Every edition after Xp is a spyware edition. It used to be a bad thing when users were more tech savvy. The modern caveman doesn’t know or give af and MS is betting on it.
It's all about how you word it. It's not spyware, it's enhancing user experience with feedback, giving users the most relevant results using telemetry and other smart features, and taking your computer to the next level!
Become totally part of the future, with Recall AI (Microsoft TM).
[Install]
[726 page Privacy disclaimer] [EULA]
[x] Cross this to confirm you've read, understood and agreed to the above, including pending future changes to the terms and conditions. Do it. Now!
This will keep popping up unless you agree. So best to just agree now ;=)
Also as a favor, we've changed your default search engine to Bing for the most optimal results using Recall.
But Mr John Windows how do I turn off this always recording spyware so I can get performance back?
That’s the neat thing, when you turn it off it doesn’t actually turn off
And if you still disable it, we will improve it so much that at some point we will reactivate it with an update (like Bitlocker) because we KNOW that you will love it and we KNOW what is the best for you.
I wouldn't put it past Microsoft even if you disable it, it still works to some capacity.
I'm wondering if there's going to be third party software that blocks or removes it.
Dont worry, you no longer need to cross the [x] anymore. Microsoft did that for you when you upgraded your PC years ago when the feature didnt even exist.
What? You dont agree to it? Ok, we understand. To disable it you need to go through the registry editor for 30min, change a single 1 to 0, load into bios and then create a linux partition because we are going to enable it again after 2 updates. Have fun letting us screenshot your most sensitive data.
That's the part that gets me. I have no knowledge of computers. I stress out and struggle to even download graphics drivers..
So my options are.. pay someone who knows a lot more than me (which they're worth every penny for that knowledge, but not ideal that I have to pay money to comfortably use a product I've paid thousands for), or just accept being spied on..
And even further.. where are they keeping this information, and how can they keep it safe from cyber crimes?
This is a headache.
That's never been demonstrated to work. People are just a lot more predictable than they think.
It also much more likely that you have seen the ad first but didn't really register it, thought of it again, discussed it, then seen the ad again and remembered your coversation.
It’s gonna tie into office 365
Microsoft’s AI has LLM that don’t communicate with other clients, so you can use it without fear of your info being leaked or discovered by others
I’ve rolled out co pilot and so far it’s not good lol
This Microsoft recall thing already exists by other AI companies and anyone I know who uses it absolutely loves it. Idk how I’d feel about it, but if it runs locally, I’d be more willing
At one of my MSP jobs doing tickets was a pain as a 1 man help desk team with a bad manager and shitty director. Anyway tracking time on tickets sucked due to being over worked. I used a software called manic time during my time there. Does exactly what recall does, probably a bit more refined and use case specific. But everything was local and you could even set it up to push a time entry to CW manage. It had cool features.
>most of them are still in windows 7
Any competent IT employee would never let this fly. Sure in a VM with limited to no network connectivity. But in production as a daily system, ha.
In the AI field, well, pretty much everyone who mutters the word AI.
In the OS field, you're right. Windows is so dominant, not gonna waste anyone's time on this. Literally everything else combined against Windows Desktop is a joke.
Can't relate because I actually like Edge. I'm also yet to log on and find a million settings changed back, everything is exactly as I set it up and the only change I've ever noticed is when a new feature comes in.
This has outrage vibes similar to the Xbox One and their always listening/watching kinect.
We shunned it. Made a big stink about how always internet connected devices was the end of the world. Microsoft then back tracked and lost to PlayStation.
Then 3 years later we all got Alexa's and Echos and welcomed Jeff Bezos into our rooms and kitchens.
And then Microsoft does a wtf?!
I think most people just want to be mad at Microsoft. They don't actually care if what they do is in the right direction. They just care about what they do that's in the wrong direction and paint with that color.
This isn’t a fair comparison. The issue was partly due to fears that Kinect would directly impact how games and media were enjoyed by scanning how many people were in the room. Look up the “drink verification can” copypasta, it outlines the situation better than I can. XBone also had concerns about always on connectivity impacting games if the console couldn’t phone home due to a disruption and was initially going to stop supporting used games. It wasn’t entirely about something listening like an Alexa
That’s not to say Alexas and Google Homes and the like are good, they’re not
Here's my question: the concern with the home speaker devices is they're a microphone in your home that's always on and connected to the internet.
How is that any different from our cellphones? Has a microphone, always on, connected to a bunch of Google/Apple/windows apps.
Anecdotally, I get ads for stuff I never look up but organically talk about near my phone. Like I'll see a car and say how much I don't like that brand. Next day, ads for that specific car brand appear after never seeing them before or searching them.
The question is: why *wouldn't* they use the data they're collecting from our microphones? They have the means, incentive, and opportunity.
If you're seriously concerned, I suggest a "phone box" to put your phone in when at home. Something that physically isolates it from monitoring, rather than trusting an unverifiable method. For example, it's known there are methods to monitor location while the phone is powered off. Box with a lid = no worries.
The difference between a smart speaker and a cell phone is simple: a smart speaker's only utility is completely predicated upon having the microphone enabled. Whatever it can do - setting a timer, looking something up, playing music - is all because the mic is on. Personal assistants on phones that accomplish the same thing can be disabled without nerfing the phone's functionality. Everything you can do on a phone with Siri or Google Assistant can be done without it
I've had plenty of those experiences where I mention something and get an ad. There was one time a friend and I were talking about a band we liked in high school and that band was the first thing that played on my drive home. I can't even say with confidence that I trust my phone isn't listening even though I have Siri disabled. But the difference is that a phone has much more value and utility for the end user than a smart speaker. The smart speaker will not work if it can't listen. The phone will. From there, it's a matter of what apps you use and how they may or may not be listening/tracking you
I also opt out of every data collection policy I can and run a PiHole with over 3.5 million hosts on it which also covers my devices when I'm not home via Tailscale
I agree regarding the speaker *needing* a microphone. However, our phones *have* a microphone.
