#Windows for privacy

[nixcraft]

Literal definition of spyware:

Also From Microsoft’s own FAQ: "Note that Recall does not perform content moderation. It will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers. 🤡

[windowanddoorinstallation]

Why Invest In New Window Installations This Winter Season?

Just before the winter season, it is the right time to contact window suppliers in Sydney and get windows repaired or replaced. Broken windows can be very detrimental for your home’s interior comfort, as the impact of the brutal winter season will be felt by every family member. Window manufacturers have several options to offer to prevent this from happening, but before selecting one, you must have some robust reasons why you must get windows replaced. We have covered the top ones in this post.

Proper Security And Year-Round Comfort Guaranteed

One thing is guaranteed with new window installations that you will increase the comfort of your property and keep odd weather conditions out. New window installations offered by window suppliers in Sydney come with several modern features like multi-chamber frames, and made from high-quality materials to make properties more comfortable and secure.

They Are Damaged Or Old

Damaged or old windows often become troublesome, and they refuse to open or close properly. This is the perfect opportunity to get a window replacement done, as jammed windows can be very embarrassing, annoying and frustrating. This clearly indicates that the windows are broken, warped and damaged, and hence, it is the right time to get window replacement done.

Higher Energy Bills

If you are experiencing higher energy bills, you should immediately understand that it’s time to get window replacement done. Higher energy bills often clearly mean that heat is escaping, and you have to use artificial modes to keep your interior’s temperature optimal. Older windows and also single-pane windows are vulnerable to leakage and damage. In this situation, you must get window replacement done and choose double-glazed windows from window suppliers in Sydney.

Make Your Home Safer And More Secure

With good-quality window installations offered by window manufacturers, your property will become safer and more secure. Your property’s overall safety will improve and you can be assured that no one will get unauthorised access without your permission. However, you must invest in high-quality materials like aluminium windows or PVC windows, as they are more durable, robust and long-lasting.

There Is Fog Between The Glasses

The presence of fog between window glass panes is a clear indicator of seal failure, and this also tells you that you must get window replacement done by window suppliers in Sydney. Older windows lose their seal’s effectiveness with age, and as a result, they become less energy-efficient. Condensation becomes very common, and eventually, the time comes when you have to get window replacement done.

[ralfmaximus]

Recall is designed to use local AI models to screenshot everything you see or do on your computer and then give you the ability to search and retrieve anything in seconds. There’s even an explorable timeline you can scroll through. Everything in Recall is designed to remain local and private on-device, so no data is used to train Microsoft’s AI models. Despite Microsoft’s promises of a secure and encrypted Recall experience, cybersecurity expert Kevin Beaumont has found that the AI-powered feature has some potential security flaws. Beaumont, who briefly worked at Microsoft in 2020, has been testing out Recall over the past week and discovered that the feature stores data in a database in plain text.

Holy cats, this is way worse than we were told.

Microsoft said that Recall stored its zillions of screenshots in an encrypted database hidden in a system folder. Turns out, they're using SQLite, a free (public domain) database to store unencrypted plain text in the user's home folder. Which is definitely NOT secure.

Further, Microsoft refers to Recall as an optional experience. But it's turned on by default, and turning it off is a chore. They buried it in a control panel setting.

They say certain URLs and websites can be blacklisted from Recall, but only if you're using Microsoft's Edge browser! But don't worry: DRM protected films & music will never get recorded. Ho ho ho.

This whole debacle feels like an Onion article but it's not.

Luckily(?) Recall is currently only available on Windows 11, but I fully expect Microsoft to try and shove this terrible thing onto unsuspecting Win10 users via Update.

Stay tuned...

[abbiistabbii]

I think every computer user needs to read this because holy fucking shit this is fucking horrible.

So Windows has a new feature incoming called Recall where your computer will first, monitor everything you do with screenshots every couple of seconds and "process that" with an AI.

Hey, errrr, fuck no? This isn't merely because AI is really energy intensive to the point that it causes environmental damage. This is because it's basically surveilling what you are doing on your fucking desktop.

This AI is not going to be on your desktop, like all AI, it's going to be done on another server, "in the cloud" to be precise, so all those data and screenshot? They're going to go off to Microsoft. Microsoft are going to be monitoring what you do on your own computer.

Now of course Microsoft are going to be all "oooh, it's okay, we'll keep your data safe". They won't. Let me just remind you that evidence given over from Facebook has been used to prosecute a mother and daughter for an "illegal abortion", Microsoft will likely do the same.

