After the whole #recall shebang, I decided to finally leave #Windows for good. So I'm currently checking out #LinuxMint - and I am very much in love.
Biggest fear: Whether #Gaming was possible for a noob. Until I installed the #steam client and found out that basically all my current obsessions run on #Linux - including #BaldursGate3. ❤️
As utter noob willing to learn, I suspect the #fediverse is one of the best places to be.
Boosts, tips, and cool peeps to follow are very much appreciated.
@WinFuture Würde mich nicht wundern, wenn man dann demnächst was liest wie "Aus Versehen hatte ein Update die Funktion Recall aktiviert und die Daten von Millionen User*innen auf Microsoft Server geladen. Das hätte eigentlich nicht passieren dürfen, so der Konzern." 😉🤔
In a statement on its website, the FDA says that Villa Nueva Interservices LLC. in Lake Worth, Florida, is recalling Arepas LA Mejor 25-ounce bags of Arepa de Choclo /Chocolo because the products contain undeclared milk. The bags were distributed through retail supermarkets in South Florida. https://www.newsweek.com/cake-recall-fda-issues-warning-milk-allergy-1912796
“The automotive company Kia issued a recall on Friday of certain Telluride SUVs from the years 2020 through 2024 and urged the owners of the vehicles to park outside and away from structures because of a fire risk, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said.
The issue stems from the front power seat motor, which can overheat..”
Folks who worked on it will move on to new features and the ownership will be transferred to the servicing devision (WSD).
After a while WSD will get fed up with the cost of maintaining yet another rarely used shell feature and will deprecate it. Either that or the shell team will rewrite everything again and drop it.
See: Cortana, Timeline, People on the Taskbar, Chat, Live tiles.
If I, a total n00b, was to consider finally seeing the light and moving to Linux, is there a risk from Microsoft's #Recall if I run a Linux system (e.g. Mint) on a Windows machine? Should I just get a Linux machine? Should I do something else? Buy a quill and ink?
An insightful blog post from @cstross summarising a lot of the furor over #microsoft#recall. The snark at the end about Microsoft making 2025 the year of Linux on the desktop made me realise a small thing that I think is important:
MS is the last hold-out still charging money for a consumer operating system. Obviously Linux is free and Apple tries to prevent their OS running on non-Apple hardware, but only MS charges you for the privilege of enduring their #AI force feeding. You’re paying them money and you’re STILL not the customer.
Can anyone point me to a straightforward explainer of what #Microsoft is up to just now with this #Recall thing - in language understandable to the layperson?
I'm sympathetic to the idea that we shouldn't expect end users to choose their own OS. I am completely unsympathetic to the idea that we shouldn't expect organizations - including businesses, nonprofits, and universities - to protect their customers' data by not using Windows, when Windows is becoming spyware.
If you’re buying a new PC then you probably need to read this:
TL:DR The Recall feature screenshots your screen very regularly & stores it.
Everything goes into the database the AI that analyses the screenshots creates & the database has NO expiry date.
This includes passwords, financial data, websites visited, private messages sent etc.
To quote the article “the security has holes you could dive an aircraft thru”
In his latest piece, @GossiTheDog dives deep into the security implications of Microsoft's Copilot+ Recall. 🔍📝
Key takeaways:
🔴 Recall constantly takes screenshots of your PC
🔴 Everything you've seen is stored in a plain text database 📁
🔴 Hackers can easily exfiltrate this data in seconds 👨💻💨
🔴 Auto-deleting messages stay in Recall indefinitely ♾️
"Recall enables threat actors to automate scraping everything you've ever looked at within seconds." 😱
"This is the dumbest cybersecurity move in a decade." - @gossithedog 🤦
It has apparently been snuck into the Edge web browser even if you don't have the Windows version that adds it.
h/t @laimis who pointed out to me that #Recall starts with Windows 11 24H2; I only have 23H2.
BUT I found it in my Edge Browser which updated today to Version 125.0.2535.51.
The setting is:
{3 dots button} =>
Settings =>
Privacy Search and Services =>
Save screenshots of sites for history
(all the way down, default on).
Why does #Microsoft want to implement #Recall? It's not about images. It's about modelling what workers do on Windows, and then replacing them.
The most expensive part of a computer is the fallible feelings-filled unpredictable meat sack that operates it.
Google has YouTube, Google Photos, Maps, and a bucket load of search data, Google Analytics, advertising, as well as it's #GCP data (e.g. #STT transcriptions). And a bunch of data from Android services. From this data they can model speech, model videos and model advertising systems, and how humans respond to them.
But they can't model what people do on computers.
Amazon has Prime data, and a bucket load of compute. But no operating system data. They can build models based around e-commerce and advertising systems.
But they can't model what people do on computers.
Meta has waves hands enough analytics to model human behaviour in the Metaverse.
But they can't model what people do on computers.
Microsoft has GitHub.
Microsoft has LinkedIn.
Microsoft has SharePoint.
Microsoft has Teams.
Microsoft has Dynamics.
Microsoft has O365.
Microsoft has Windows telemetry data.
Microsoft can model what people do on (Windows) computers. Like fill out spreadsheets.Write emails. Synthesize web pages of research. Interact with colleagues on Teams. Create and edit documents.
Microsoft wants #MicrosoftRecall data so they can model what people do with operating systems.
Then replace them.
Imagine a CoPilot that doesn't just write buggy code. Imagine one that also does spreadsheets. That creates documents on SharePoint. That communicates with colleages on Teams. That has a customer pipeline on Dynamics.
That's what Recall is about - 360 degree surveillance of the worker, to model their functions, make them fungible, replicable - and replaceable.