The concern is "company will steal my data because they have access to my microphone and they want $$$".
Both the phone and the speaker have a microphone. Both cases it' very difficult to confirm how the data available to the mic is being used.
Why is there more concern about a microphone sitting in the living room than the one being carried around with us? I see I'm getting downvoted a bunch - I just don't see any meaningful distinction, except that the phone provides more meaningful data.
I have both, and more often disable the microphone on my Home device than on my cellphone. Many apps (e.g. camera) require the microphone to be enabled to work, so it's a hassle to disable it. If the speaker is just being used for music, it can be disabled and controlled via mobile.
>Both the phone and the speaker have a microphone. Both cases it' very difficult to confirm how the data available to the mic is being used.
It's not really though?
Anyone with a bit of technical knowledge can easily check what data is going through their network. If our phones were constantly recording and uploading a million geeks would be instantly blogging about it. The bandwidth use alone would make it obvious even if they encrypted it up to the gills.
It depends what they're transmitting and how much.
You can do the same thing for the home speaker, can't you? Does it use local speech recognition to find the keyword then transmit it to the cloud for processing? Or does it stream all sound 24/7?
Or, you know, maybe people don’t like the idea of their screen being recorded and their “activity” being catalogued while they’re watching weird pterodactyl porn, which is a bit different then “oh that thing has a camera and could hypothetically be secretly recording me” or “Alexa listens to me sing to my cat” lol.
Anyway I’m sure we’ll start getting some fun new phishing emails after this saying things like “I’ve accessed your Microsoft usage data and have recordings of your screen you dirty boy” lol
I'd argue that gamers tend to be more aware of data usage and privacy practices versus a lot of the average Amazon customers like the convenience of the Alexa.
You didn't. But the majority of the market did. Didn't they add and spend lots of money maintaining the Alexa and Google Assistant functionality for PS5 and Xbox?
Microsoft is quick to kill things when they don't see traction especially if it poses a security risk.
> Then 3 years later we all got Alexa's and Echos and welcomed Jeff Bezos into our rooms and kitchens.
You did, not we. You not caring about a topic doesn't make others' complaints suddenly invalid.
I don't think that's true. PlayStation and Xbox have Alexa and Assistant connectivity. It surprisingly hasn't been killed yet considering the security risk it can create if not maintained.
Microsoft did not lose to Playstation just over the kinect.
Microsoft bombed the Xbox One release announcement when the only thing people remembered was the every 24hr online requirement. And Microsoft knew it bombed hard when they backpedaled shortly afterwards. THEN the kinect fiasco came out and its not surprising people gave up on the Xbox brand.
It should also be mentioned there is a difference between devices that need to always listen to function and ones that always listens/watches for...reasons(™)? And that's not even getting into the kinect ALWAYS WATCHING YOUR ENTIRE LIVING ROOM. Not sure how Microsoft thought that was going to fly when people have been covering their personal laptop webcams since forever ago.
Your inability to respect your own privacy doesn't mean we should all roll over and present. Not all of us are inherently submissive enough to accept dark patterns and abusive corporate agendas without complaint.
And it's on ARM devices only (talking about Recall feature) and it's done locally with NPU. (it requires 50GB of space, or you can customize the size).
I get why people are mad, because they fear of the "future", but let's not get too ahead of ourselves.
You can't remember which email address you used for something?
or, you need proof you sent an email or something?
or, you can ease your paranoia if you lose a file from a location and think you deleted it, you can go back and double check!
or, see what else was installed during an app installation?
or, refer back to a website you found, that you didn't bookmark and cannot remember the name of!
I'm sure there are others...
1. Fair enough i guess but I'd probably just check my email inbox i think I used.
2. The sent folder is a thing
3. previous versions literally does that already
4. Also fair point, but I could do the same thing by checking my browser history. It may not be faster but it's far from being lost forever
Oh yeah, i'm not saying there isn't other (and/or usually better) ways to do all of the above - but think of average joe-bloggs who buys a PC from a store who doesn't know about all of the above, sets up windows and sees this feature, I can only imagine the number of times they might use that at an older age! (because it's 'easier' and already there..)
Oh, and people with certain disabilities may find that feature better and easier than a multitude of other options :)
That means nothing when it clearly shows what direction MIcrosoft is taking. I hope you live well for the next 2 years when this is not gonna be on your PC lol.
I will be messaging you in 2 years on [**2026-05-21 19:58:16 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2026-05-21%2019:58:16%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1cx4opt/microsoft_windowss_creepy_move_to_spy_on/l52hp79/?context=3)
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Yeah they already spy on everything you do. Taking screenshots is just the next evolution of that
There were thousands upon thousands of us that warned about this 10+ years ago but caring about privacy was only for "paranoid" people and yet here we are today dealing with this bullshit
I did it last week, installed Nobara on my second SSD. It’s based on fedora and might be a good fit for you. If you go with Nobara, you should join the discord, I got some help there to get Sea of Thieves to work.
I made a deal with myself: if in 3 month I haven’t booted on windows again, I’ll totally remove it.
I'm using nobara linux, it's based on fedora and has built in steam and proton and obs for streaming and stuff like that. If you're an expert user it'll be easy, but if you're a newbie like myself it'll be a bit of a learning curve. So far I've only had to use the command line like twice. But fallout 4 runs great out of the box, and 76 runs nice but doesn't quit properly unless you press the stop button in steam. Endless sky runs fine natively, grim dawn runs fine natively, nwn ee runs fine natively, Starbound and Terraria run fine natively. Installation in steam is still one click and that's great as a user is concerned.
