Its kinda funny this happened with iCloud e2ee. Backlash, then much of it now is convergently encrypted but they still have the filenames and checksums/hashes for everything (which is emphatically not e2ee or at at least zero-trust as implied by the designation) and they never really needed the contents anyway. All the deets are in the metadata which is only “standard” (un)protected.
You are absolutely correct. All the focus groups and consultancies that were surely involved in something like this and we’re supposed to believe the backlash was a surprise?
I love the faith, too. Like, of Microsoft, of all people. The "your Xbox is your cable box now" Microsoft. The "Here's mandatory Kinect, the Wii killer" Microsoft. The Windows Me Microsoft. The "Windows 8 is now a touch OS" Microsoft.
I gotta say, you guys really give tech companies the benefit of the doubt. I've seen too much, perhaps.
I love the faith, too. Like, of Microsoft, of all people. The “your Xbox is your cable box now” Microsoft. The “Here’s mandatory Kinect, the Wii killer” Microsoft. The Windows Me Microsoft. The “Windows 8 is now a touch OS” Microsoft.
Before I had to try twice for Fedi reasons, I was mostly pushing it for the joke.
But honestly, this is so on brand for MS. They came up with a superficially marketable idea, botched the execution, then botched the marketing even harder. Then Apple came up with the same feature and everybody liked it.
The idea that this is them playing the long game is hilarious. Not only is that not how big software companies work, it is definitely not how MS works. People just want to sound worldly and cynical and instead come across paranoid and delusional. The idea that everybody working on this knew it sucked and they shipped it anyway is extremely plausible.
Can they execute? Sure! But can they also get stuck failing to push back on a bad idea until they end up shipping something nobody likes? Often, objectively. And almost always subjectively because they also consistently suck at branding their stuff, both the good and the bad.
Did MS derive any particular benefit from Timeline? It was a lot more localised as far as I recall. Recall seems geared to give them a lot more data that they could monetise.
Nope, it's the exact opposite. Timeline looked a lot more like Apple's Recall equivalent they're rolling out. It monitored your activity, not just your screen, and then stored the output on the "cloud" so it could be shared across computers.
I don't want either, but if you ask me if I want my screen recorded on-device or my logged activity shared across all machines and stored on MS's servers I'll take Recall any day.
So my point is, Timeline didn't "soften" anything. It went away on the launch of Win11. And nobody was "softened" because when it resurfaced as "Recall" everybody freaked right out immediately all over again. Bad ideas are bad ideas. You can wait for people to get over minor inconveniences or tradeoffs, or just live with whatever percentage of people find something to be a dealbreaker if the value you extract from it is way higher than the business you lose. But a bad idea is a bad idea.
Also my point: people here don't know how to take a win. Recall is gone, I'd expect it to never come back, unless Apple does MS's job for them and when it resurfaces it works exactly like the Apple feature that works exactly like Recall without anybody freaking out about it.
They just announced an AI integration across the entire OS for iOS, iPadOS and MacOS. Basically they'll log all your activity and feed it to multiple AI models to let you ask for what you want, as they describe it. It mostly looks like Timeline but with AI search and assistant features bolted on to it.
They did a good job of not making it sound as creepy as Recall... but it kinda is.
Techies - AI skeptics - seem widely impressed (per ArsTechnica and Hacker News and Mastodon posters). Since your description is at odds with my understanding, I will review some more details. Thanks.
Yeah, I've been talking for a few days about how bizarre it is to see the difference in reception to what is conceptually a couple of very similar features. It's nuts how good Apple are at selling this sort of stuff almost with zero correlation to what it is that they're selling.
Which is, I suppose, why nobody will ever bring up having said that the Vision Pro was an iPhone 1.0 moment. They know who they are.
Or maybe I'm giving them too much credit and they aren't that good. Admittedly MS did an amazing job at making this Recall thing seem as unappealing as possible at every step, so... maybe the bar was just that low.
Lol, apple is not logging what your doing, the apple AI just has access to that data directly, no need to copy data from apps you already Control. AppleAI is just a Process that has Access to a lot of data, un fact, any data that any app offer through the API Apple Designes. So that means the AppleAI sees only what the dev of the app want the AppleAI to see. Best case, you can set what you want to give appleAI access to in each app.
I want to ask you, where do you see the difference to Spotlight? Spotlight is also a Process that scanns all your data…
For the record, MS also had stated that users can exclude specific applications from Recall and devs can exclude specific screens or content from being recorded.
