUILT FOR?
Not regular users, I can tell you that much.
Not professionals, either.
It's built for governments to sift your data. It's built for Microsoft itself and similarly 'too big to fail' tech corporations to make it even easier to sell your data, your habits, and everything else about you that they can possibly profit from.
"The snapshots are encrypted and saved on your PC’s hard drive. You can use Recall to locate the content you have viewed on your PC using search or on a timeline bar that allows you to scroll through your snapshots."
Because Windows doesn't eat up enough hard drive space by itself just existing. Now we get to store a snapshot locally every 5 seconds and get even more disk bloat for a feature that is 99% useless to 99.9% of normal people.
Hackers will love this though. But hey, don't worry "data leaks are unlikely" and it's encrypted so of course, totally safe, right?
By performing a Recall action, users can access a snapshot from a specific time period, providing context for the event or moment they are searching for. It also allows users to search through teleconference meetings they've participated in and videos watched using an AI-powered feature that transcribes and translates speech.
Oh good, so it's also going to make text documents out of every bit of audio it hears. How does it do that? Well, it sends it off through the AI to be converted, and likely used to train the goddamn things.
At first glance, the Recall feature seems like it may set the stage for potential gross violations of user privacy. Despite reassurances from Microsoft, that impression persists for second and third glances as well. For example, someone with access to your Windows account could potentially use Recall to see everything you've been doing recently on your PC, which might extend beyond the embarrassing implications of pornography viewing and actually threaten the lives of journalists or perceived enemies of the state.
OBVIOUSLY. Obviously, this is a bad idea. And, obviously, it's an idea that world governments will ADORE. Because how better to get someone to hand over a password than to just not have to ask? How better to absolutely invalidate the privacy of your citizens?
Despite the privacy concerns, Microsoft says that the Recall index remains local and private on-device, encrypted in a way that is linked to a particular user's account. "Recall screenshots are only linked to a specific user profile and Recall does not share them with other users, make them available for Microsoft to view, or use them for targeting advertisements. Screenshots are only available to the person whose profile was used to sign in to the device," Microsoft says.
Users can pause, stop, or delete captured content and can exclude specific apps or websites. Recall won't take snapshots of InPrivate web browsing sessions in Microsoft Edge or DRM-protected content. However, Recall won't actively hide sensitive information like passwords and financial account numbers that appear on-screen.
For us in Crypto, this is particularly worth noting because every key that is viewed in Windows 11 is immediately at risk!
There's already only so much peace of mind you can have storing, using, and viewing your keys on your PC, and with this new "super awesome feature" there's even LESS.
I tell you what though - I'll be moving to Linux before I ever think of upgrading to Windows 11 or any other OS that has this absolutely disgustingly predatory spyware installed on it.
All quotes pulled from the full article, here: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/microsofts-new-recall-feature-will-record-everything-you-do-on-your-pc/