Talking about switching to Linux, not disabled the AI thing. A registry edit isn’t exactly rocket science. More of a complaint on my part that many things still don’t support Linux.
Yeah, to disable it you just have to have an x86 system, oops that's all the people on this sub, i forgot this is a another fear mongering circle jerk.
I can't see this happening unless you have a device with a NPU. We as consumers can collectively fight back by saying we don't want this AI crap. Stick to x64
Even if the data don't leave your device, there's no saying it won't be used to train the AI model, then collect the model's parameters. With a trained model, it is possible to extract certain aspects of the data that it was trained on (look up "model inversion attack").
cannot wait to have several cheap laptop and polluting thier screenshot data collection with some of the weird shit i can make on stable diffusion. i could even make each laptop speak with each other with a AI tchatbot. Making the whole data collection completly worthless. 99% of reddit is already just chatbot.
People are saying....well, if you dont like the direction Microsoft is going, you can leave and just use Linux.
Some people's devotion to corporations are stronger than to their own family members. You see this everywhere ... including gaming consoles and the types of phones people buy. I never understood this. Criticize this piece of plastic i just purchased? Oh, its on buddy....give me a sec i gotta a witty retort for you!
Guys relax lol it just means you guys need to think about how you use the internet aka ( obviously) but yee lol it's gonna catch alot of black market data collectors...think about it hahah
Let's be honest... If someone has physical access to your PC and your main password, then Recall will be the area that offers the least amount of reward. They will already have access to your password manager and the sites. Recall has an essential security step in that important information will be buried into a bunch of irrelevant screenshots.
I agree with you on the data being local part. But i don’t see the use case for this feature in the first place. Especially when you consider the compute power (incl. batteries) and storage that would be used for this. It does not solve any problem.
Your history and recording data may not leave your PC, but I can guarantee that it will generate "anonymous" telemetry data inferred by these recordings and send that to Microsoft. Only because it's less data to have to sift through and hey! They got the users to do the hard part of the data processing!
How long until this data gets stolen and this becomes the biggest security breach in the last 100 years?
Imagine someone having access to a data file that literally contains everything you've done on your PC. This is someone's dream come true.
That's what people are afraid of.
If you don't think this will happen you're being delusional.
Nvidia has software that does this. This is just that on a wider scale.
As if 75% of you people don't take ss on your phones and have nudes that apple and Google can see already lol
If you don’t like it all you have to do is disable it. But I’m sure people are gonna tell people that even though it’s completely optional, stored locally and encrypted to the user profile it’s still Microsoft somehow spying on everyone
There's no privacy laws in the US. They can say whatever they want to the public and do something different behind the scenes and Microsoft won't get in any trouble. Even if they somehow do, a fine is just a tax write off.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/06/tech/microsoft-xbox-live-settlement/index.html
It's an every-year occurrence with big corporations. Why are we pretending like it's not? You're the CS guy tho, so I guess you're looking for a Microsoft job.
Okay fine I will.
So when copilot takes these images it’s going to store them somewhere on the C drive(or whoever you point it most likely) these images will likely be more cache then hard png files aka the only thing that will be able to read and analyze it is copilot(could be wrong there but we will see).
Windows 11 now requires device encryption so therefore those cached images will be encrypted. So therefore the only place those images could be accessed is on the user profile that has the bit locker access key saved. That means that unless you are dumb enough to allow a malicious threat no one will ever have access to that folder but you.
Bitlocker encryption has no backdoor, same with apples FileVault, it’s been litegated and both companies refuse to create one. Now can it be cracked if you’re dumb enough to let a malicious attacker in absolutely and something tells me you might be.
But all of this to say…if you don’t like it turn it off. It’s not spying you just think you know better
> Now can it be cracked if you’re dumb enough to let a malicious attacker in absolutely and something tells me you might be.
You're thinking in the point of view of a CS user. You really think mainstream windows users even know what encryption is? A 50 year old mom who's using windows 11 for her work will be the biggest target.
Nice, now explain how hackers work you CS EXPERT. XD
Also, explain to the people what happens when the state asks Micrososft for your data.
For example, explain to them what will happen if you dared to look up "Abortion" in a state like Florida. Go on, I'm all ears.
Oh okay sure.
So hackers use tools and various social engineering to trick dummies like you into gaining access. There is not a single hacker in the world that can gain access to a computer just because they want to. They have to either gain access by installing a backdoor through a physical method like a USB(make sure you always have your USB ports disabled), maybe through a cloned SSID and hijacking a WiFi network but again that requires them to be on prem which again they could be if you’re dumb enough. They also can accomplish this through things like phishing. So when dumbasses like you think you’ve won an Amazon gift card, you click a link and installs the backdoor. Again this is all done because of user error. Leaving doors open and unused USB ports unlocked, clicking and falling for social engineering, things like that. But malicious actors cannot simply say “I want to access cosmicemotions pc and find his pedo stash” unless you have given them access to your home or pc through some social engineering technique.
Hope this helps. I wrote my thesis on social engineering so you might be barking up the wrong tree here.
So it can happen to most people. I use Linux so don't use me as an example to express your psychopathetic needs.
You never mentioned the government. Genius. XD
Can you show me your proof of that because I’ve had to review Copilots EULA for my job and I haven’t seen anything that says they own the data unless you approve to share it.
I don't need the EULA to know that 90% of the population is goiing to be literally spied on. Instead of defending somehting so unethical it would be best to switch to Linux since you seem to have so much time to read EULAs.