I'm not sure that "Apple already indexes and has unfettered access to all your granular data" isa good defense, either. That's... worse. Although for what it's worth it does seem like this AI thing is way more intrusive than Spotlight, in that it's not just searching keywords inside files it can parse, it is connecting data from multiple sources to generate context about you, some of which is being processed off-site. I don't think it's as easily expoitable as the 1.0 version of Recall MS described, but if your concern is with an AI or a corporation having access to information, or to compromising information being accessed through easy search by anybody with local access... well, yeah, it's all degrees of bad here.
Didn't you and I already litigate this in a different thread? I'd rather not rehash that.
It is not defence for god sake 😂 I wanted to Point out, that apple has not planned to add somthing like recall to their Systems.
Recall is not the same as copilot!
Racall is not the same as AppleAI.
But AppleAI is pretty much the same as Copilot.
AppleAI does nothiing, if you don‘t use a Feature that sends a promt to it.
Copilot neither.
Only the recall Feature Collecting data that did not exist before that Feature started.
And I think apple has not more data now with appleAI about you than before. If they want your data, iCloud has it all, either you use apple and don‘t care or not. Suddenly stopping to use Apple devices because of AppleAI makes no sense, most likely the same for Microsoft, if recall is opt in.
I don't think that's correct. Recall will not draw any data from any app you don't actively display onscreen. In fact it will not draw any data you don't specifically display on screen. Apple's Recall will know about data that is stored in applications whether you open it or not, as it's been explained, but it will work with specific applications drawing from specific data (and it does also look at your screen, although it's not clear if it does that constantly or on demand).
Just to quote the current Apple Intelligence landing page. This is posted by Apple itself as promo materials:
Apple Intelligence empowers Siri with onscreen awareness, so it can understand and take action with things on your screen. If a friend texts you their new address, you can say “Add this address to their contact card,” and Siri will take care of it.
Awareness of your personal context enables Siri to help you in ways that are unique to you. Can’t remember if a friend shared that recipe with you in a note, a text, or an email? Need your passport number while booking a flight? Siri can use its knowledge of the information on your device to help find what you’re looking for, without compromising your privacy.
Seamlessly take action in and across apps with Siri. You can make a request like “Send the email I drafted to April and Lilly” and Siri knows which email you’re referencing and which app it’s in. And Siri can take actions across apps, so after you ask Siri to enhance a photo for you by saying “Make this photo pop,” you can ask Siri to drop it in a specific note in the Notes app — without lifting a finger.
That sure sounds to me like Siri now looks at you screen, logs your past activity, or at least searches through pre-existing system logs of your activity, and has access to and processes all your information.
Again, Recall and "AppleI" will both draw different sets of data, but they are both drawing new data at the system level. And they're both making context inferences on your data. Sure, the process is different, they each have issues the other doesn't (MS's 1.0 version had glaring security holes and it's too human-readable, Apple's version is sending your data to a server for processing, instead of being all on-device), but it's fundamentally doing the same thing with the same startling access to your data. Both companies insist they're not logging your data anywhere outside your device. To me, that's not enough in either case.
Entire tech industry does this over and over again. The only way to stop dancing along is to switch to Linux instead of praying to Microsoft or Apple corporations.
Even the cancellation is not good enough. The fact that this was even entertained shows how disconnected Microsoft is from the real world. If they can get this so wrong what else are they getting wrong.
Yeah, that was basically my reaction, too. There was also some news that the CEO would now be taking responsibility for security, which had me similarly questioning what the hell they were doing so far.
Surely, the CEO is responsible for everything. So, did they just completely forget that security is also part of that?
It’s hard to appreciate how much like catnip/crack AI is inside micro$oft.
They think they’re going to corner the market on AI before it ever actually does anything. No matter that 90% of people want absolutely nothing to do with it. As our de facto tech lords, they’ll tell us what we want. lol
But even if that is their semi-delusional master plan why scupper it by association with such a bad idea. There was not one person in all the hours of talk they must have spent on this that wondered if every device taking a screenshot every few minutes was a good idea. No matter the security it will be breached and this feature could be astoundingly destructive.
That’s the crack effect. AI is a helluva drug. For every 10 developers and team leads who pointed out what a horrifying clusterfuck it would inevitably become, there were two senior directors or one VP who thought they could advance up the ladder by supporting it.
I don’t doubt that the majority of M$ employees are properly embarrassed about the whole thing. Not that that has ever mattered with regard to corporate direction.
