I meant you can't stop then from using Recall.

Yes, and that's a valid concern, but there's no good answer here. That's why it's such a problem. From now on, one of the most widely used operating systems in the world is going to be harvesting data from any and everything that appears on it. Meaning any software you use to send any form of electronic communication, if a Windows computer opens it, and the user either hasn't bothered or doesn't know how to disable recall, your information has been harvested by Microsoft.

There's just no way to limit or avoid this. We need regulation.

That's a great point about the fonts. And Google Analytics, and AdSense, and their jQuery CDN. They have a whole lot of ways to inject their tracking into every site out there.

Even if you got them using PGP somehow, there's always a risk. Apps designed to upload screenshots, share contacts or simple human errors like "hey did you hear X saying Y", etc.

"Private cloud" as if that isn't an oxymoron.

Oh this 100% is the government backdoor that they've been begging for. "If you can innovate your way into it, you can innovate a way out of it."

That was in regards to Apple phones belonging to Boston bombers being encrypted and locked.

It's no surprise that behind closed doors, the government asked these companies to create backdoors for them to spy on people.

I would focus on those directly around you first (not online strangers) and showing them by example to do the same, like my last post. Rather than telling them, find ways to make them want to ask you themselves. Make them start the conversation.

Absolutely

Then you have to trust the person you are communicating with has turned off windows recall. That has to be the starting position.

Tools will come to block or break windows recall but it will still be based on trust that the recipient is using them. Privacy centred apps like Signal wouldn't want windows screen shotitng every message for example. There are many apps and tools including in the professional sphere that would not want their data leaking via recall so it will come.

Unfortunately it may come late in the professional realm probably after scandals break. Employers using recall data to investigate staff for example - it's bound to happen eventually.

My own organisation, a huge health organisation, has opted in to CoPilot. It's crazy in my view, even if our data is ring fenced in some way. I don't want private patient information being used to train Microsoft shitty tools, or stored on their servers. Regulation and the law is way behind when it comes to this stuff.

Society just needs to get over this AI fad atm. By which I'm not trying to say that AI won't revolutionize pretty much everything in our lives eventually, but first we need to figure out what it can actually be useful for. Or rather non-tech people need to be fully introduced to both its benefits and its pitfalls before tech companies will have a clear picture of where the red lines are for people ideologically speaking. We the nerds have our moral compass figured out but we're a minority when it comes to who these products are made for.

Leave it to Microsoft to come up with the most dystopian AI concept yet. But to be honest I'd be way more wary of a company like Alphabet for whom data collection is much more central to their business model and who know how to package their spyware neatly. Microsoft announcing this as a feature from a podium shows how tonedeaf they are but I'd argue it also shows that they're not following some self-serving plan behind the scenes to take advantage of that thing they're so proud of publically (a mass espionage at which I firmly believe they wouldn't be anywhere near efficient enough if they tried). They really must've thought that this is what can get Windows back into the limelight. It is Microsoft's problem of our time that with everyone being on smartphones and tablets now they are losing traction in the consumer market by the day.

Point being (as far as the valid privacy concerns go) that Microsoft were never in the data business. They're just really really bad at understanding what consumers want out of an operating system. I got my first own PC in 2001 right when XP came out. They've always been bad at making things work for the user. And since Vista all they've really been doing is copying Apple's eyecandy. First off of macOS (then OS X), now with Windows 11 they basically want to look like a tablet OS with app icons once again after that idea failed spectacularly under Windows 8. I'm basically just rambling at this point but it should go to illustrate their lacklustre corporate decisionmaking. I wouldn't be worried about their potential desire much less their ability to compromise that Recall data. Yes it's a hugely concerning concept from a privacy standpoint and every step to circumvent its analysis should and arguably must be taken, but I also wouldn't lose sleep over the data it is collecting on other people's machines.

You have to trust the person you're communicating with has turned it off. That's my point. It's an optional feature

Is this not accurate (anymore)? https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-to-disable-windows-recall#section-how-to-uninstall-windows-recall

There's literally an option to turn it off