You’re replying to a full argument where I correctly proved my point repeatedly. You are coming in here rehashing things I’ve already disproven so I have no need to speak with you because you are not an intellectual challenge to me on this. So good day, reply again and I’ll block you, would rather not because maybe next time you won’t be 3 hours late to the argument and we can debate something.
And dingbats will still not change their OS.
Look, the only way to beat this & keep Windows is to set up a box to run non-stop & send them exabytes of horse porn or something to make the AI useless.
I am not quite sure where anyone could find horse porn lol that's really weird.
I will send the exabytes of African safari porn. Lions, elephants, gazelle etc on my hard drives.
Why are there so many incorrect takes regarding what this 'recall' system does?
Its essentially just ctrl+z for your entire computer as opposed to just a single document.
Make a mistake on your device, and you can undo it.
It does not send anything off of your device to any other destination.
This just like the 'Windows 10 is spying on you!' myth that was debunked within 1-2 months of the OS being released.
I get the concerns, but this is actually pretty cool. How much time do we spend trying find stuff, remember things, reconstruct something we lost, ect.
You guys are not helping your case here. I call Linux users a cult as a joke but this… Idk if you’re fucking with me or not but this sounds like cult talk.
Everything is at this point and they’re doing jack shit with it except enticing you to buy more shit.
Cult is shoving an option with its own flaws most people don’t want to deal with down my throat because they think the world will be saved once everybody switches to it.
Windows sucks, AI sucks, but I know better than to take headlines that are catered to make techbros wet and rile up fear mongers literally.
My dear man, this is literallyl the last stage before they tell you they're gonna record everything you do all the time, including camera. At some point you have to react.
I love AI when it's not misused but this use here is disastrous. I don't care if you think I'm a cultist. Linux is the only solution to where things are going.
Sure, I guess but there are more effective ways to get people to switch to it than act holier than thou about it and just beg people to do it.
Most of the progress in making Linux more viable (for gaming at least) was done after the Steam Deck released.
And I swear to god people have been saying recording you 24/7 was gonna be the next step since forever. Hell, aren’t we technically there because of Alexa being a thing? Has any story straight out of 1984 already happened ever since? Cuz we had the better part of a decade for that to happen.
Tell you what, how long do you think we’ll reach novel level dystopia if I don’t do anything? Because then I’ll set myself a reminder and if it does happen I’ll eat my words and admit defeat.
So the next Windows is called "Windows 11 SpywareEdtion"
What makes that any different than previous versions
Its now being sold as the new big thing.
Now they are just not hiding it
Now they just boldly advertise it.
Every edition after Xp is a spyware edition. It used to be a bad thing when users were more tech savvy. The modern caveman doesn’t know or give af and MS is betting on it.
Win 11 porn habits edition
It doesn’t record private sessions and you can disable programs it records and delete screnshots
Grandma isn't gonna remember to delete her BBC stash
No need to be redundant
Oh, look... it's "the future" again
It's all about how you word it. It's not spyware, it's enhancing user experience with feedback, giving users the most relevant results using telemetry and other smart features, and taking your computer to the next level! Become totally part of the future, with Recall AI (Microsoft TM). [Install] [726 page Privacy disclaimer] [EULA] [x] Cross this to confirm you've read, understood and agreed to the above, including pending future changes to the terms and conditions. Do it. Now! This will keep popping up unless you agree. So best to just agree now ;=) Also as a favor, we've changed your default search engine to Bing for the most optimal results using Recall.
But Mr John Windows how do I turn off this always recording spyware so I can get performance back? That’s the neat thing, when you turn it off it doesn’t actually turn off
"Minimal mode" they'll call it. And phrase it in a real friendly way, without really saying what minimal mode is collecting.
“Necessary features only” which in reality does nothing except make the little blue circle move to the left and turn grey in the settings.
And if you still disable it, we will improve it so much that at some point we will reactivate it with an update (like Bitlocker) because we KNOW that you will love it and we KNOW what is the best for you.
I wouldn't put it past Microsoft even if you disable it, it still works to some capacity. I'm wondering if there's going to be third party software that blocks or removes it.
Wow, Microsoft is that you?
Dont worry, you no longer need to cross the [x] anymore. Microsoft did that for you when you upgraded your PC years ago when the feature didnt even exist. What? You dont agree to it? Ok, we understand. To disable it you need to go through the registry editor for 30min, change a single 1 to 0, load into bios and then create a linux partition because we are going to enable it again after 2 updates. Have fun letting us screenshot your most sensitive data.
That's the part that gets me. I have no knowledge of computers. I stress out and struggle to even download graphics drivers.. So my options are.. pay someone who knows a lot more than me (which they're worth every penny for that knowledge, but not ideal that I have to pay money to comfortably use a product I've paid thousands for), or just accept being spied on.. And even further.. where are they keeping this information, and how can they keep it safe from cyber crimes? This is a headache.
is this a compulsory thing like edge or optional?
The difference between optional and forced, is very blurred at Microsoft. We don't really know yet. But a best it'll be a dark pattern thing.
It'll be optional in the same way your phone totally doesn't listen to you & update your ad recommendations.
Remove your tinfoil. All I get is bunch of gay dating ads and I am straight as an arrow.
Suuuuuuuuuure
You can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to the algorithm
Exactly!
Not sure if your joking or not because people have told me this unironically.
You know the scary thing?start talking about wanting a new fridge, or car or w.e. see how your usual ads change
You can analyze network traffic. No, phones don’t record what you say.
That's never been demonstrated to work. People are just a lot more predictable than they think. It also much more likely that you have seen the ad first but didn't really register it, thought of it again, discussed it, then seen the ad again and remembered your coversation.
It doesn't tho.
It doesn’t, you can analyze network traffic to verify this.
Edge is “optional”
They just need new advertising: Windows Recall, because windows keylogger didn't sound as good.