A local account is created on the device and doesn’t require Internet connectivity to sign in. It’s independent of other services, and it’s not connected to the cloud. Your settings, files, and applications are limited to that single device
A Microsoft account, on the other hand, is associated to an email address and password that you use with Outlook.com, Hotmail, Office, OneDrive, Skype, Xbox, and Windows. When you sign in to your PC with a Microsoft account, you’re connected to a Microsoft cloud service, and your settings and files can sync across various devices. You can also use it to access other Microsoft services
Then buy a laptop with Linux preinstalled! The popular OEM usually only offer windows laptops but with a simple google search u can find some Linux laptops and nothing is stopping you from installing Linux on that windows laptop. (Are they starting to oem lock like some androids?
People on this post, using Lemmy, already prefer an open decentralised system instead of reddit, controlled by a single company whose aim is profits, and thus, most should also know about windows priorities on marketing and money over user experience and privacy and would choose open source Linux/BSDs etc
I frankly wouldn’t care at all had MS not truncate your home folder to 5 characters when using a Ms account and also didn’t make using remote desktop impossible when enabling a passwordless account.
Very common tactic for many of these sites. They’re either paid by Microsoft or they’re just run-of-the-mill Microsoft boot lickers.
If you search for how to disable or bypass something in Windows, these SEO’d junk articles pop up and trick you into reading them. It’s usually a long preamble full of arguments for why you really shouldn’t try to disable or bypass the thing, because Microsoft’s shit doesn’t actually stink, and they know better than you. Then at the bottom they put the generic instructions that may not even work anymore, that you’ve likely already read.
The few times I watched the update round-up it was short amd to the point for each feature they reported on.
And no it’s my genuine opnion. BUT I watch them rarely so it may have changed since the last time.
The pros are pros IMO. I’m not a fan of my desktop files clogging up my other computers and if the easiest way is through local accounts I’ll do just that and deprive Microsoft of trying to sell me on the functionality of their suite of subscriptions. No loss to me
It’s a junk article, likely written by AI in part or entirely. Paragraphs and paragraphs of nothing just to reference a support article they found, all the while subtly implying a Windows account is a really good thing to use and everyone should use it.
You’re not wrong or anything, but “on accident” is used commonly in American English, so the author isn’t wrong either. I think it might have come from an association with “on purpose”, as in “I didn’t do it on purpose, I did it on accident.”
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the rules of language only matter if people actually stick to them. Language shifts over time no matter who kicks or screams about it.
Since they mentioned the workarounds but didn’t explain them, I’m copying my comment from another post a couple of weeks ago.
Lemmy probably isn’t the target audience for this, here’s the steps to bypass the MS account requirement when setting up W11:
Configure your keyboard, but before you select your wifi network press Shift+(Fn)+F10 to open Command Prompt.
Type in the following command and press enter. Your computer will reboot: oobe\bypassnro
After the reboot, configure your keyboard and location settings, and click the option at the bottom of the page to say that you don’t want to connect to the internet
Click the link on the next page to “Continue with limited setup”, then follow the prompts to enter a username and password.
Thr FN part is notable if you have a recent computer. A lot of laptops and keyboards ship out with media keys as the default on the top row now, and you must hold the FN key to use F10. Lot of people don’t realize this and think Shift+F10 isn’t working.
Possibly an easier option: you can let it connect to the internet, and then when it tells you to set up a Microsoft account, click on “Other sign in options” (or whatever it says beneath the text box). Then select “Domain Join instead”. It’ll let you use a local account, expecting you to join it to a domain later, then you just…don’t join it to a domain.
Always be sure to use something like O&O ShutUp10 or Winaero Tweaker after you reach the desktop, so you can shut off all the bullshit, otherwise it will keep harassing you to make an account. I think you need to uninstall OneDrive too, to stop it hijacking the address bar in file explorer with constant nagging to set it up
Good info, but everyone should know that Windows 11 Home can not join domains, and the option will not be there. Only Pro, Enterprise, and Education versions can do that.
Yes, that’s true. But I’m kind of going off the assumption anybody that actually wants to use a local account is somebody who knows better than to use the Home edition. Without group policy and a couple of the other configurable points, I’m not sure how viable it even is to use Home anymore if you want Microsoft off your back.
Usually notebooks ship with a fn lock function.
On our hp notebooks its fn + shift.
Now the keys work like regular Fx keys and for the function you need to press the fn key first.
In that case, it makes sense. I’m a developer and am stepping through code in a debugger pretty frequently, which makes heavy use of the F keys. I use the F keys far more often than the media keys.
We used to use that method for the company I was working for. We would setup laptops in advance and they were in the early process of setting up intune. Since we didn’t have a user account, we’d use your method to continue setup to get to the desktop.
I think we’d then run commands in pwershell to have the machine appear on intune.
It was a good few years ago and it was a very annoying, arduous time. They worked out the kinks eventually and that was no longer required.
