this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2024
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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 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
487 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.

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[–] [email protected] 108 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 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

[–] [email protected] 70 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 53 points 6 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.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) 
If chkCaptureData.checked then
   recall()
   bigNotify()
Else
   recall()
End
[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 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/