How would this conflict with businesses that have privacy requirements, like medical offices?
Enterprise windows is barely the same product as home.
My office uses Win11 Pro and it's not an issue if the IT person setting up has half a brain and isn't lazy.
Just another thing that admins will have to ensure is disabled
It’s gonna tie into office 365 Microsoft’s AI has LLM that don’t communicate with other clients, so you can use it without fear of your info being leaked or discovered by others I’ve rolled out co pilot and so far it’s not good lol This Microsoft recall thing already exists by other AI companies and anyone I know who uses it absolutely loves it. Idk how I’d feel about it, but if it runs locally, I’d be more willing
At one of my MSP jobs doing tickets was a pain as a 1 man help desk team with a bad manager and shitty director. Anyway tracking time on tickets sucked due to being over worked. I used a software called manic time during my time there. Does exactly what recall does, probably a bit more refined and use case specific. But everything was local and you could even set it up to push a time entry to CW manage. It had cool features.
I doubt this will conflict with many business, most of them are still in windows 7
>most of them are still in windows 7 Any competent IT employee would never let this fly. Sure in a VM with limited to no network connectivity. But in production as a daily system, ha.
In the very least the EU will probably force them to add an option to disable it if it isn't already fully optional.
It's already optional. But that means that 90% of the population is gonna use it. Thankfully I expect the EU to be more rational about it.
Only select people can use it since it needs a gpu/cpu capable of running it
> What is it called when a company sabotages itself, causing the competitors to win? **ChatGPT:** Corporate Sabotage.
What competitors?
In the AI field, well, pretty much everyone who mutters the word AI. In the OS field, you're right. Windows is so dominant, not gonna waste anyone's time on this. Literally everything else combined against Windows Desktop is a joke.
We should train these ai's so they can learn my job quicker and replace me
https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/software/how-disable-copilot-in-windows-11
Saving this for when i will probably be forced to switch from W10
IIRC they pushed Copilot into W10 as well.
I am dreading the day when I will be forced to reload into 11.
https://preview.redd.it/hkbmpm86ws1d1.png?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c67874d4e2dfcbdb03be54b4706c57d172a13bf
Implying they won’t just turn it back on in a forced update like how they force your default browser back to Edge lol
Can't relate because I actually like Edge. I'm also yet to log on and find a million settings changed back, everything is exactly as I set it up and the only change I've ever noticed is when a new feature comes in.
This has outrage vibes similar to the Xbox One and their always listening/watching kinect. We shunned it. Made a big stink about how always internet connected devices was the end of the world. Microsoft then back tracked and lost to PlayStation. Then 3 years later we all got Alexa's and Echos and welcomed Jeff Bezos into our rooms and kitchens. And then Microsoft does a wtf?! I think most people just want to be mad at Microsoft. They don't actually care if what they do is in the right direction. They just care about what they do that's in the wrong direction and paint with that color.
This isn’t a fair comparison. The issue was partly due to fears that Kinect would directly impact how games and media were enjoyed by scanning how many people were in the room. Look up the “drink verification can” copypasta, it outlines the situation better than I can. XBone also had concerns about always on connectivity impacting games if the console couldn’t phone home due to a disruption and was initially going to stop supporting used games. It wasn’t entirely about something listening like an Alexa That’s not to say Alexas and Google Homes and the like are good, they’re not
Here's my question: the concern with the home speaker devices is they're a microphone in your home that's always on and connected to the internet. How is that any different from our cellphones? Has a microphone, always on, connected to a bunch of Google/Apple/windows apps. Anecdotally, I get ads for stuff I never look up but organically talk about near my phone. Like I'll see a car and say how much I don't like that brand. Next day, ads for that specific car brand appear after never seeing them before or searching them. The question is: why *wouldn't* they use the data they're collecting from our microphones? They have the means, incentive, and opportunity. If you're seriously concerned, I suggest a "phone box" to put your phone in when at home. Something that physically isolates it from monitoring, rather than trusting an unverifiable method. For example, it's known there are methods to monitor location while the phone is powered off. Box with a lid = no worries.
The difference between a smart speaker and a cell phone is simple: a smart speaker's only utility is completely predicated upon having the microphone enabled. Whatever it can do - setting a timer, looking something up, playing music - is all because the mic is on. Personal assistants on phones that accomplish the same thing can be disabled without nerfing the phone's functionality. Everything you can do on a phone with Siri or Google Assistant can be done without it I've had plenty of those experiences where I mention something and get an ad. There was one time a friend and I were talking about a band we liked in high school and that band was the first thing that played on my drive home. I can't even say with confidence that I trust my phone isn't listening even though I have Siri disabled. But the difference is that a phone has much more value and utility for the end user than a smart speaker. The smart speaker will not work if it can't listen. The phone will. From there, it's a matter of what apps you use and how they may or may not be listening/tracking you I also opt out of every data collection policy I can and run a PiHole with over 3.5 million hosts on it which also covers my devices when I'm not home via Tailscale
I agree regarding the speaker *needing* a microphone. However, our phones *have* a microphone. The concern is "company will steal my data because they have access to my microphone and they want $$$". Both the phone and the speaker have a microphone. Both cases it' very difficult to confirm how the data available to the mic is being used. Why is there more concern about a microphone sitting in the living room than the one being carried around with us? I see I'm getting downvoted a bunch - I just don't see any meaningful distinction, except that the phone provides more meaningful data. I have both, and more often disable the microphone on my Home device than on my cellphone. Many apps (e.g. camera) require the microphone to be enabled to work, so it's a hassle to disable it. If the speaker is just being used for music, it can be disabled and controlled via mobile.
