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Security Researcher Calls Windows 11 AI 'Recall' Screenshotting Feature a Disaster [Updated]
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Well that was fast. If I want to know what I did early I have internet history, and I take my own screenshots. Not sure how many people are busing for this type of thing, unless they don't auto save files very often.
Lets wait for the issue to occur before blaming them for an issue that hasn't occurred yet maybe?
Here's how to disable this after searching "turn off AI recall".
- Open Settings on Windows 11.
- Click on Privacy & security.
- Click the Recall & snapshots page.
- Turn off the “Save snapshots” toggle switch12.Alternatively, you can close the auto complete by opening your project and clicking the AI icon on the bottom to disable it3.
This feature exists for employers to monitor employees (work from home, etc) it's not an end user feature.
They've already sent out instructions for enabling it via Group Policy so it wont be disable-able by the end user
They've already sent out instructions for enabling it via Group Policy so it wont be disable-able by the end user
Manage Recall for Windows clients
Learn how to manage Recall for commercial environments and about Recall features.
learn.microsoft.com
Until there's another update, and next time you log in they throw another wizard at you that defaults to enabling a bunch of stuff you wanted disabled, and you're in a hurry to actually use your PC so you miss turning something back off. This issue already happens.
Can I please have the simplicity and unobtrusiveness of Windows 7 back? You know, when the OS didn't get in your way and have all these "features". Screen logging, wonderful...something I never asked for.
So the answer is no, we're going to attack them for something that didn't happen yet. Got it.
I'm not sure how real the SSD lifespan thing is. It's the manufacturer warranty everyone refers to. My M1 Mac is at petabytes written already and it's a 256GB model. Been running with 0 issues so far and 0 "Media and Data Integrity Errors". Yes I should've gotten more RAM but I didn't want to wait for it (16GB was custom config at that time). These things are a lot more durable than everybody thought. I read that 256GB should be fine for about 256TB written to it but at this point I've done 6 times that and it's just fine. Of course everything is backed up just in case, but everyone should be doing that anyway.
It’s not a disaster- it’s working EXACTLY as intended. Hackable & all.
Security Writer :verified: :donor: (@SecurityWriter@infosec.exchange)
If you’re wondering how the Microsoft Recall scandal is going, I’ve just had a client tell me they’ve replaced their order for 10k Microsoft Surfaces with new MacBook Airs, at nearly twice the cost, and that we need to start the ongoing 6 month endpoint security project over.
I keep thinking that perhaps the best way Apple can respond to all this AI hype is really to just do nothing and watch the competition eventually self-destruct.
keeping interpretations from recorded screenshots onto a plaintext sqlite db? nah
There were other reasons, but privacy was one of my biggest reasons for switching back to Mac last year. Even before this announcement Microsoft has been moving more and more toward a surveillance business model like Google’s, except Microsoft also charges licensing fees. They also keep increasing the amount of pre installed bloatware and trials, even on a “clean” install. Plus the constant ads and nagging to use other MS products was just cringe af and everyone who works at MS should be embarrassed.
I don’t have a problem with AI necessarily. It’s just that companies that have already been acting scummy for years are now using it for their scummy purposes.
I don’t have a problem with AI necessarily. It’s just that companies that have already been acting scummy for years are now using it for their scummy purposes.
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not the same as taking screenshots and recording it to a sqlite database in plaintext, nope.
It exists because all the AI companies are out of actual data to scrape off the internet. So they have to come up with new methods of real data to scoop up (hence Recall), or use synthetic data which just poisons the models further.This feature exists for employers to monitor employees (work from home, etc) it's not an end user feature.
They've already sent out instructions for enabling it via Group Policy so it wont be disable-able by the end user
Manage Recall for Windows clients
Learn how to manage Recall for commercial environments and about Recall features.learn.microsoft.com
The bubble is close to bursting. The capital investments for hardware, and the lack of new data to feed it, coupled with the astronomical energy costs means we’re nearing the technical (and financial) limits of this hype train.
There are always simps for Microsoft who draw a false equivalence that because Apple did some small mistake then it is totally ok for Microsoft to make huge mistakes that are not really mistakes but are actually spyware.
If you ignore the LLM field, then AI has some very interesting applications. Not everything is about ChatGPT and image generation.
Just don’t call it AI. It’s such a vague buzzword and every scam company claims they are AI now.
Just use the product name or tool name.
These new features only work on the new Qualcomm ARM CPUs as it’s AMD / Intel CPUs currently do not have NPUs that can meet the 40 TOPS requirement.
My 2020 iMac is hardware compatible, but since TPM is disabled by Apple, it is incompatible with Windows 11.
And Apple's proposal to scan pictures for CSAM data locally on iPhones? Apple hasn't always gotten it right, but at least they listened to reason in the end and retracted the proposal.
It happens all the time. It is standard Windows update behaviour.
You bought a mac. Big mistake if you intend to run Windows native. Apple didn’t really want to be compatible.
You can still run Windows 11 in a VM.