I successfully did it on a brand new Inspiron laptop yesterday morning. I do regular device configs for my organization, and the moment this stops working, I’ll be here to rage about it!
Are you talking about the Support article, or this WindowsCentral article?
Because I would say that’s true of both.
This article is heavily inflated/extended with pablum that could come straight from Copilot, and frankly, it seems more concerned with listing the benefits of a Microsoft account than reporting on the support article.
The summary is slightly misleading, you can log in offline on a computer with a MS account. In fairness, the language on the article around this is pretty confusing, but you're not locked out of your PC if your Internet is down, which is what the bullet point summary implies.
Well, yeah, but that's the clarification I'm making. By default you DO need a connection to create or sign in to an account to complete the install process as it's currently presented, but once an account is set up you can log in to that machine whether it's connected to the Internet or not. The summary makes it sound like you need to be online for every login, which is not the case.
By default you DO need a connection to create or sign in to an account to complete the install process as it’s currently presented
You don’t “need” it, they lie to you and imply it’s a requirement, but it isn’t needed. It’ll download updates, and finish the install just fine with local account.
Sure, and you can go back to a local account from a MS account after the fact, I believe. But I'm going with the supported, default flows that MS surfaces to users without any workarounds here. I'm not even trying to nitpick.
You also need an internet connection during setup to download drivers for your PC, or install Office.
What would you even do with a PC that never has internet access? (apart from controlling some machinery maybe).
I remember it used to be quite common to install an OS and not have internet access. The OS simply lacked the correct LAN or WAN driver; alternatively one might be setting up an OS during an outage.
What would you even do with a PC that never has internet access? (apart from controlling some machinery maybe).
This is actually a massive use-case. Basically every piece of heavy machinery is using the OS it shipped with. Those systems naturally are forbidden from connecting to the internet but happily plug away at their job.
Legacy software in general is a great reason; retro gaming on period-appropriate hardware and OS, for example.
Retro gaming on period-appropriate hardware and OS in 20 years will. (And there likely won’t be security updates for the OS, you would be dumb to connect it to the internet)
Heavy machinery shipping with windows today does.
Your OS not having the correct lan/wan driver happens even today (just less often).
Having an internet outage happens today as well.
Yeah but none of these use cases call for Windows 11.
All the use cases I mentioned are relevant with Windows 11. There is a reason people have been yelling Linux around every corner, and it is because of continued bad decisions by Microsoft like requiring and internet connection for stuff that simply shouldn’t.
OK, look, I don't like the online auth requirement for Windows 11, I think it's dumb and finicky. I'm not trying to defend it here, I was just trying to correct the record on a slightly misleading summary...
...but come on, any user with those needs can work around the login in like five minutes.
Retro gaming in 20 years will either work just fine on the next version of Windows or work on a Win11 install supporting an offline account. Heavy machinery shipping with Windows will presumably ship in a state where it can be authetnticated, so it should have some way to be online or to update to a version of Windows that does have auth servers, if Win11 stops having those for some reason. Bad drivers or simply not having connectivity hardware just requires using a USB device. Your phone will USB tether long enough to log in to Windows on first install just fine, I've done it before.
Don't get me wrong, it shouldn't be needed, and it's a stupid annoyance. The real answer to all those use cases is using the known workarounds to support offline accounts on first boot that MS should continue to surface and offer as a supported option. But let's not be disingenuously obtuse about how the software actually works. I've done way worse to keep a legacy OS running on an old machine.
What would you even do with a PC that never has internet access?
The idea that computers should always be online is less than 20 years old. Even in the early 2000s it wasn’t uncommon for most employees in a company to NOT have Internet access. Companies, and people, bought or wrote software and then ran it to accomplish the task. No internet needed.
I’d argue that many employees in regular non-technical positions STILL don’t require Internet access to do their job unless they have to sign into some kind of cloud portal
I vividly remember the first time I heard someone suggest an always-online computer being a thing. I couldn't imagine the use for that, and the security implications terrified me. Let alone the cost, because of course I assumed I'd be paying for that by the minute.
I barely notice when I don’t have Internet access anymore, because I use my PC as a media server to stream to every other device in my house. Not having the Internet basically just restricts the games I can play slightly
If it’s been more than 30 or 60 days (can’t remember which) you will be unable to sign in if you don’t have an active internet connection. I found that out in 2022 when I had to travel for work (90 days in a fairly remote area) and the only internet connection I had was at the worksite on a company computer.