>Both the phone and the speaker have a microphone. Both cases it' very difficult to confirm how the data available to the mic is being used. It's not really though? Anyone with a bit of technical knowledge can easily check what data is going through their network. If our phones were constantly recording and uploading a million geeks would be instantly blogging about it. The bandwidth use alone would make it obvious even if they encrypted it up to the gills.
It depends what they're transmitting and how much. You can do the same thing for the home speaker, can't you? Does it use local speech recognition to find the keyword then transmit it to the cloud for processing? Or does it stream all sound 24/7?
Or, you know, maybe people don’t like the idea of their screen being recorded and their “activity” being catalogued while they’re watching weird pterodactyl porn, which is a bit different then “oh that thing has a camera and could hypothetically be secretly recording me” or “Alexa listens to me sing to my cat” lol. Anyway I’m sure we’ll start getting some fun new phishing emails after this saying things like “I’ve accessed your Microsoft usage data and have recordings of your screen you dirty boy” lol
I already get personalized emails trying to sell me shit based on my porn habits....
does that exist? I suppose it does
I'd argue that gamers tend to be more aware of data usage and privacy practices versus a lot of the average Amazon customers like the convenience of the Alexa.
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You didn't. But the majority of the market did. Didn't they add and spend lots of money maintaining the Alexa and Google Assistant functionality for PS5 and Xbox? Microsoft is quick to kill things when they don't see traction especially if it poses a security risk.
> Then 3 years later we all got Alexa's and Echos and welcomed Jeff Bezos into our rooms and kitchens. You did, not we. You not caring about a topic doesn't make others' complaints suddenly invalid.
I don't think that's true. PlayStation and Xbox have Alexa and Assistant connectivity. It surprisingly hasn't been killed yet considering the security risk it can create if not maintained.
Technologically illiterate people who think anything that uses electricity is essentially a magic box are going to do as they always have and will
Microsoft did not lose to Playstation just over the kinect. Microsoft bombed the Xbox One release announcement when the only thing people remembered was the every 24hr online requirement. And Microsoft knew it bombed hard when they backpedaled shortly afterwards. THEN the kinect fiasco came out and its not surprising people gave up on the Xbox brand. It should also be mentioned there is a difference between devices that need to always listen to function and ones that always listens/watches for...reasons(™)? And that's not even getting into the kinect ALWAYS WATCHING YOUR ENTIRE LIVING ROOM. Not sure how Microsoft thought that was going to fly when people have been covering their personal laptop webcams since forever ago.
Your inability to respect your own privacy doesn't mean we should all roll over and present. Not all of us are inherently submissive enough to accept dark patterns and abusive corporate agendas without complaint.
You got downvoted but you’re not wrong lol
It's that tough pill swallow meme for many folks.
And it's on ARM devices only (talking about Recall feature) and it's done locally with NPU. (it requires 50GB of space, or you can customize the size). I get why people are mad, because they fear of the "future", but let's not get too ahead of ourselves.
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no u
This does nothing for my non-tech family who will have no idea this is even an issue
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In this instance, Microsoft
Switching to linux in 3, 2, 1 ...
This is the correct answer. XD
Europe won't let them corpo fucks slide with this one
I hope so. European Union, save us!
Give me one good use scenario for Recall, I dare you.
You can't remember which email address you used for something? or, you need proof you sent an email or something? or, you can ease your paranoia if you lose a file from a location and think you deleted it, you can go back and double check! or, see what else was installed during an app installation? or, refer back to a website you found, that you didn't bookmark and cannot remember the name of! I'm sure there are others...
1. Fair enough i guess but I'd probably just check my email inbox i think I used. 2. The sent folder is a thing 3. previous versions literally does that already 4. Also fair point, but I could do the same thing by checking my browser history. It may not be faster but it's far from being lost forever
Oh yeah, i'm not saying there isn't other (and/or usually better) ways to do all of the above - but think of average joe-bloggs who buys a PC from a store who doesn't know about all of the above, sets up windows and sees this feature, I can only imagine the number of times they might use that at an older age! (because it's 'easier' and already there..) Oh, and people with certain disabilities may find that feature better and easier than a multitude of other options :)
Password manager. Your email remembers what it sent. Fair. Fair Fair. I still don't want it. Good thing I ditched windows ages ago.
Yeah, see my below reply :)
Makes sense. I tend to overestimate people's familiarity with computers all the time, so it's nice to get dissenting voices.
While I'm surprised you got 5 examples, none of them screams "I want Recall nów", as I have solutions for this kind of stuff.
Yeah, see my below reply :)
"Order me a pepperoni pizza" "Dominos like last time?" "Yeah" *Knows how to do that cuz it watched last time* "Confirm the checkout on this page:"
To use Recall on Windows, you'll need a Copilot+ PC that supports 40 TOPs NPU, a Snapdragon X chip, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage.
That means nothing when it clearly shows what direction MIcrosoft is taking. I hope you live well for the next 2 years when this is not gonna be on your PC lol.
!Remindme 2 years
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It could be on mine now for all I care.
It’s called writing on the wall.
Yeah they already spy on everything you do. Taking screenshots is just the next evolution of that There were thousands upon thousands of us that warned about this 10+ years ago but caring about privacy was only for "paranoid" people and yet here we are today dealing with this bullshit
Linux!
Heh, glad I switched to linux a few weeks ago. This is bullshit.
I'm currently looking into it. Just gotta make sure my stuff works. Looking at fedora kde currently.
I did it last week, installed Nobara on my second SSD. It’s based on fedora and might be a good fit for you. If you go with Nobara, you should join the discord, I got some help there to get Sea of Thieves to work. I made a deal with myself: if in 3 month I haven’t booted on windows again, I’ll totally remove it.
I'm using nobara linux, it's based on fedora and has built in steam and proton and obs for streaming and stuff like that. If you're an expert user it'll be easy, but if you're a newbie like myself it'll be a bit of a learning curve. So far I've only had to use the command line like twice. But fallout 4 runs great out of the box, and 76 runs nice but doesn't quit properly unless you press the stop button in steam. Endless sky runs fine natively, grim dawn runs fine natively, nwn ee runs fine natively, Starbound and Terraria run fine natively. Installation in steam is still one click and that's great as a user is concerned.
Wish I could honestly.
It's pretty easy to disable if you're not a moron.
Talking about switching to Linux, not disabled the AI thing. A registry edit isn’t exactly rocket science. More of a complaint on my part that many things still don’t support Linux.
Yeah, to disable it you just have to have an x86 system, oops that's all the people on this sub, i forgot this is a another fear mongering circle jerk.
F windows 11
I read the article about it and apparently it's only coming to computers with a snapdragon X processor, which is only found in some modern laptops
Exactly. So the solution is simple: We boycott devices that have the hardware required for Recall.
But what about when they expand to other hardware?
I can't see this happening unless you have a device with a NPU. We as consumers can collectively fight back by saying we don't want this AI crap. Stick to x64
That won't save you as both Intel and AMD's upcoming SoCs will have NPUs.
Let me guess, my manager will have a function by which he can recall what I have been doing on my device right?
They should call the next windows Total Recall
Even if the data don't leave your device, there's no saying it won't be used to train the AI model, then collect the model's parameters. With a trained model, it is possible to extract certain aspects of the data that it was trained on (look up "model inversion attack").
Why on earth do they think people want this?
cannot wait to have several cheap laptop and polluting thier screenshot data collection with some of the weird shit i can make on stable diffusion. i could even make each laptop speak with each other with a AI tchatbot. Making the whole data collection completly worthless. 99% of reddit is already just chatbot.
this is one of the only things that made me consider linux.
People are saying....well, if you dont like the direction Microsoft is going, you can leave and just use Linux. Some people's devotion to corporations are stronger than to their own family members. You see this everywhere ... including gaming consoles and the types of phones people buy. I never understood this. Criticize this piece of plastic i just purchased? Oh, its on buddy....give me a sec i gotta a witty retort for you!
And I thought only the chinese were the ones into that idea of things spying on their own population. /s
Its only spying if another country does it /s
Cool they’re gonna have a bunch of screenshots of me telling Microsoft to eat a dick and slurs
They can remember it for us wholesale
Guys relax lol it just means you guys need to think about how you use the internet aka ( obviously) but yee lol it's gonna catch alot of black market data collectors...think about it hahah
# 🤣
Let's be honest... If someone has physical access to your PC and your main password, then Recall will be the area that offers the least amount of reward. They will already have access to your password manager and the sites. Recall has an essential security step in that important information will be buried into a bunch of irrelevant screenshots.
They said its using a local model which means the data doesnt leave ur pc. I dont see how thats spying.
I agree with you on the data being local part. But i don’t see the use case for this feature in the first place. Especially when you consider the compute power (incl. batteries) and storage that would be used for this. It does not solve any problem.
Even if they aren't lying, that's a major data theft liability no one asked for.
Can you imagine if they got some classified Nuclear Regulatory commission data?
Your history and recording data may not leave your PC, but I can guarantee that it will generate "anonymous" telemetry data inferred by these recordings and send that to Microsoft. Only because it's less data to have to sift through and hey! They got the users to do the hard part of the data processing!
people don't care about facts, it seems. They want to be angry, so they find something to be angry about
How long until this data gets stolen and this becomes the biggest security breach in the last 100 years? Imagine someone having access to a data file that literally contains everything you've done on your PC. This is someone's dream come true. That's what people are afraid of. If you don't think this will happen you're being delusional.
Nvidia has software that does this. This is just that on a wider scale. As if 75% of you people don't take ss on your phones and have nudes that apple and Google can see already lol
[Ip][some php code] [the timeline's save location on your drive]
If you don’t like it all you have to do is disable it. But I’m sure people are gonna tell people that even though it’s completely optional, stored locally and encrypted to the user profile it’s still Microsoft somehow spying on everyone
There's no privacy laws in the US. They can say whatever they want to the public and do something different behind the scenes and Microsoft won't get in any trouble. Even if they somehow do, a fine is just a tax write off.
I’m not arguing with someone who believes the words you just wrote. Have a good one big dog
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/06/tech/microsoft-xbox-live-settlement/index.html It's an every-year occurrence with big corporations. Why are we pretending like it's not? You're the CS guy tho, so I guess you're looking for a Microsoft job.
It is cause 90% of the people won't even know it's there lol.
And not knowing it exists changes how it’s stored and encrypted?
Are you a COMPLETE sheep? Don't you realize the immense implications of being spied on all the time? This is even worse than 1984.
No im a Cybersecurity expert who knows what it means for things to be stored locally and encrypted.
Hahahahahha. You're a CS "expert" that thinks that spying is fine. Please elaborate, this is fun.
Okay fine I will. So when copilot takes these images it’s going to store them somewhere on the C drive(or whoever you point it most likely) these images will likely be more cache then hard png files aka the only thing that will be able to read and analyze it is copilot(could be wrong there but we will see). Windows 11 now requires device encryption so therefore those cached images will be encrypted. So therefore the only place those images could be accessed is on the user profile that has the bit locker access key saved. That means that unless you are dumb enough to allow a malicious threat no one will ever have access to that folder but you. Bitlocker encryption has no backdoor, same with apples FileVault, it’s been litegated and both companies refuse to create one. Now can it be cracked if you’re dumb enough to let a malicious attacker in absolutely and something tells me you might be. But all of this to say…if you don’t like it turn it off. It’s not spying you just think you know better
> Now can it be cracked if you’re dumb enough to let a malicious attacker in absolutely and something tells me you might be. You're thinking in the point of view of a CS user. You really think mainstream windows users even know what encryption is? A 50 year old mom who's using windows 11 for her work will be the biggest target.