Was that a work computer? I know on a work laptop I did have some time restrictions set by IT because they had some authentication policies, but my understanding is that on a Windows Home account you control there should be no time limit, although it may complain about your MS apps or treat it as a not-activated install after a while, I'm not sure. I admit that I have never put that to the test on a Win 11 PC. I definitely did on MS-account enabled Win 10, since I've stashed older PCs and then turned them back on offline later, but I don't think I've had an idle Win11 machine more than three months yet.
The online requirements are unnerving to me. I feel like Microsoft wants my personal files. I don’t think it’s to outright steal or scam, but there is something in everyone’s data they want. Maybe AI training. Anyway I’m not giving it up willingly.
Sure, but if you have the option, you shouldn’t choose it. One reason so many businesses use Windows is that everyone knows Windows. If everyone learns Linux, more companies will use Linux.
This is what it comes down to. Nearly every office job pays for the Microsoft enterprise suite and office 365 subscriptions, before tacking on third party tools for monitoring and info. sec. for IT. I would gladly ditch Office 365 for Open Office and Debian, assuming all the higher ups would be willing to take such drastic measures to reduce expenses. I think most employees would balk at learning “an entire new system” regardless of how minor the differences actually are at this point.
I’ll give 'em this: Microsoft’s model creates very sticky revenue with high switching costs.
Yep! With Steam Deck pushing more native game support, I hope we see more users get used to the Linux environment and increase the demand on the PC side for better support across all applications.
I mean…if you get written up for circumventing IT blocks and installing Linux on your work device, but that write up is signed with a barage of bullets…maybe you’re working for the wrong dictatorship?
Again, custom. You are debloating an OS and removing security features and removing other functions of the os that will cause security and instability in your windows environment.
Honestly, if you are so concerned that you need to run this custom made script to protect privacy, you’re probably just better using Linux.
Again, it is not a “Custom OS” you aren’t installing it as an OS from an ISO. You are still required to have your own licensed version of windows and install that prior to using AtlasOS. Using it does not cause security and instability issues as long as you understand what you are doing. Yes it is stripping things from windows. It’s also open source so if you were so inclined you could see exactly what is being done.
If you equate using an automated solution to do things that you could do manually albeit with a bit more work involved, then every single OS is custom the second you change anything on it.
I do use Linux for what it’s worth and have been for around 20 years. I’ve also been working in Tech for the last 15 ish years. I wouldn’t be blindly recommending something that would wreck someone’s security.
There’s a link to their source code. They even state that you have options to what security settings get messed with. So again, as long as you READ and understand what you are doing, you aren’t necessarily breaking your systems security.
It is way more. It is a means of manipulation and influence over your decisions, and the decisions others make about you. The issue boils down to a fundamental principal of your right to autonomy. If you play out this philosophically, it is an attack on your citizenship and democracy itself. Autonomy is a fundamental cornerstone of democracy. Attacks on autonomy are attacks on democracy.
Does anybody remember back in 2005 when Google had a plugin for windows xp that would index your entire hard drive and give you quick search for your files?
My buddy’s account got compromised because his kid fell for some kind of Minecraft scam. It was his 365 account that he pays for and Microsoft has told him to pound sand. He’s grateful that he doesn’t use one drive and uses a local login on windows. He’s not even the only person that I know that had this happen to them.
Using a Microsoft account lets you connect your PC to Microsoft cloud services, sync files across devices, and even sync your settings across multiple PCs.
But I believe there are users who would view Microsoft’s reasons against using a local account as positives, not negatives.
I use a Microsoft account and sync just about everything across multiple PCs, but I understand that’s not the preferred setup for everyone.
The support document does not list a way to set up your PC with a local account.
I wonder how many people cannot use a modern PC because they lack an internet connection for the initial setup process.
Microsoft is certainly aware that many people lack easy access to the web.
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It’s not gonna affect their bottom line though. Microsoft are doing it because they know they can get away with it and drag the bar so low that they’d make RealNetworks circa 1999 look like privacy-respecting saints.
Your average Joe cannot afford the second mortgage needed to finance a MacBook purchase, and they’d have an aneurysm if presented with a Linux terminal.
And don’t even get me started on business and professional use. Many businesses rely on proprietary or even bespoke software that doesn’t run well, sometimes not even at all on Linux. Cheap (even FOSS) alternatives are often dogshit. And before you dispute me on that fact, can you name one web designer that would use Affinity Photo, GIMP or PDN over Photoshop? Or could you name one person that prefer AbiWord, OpenOffice or LibreOffice to Microsoft Word?
PC Gaming is one of those use-cases that has evolved by leaps and bounds… until you realize just how many multiplayer games rely on a form of anticheat. Many of these solutions are straight-up incompatible with Linux.
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