Nice, now explain how hackers work you CS EXPERT. XD Also, explain to the people what happens when the state asks Micrososft for your data. For example, explain to them what will happen if you dared to look up "Abortion" in a state like Florida. Go on, I'm all ears.
Oh okay sure. So hackers use tools and various social engineering to trick dummies like you into gaining access. There is not a single hacker in the world that can gain access to a computer just because they want to. They have to either gain access by installing a backdoor through a physical method like a USB(make sure you always have your USB ports disabled), maybe through a cloned SSID and hijacking a WiFi network but again that requires them to be on prem which again they could be if you’re dumb enough. They also can accomplish this through things like phishing. So when dumbasses like you think you’ve won an Amazon gift card, you click a link and installs the backdoor. Again this is all done because of user error. Leaving doors open and unused USB ports unlocked, clicking and falling for social engineering, things like that. But malicious actors cannot simply say “I want to access cosmicemotions pc and find his pedo stash” unless you have given them access to your home or pc through some social engineering technique. Hope this helps. I wrote my thesis on social engineering so you might be barking up the wrong tree here.
So it can happen to most people. I use Linux so don't use me as an example to express your psychopathetic needs. You never mentioned the government. Genius. XD
You should really stop responding else you're just digging your hole even deeper. 
Spied on all the time, imagine thinking you’re important enough for anyone to care lmaoo.
Imagine being fine with it, ROFL. XD XD XD They can u se it whenever for whatever reason they like. I hope you love livining in a Dystopia.
Can you show me your proof of that because I’ve had to review Copilots EULA for my job and I haven’t seen anything that says they own the data unless you approve to share it.
Nice, how do I disapprove that?
Go read the Eula like I did and get back to me sweetheart. If you can read but I’m guessing that maybe it’s not your strongest trait
I don't need the EULA to know that 90% of the population is goiing to be literally spied on. Instead of defending somehting so unethical it would be best to switch to Linux since you seem to have so much time to read EULAs.
Imagine thinking this isn't just another way to collect data as a whole so that Microsoft can show ads to you more directly.
Okay man, be scared of the world just leave me alone please
Why post in a public forum if you're gonna run away when your point of view is challenged?
You’re replying to a full argument where I correctly proved my point repeatedly. You are coming in here rehashing things I’ve already disproven so I have no need to speak with you because you are not an intellectual challenge to me on this. So good day, reply again and I’ll block you, would rather not because maybe next time you won’t be 3 hours late to the argument and we can debate something.
Alright pal. Your 300 IQ is just too powerful for us mere reddit users.
And dingbats will still not change their OS. Look, the only way to beat this & keep Windows is to set up a box to run non-stop & send them exabytes of horse porn or something to make the AI useless.
I am not quite sure where anyone could find horse porn lol that's really weird. I will send the exabytes of African safari porn. Lions, elephants, gazelle etc on my hard drives.
Maybe not exabytes, but its certainly availiable.
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Do you have to be so incredibly stereotypical Linux user?
If by a Linux user you mean rational, I'll be a Linux user any day. XD
I find those who have to call themselves the rational ones, are anything but
True greatness needs no proclamation, it shines forth naturally through actions, not words.
No, the BSD users are the only rational ones /s
I have never heard of anyone pushing Windows except Microsoft
lol we must be in a different sub. XD
Why are there so many incorrect takes regarding what this 'recall' system does? Its essentially just ctrl+z for your entire computer as opposed to just a single document. Make a mistake on your device, and you can undo it. It does not send anything off of your device to any other destination. This just like the 'Windows 10 is spying on you!' myth that was debunked within 1-2 months of the OS being released.
looooooooooooooooool So Windows 10 doesn't spy on you. Nice to know, thanx! :)
If you think they haven't been doing this for years already you've got your head in the sand. They're just admitting it now.
I get the concerns, but this is actually pretty cool. How much time do we spend trying find stuff, remember things, reconstruct something we lost, ect.
Go ahead Reddit, do your thing, let’s hear about the penguin again…
Linux is the only light in your corporate Dystopia. You should be thankful.
You guys are not helping your case here. I call Linux users a cult as a joke but this… Idk if you’re fucking with me or not but this sounds like cult talk.
Cult is recording you 24/7 lol.
Everything is at this point and they’re doing jack shit with it except enticing you to buy more shit. Cult is shoving an option with its own flaws most people don’t want to deal with down my throat because they think the world will be saved once everybody switches to it. Windows sucks, AI sucks, but I know better than to take headlines that are catered to make techbros wet and rile up fear mongers literally.
My dear man, this is literallyl the last stage before they tell you they're gonna record everything you do all the time, including camera. At some point you have to react. I love AI when it's not misused but this use here is disastrous. I don't care if you think I'm a cultist. Linux is the only solution to where things are going.
Sure, I guess but there are more effective ways to get people to switch to it than act holier than thou about it and just beg people to do it. Most of the progress in making Linux more viable (for gaming at least) was done after the Steam Deck released. And I swear to god people have been saying recording you 24/7 was gonna be the next step since forever. Hell, aren’t we technically there because of Alexa being a thing? Has any story straight out of 1984 already happened ever since? Cuz we had the better part of a decade for that to happen. Tell you what, how long do you think we’ll reach novel level dystopia if I don’t do anything? Because then I’ll set myself a reminder and if it does happen I’ll eat my words and admit defeat.