And before someone goes "durrr, nuthin' to fear, nuthin to hide", let me remind you that you can be doing completely legal and righteous acts and still have the police on your arse. Are you an activist? Don't even need to be a hackivist, you can just be very vocal about something concerning and have the fucking police on your arse. They did this with environmental protesters in the UK. The culture war against transgender people looks likely to be heading in a direction wherein people looking for information on transgender people or help transitioning will be tracked down too. You have plenty to hide from the government, including your opinions and ideas.

Again, look into backing up your shit and switching to Linux Mint or Ubuntu to get away from Microsoft doing this shit.

[irradiatedsnakes]

why do people on this site act like something being a kink makes it impossible to criticize. like, yeah, between two consenting adults, sure, i get it. if you're doing raceplay or whatever between two consenting adults i still think that sucks. something being a kink doesn't somehow make it Sacred Beyond Being Judged.

[possamble]

Do you think Falin ever saw Marcille in her little elven loungewear or would it be a bit of a surprise for her? In "a little creature" it might be a bit of a (pleasant) surprise, depending on whether Marcille hasn't used the clothes up to that point. Though it might make things a bit more awkward

so this doodle from Ryoko Kui implies that Falin has seen it, but the fact that they're on an ipad and a phone means this isn't really supposed to be canon... still, I figure an informal image in the creator's mind is still closer to canon than anything else.

I'm imagining that Marcille prooobably started wearing this type of stuff closer to her later years at the academy? Maybe she finished the graduate track program and went on to the post-graduate whatever the fuck they have. That would probably mean getting a dormitory upgrade to something a little bigger and more private, too.

As for Falin's reaction seeing it for the first time... going by how casual they are in this image, I get the feeling she didn't have much of a reaction beyond the usual "oh Marcille is wearing something new and nice" ?? I do lowkey believe she just kind of Didn't Think About Herself hard enough that her horny teenager phase was incredibly muddled and mild. That, and she got so good at "I'm not allowed to think about Marcille like that" that it just didn't happen until the dragon came along and was like. HEY. WE'RE HOT FOR ELF. CAN YOU PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

[officialnightwing]

So like, I think your gonna have competition for Miss McVeigh's love. She recently talked to a Mr. Grayson (seriously, how do they keep having terrible luck of falling into our universe?) and it seems that he's left an impression on her . . .

Please, I'll see if I could talk her into picking you instead of Mr. Grayson if you want to get serious with Miss McVeigh!

- @spotted-dick-anon

dick grayson wishes he had my ass :D

maybe if I just walk past @dottie-mcveigh's window a few (more) times... 🍑

[bfoxanimation]

"It looks like you have some private personal and financial details on display! I'll take a screenshot and store it in a folder someone can access later. "

[autisticwriterblog]

Watery's sauna

[mosneakers]

Clementine and Salem's little Spellcaster/artist/empty-nester-/cat-mamas love nest above the Darling garage is finally finished and I had to fight them to get them out of there long enough to take pictures for you guys, it turned out so cozy 😍🥰

[nixcraft]

Use Linux :)

[hairtusk]

sunset over the snowy moors, past the church steeple

[ralfmaximus]

Something a lot of people are misunderstanding about Windows Recall is that it's not just a thing you can turn off and/or ignore.

Sure, you can disable it. You can avoid Windows 11 completely, run Linux, reinstall Windows 7. All of that.

But here's the thing... other people will be using Recall. Whether intentionally or not, because not everyone has control over their computer hardware (employees, minors, the elderly, the indigent) or some business thinks it's a neat way to spy on their employees.

THOSE people will interact with your facebook/insta/tumblr, read & respond to your emails, process your credit card information, pull up your customer service profile to fix your billing problem, view your appointment schedule at the doctor's office... a thousand use cases where YOUR data is on OTHER PEOPLE'S screens.

And if Recall is running, it'll make a copy of that data.

Okay, so what? Some stranger's computer has my personal information stashed away on it. Big deal.

Except that we live in a world where ransomware & phishing attacks happen all the goddamn time, and it's only a matter of months before somebody's Recall-equipped Windows gets rumbled. Recall databases will get downloaded & sold on the dark web, same as they do now with lists of credit card numbers.

Microsoft really shit the bed this time.

[awkward-teabag]

I keep seeing people respond to the Microsoft Recall bullshit with there's an ability to disable it and that misses the point. Several points in fact.

It's only a matter of time until an update bugs/"bugs" it and re-enables it without warning so people who had previously disabled it think they're in the clear until their info is leaked or they get a warning they're low on storage space.

If people don't have admin rights, they may not be able to disable it. Laptops given by work or school lock down what people can do with them, some going as far as dictating which browser one has to use on them. Even if you don't need admin rights to disable Recall, you may not have the ability to do so without losing the laptop and/or job and/or education.

I'm unsure of how it would handle multiple accounts but if it can be locked by someone else to always be enabled, children and people in abusive situations would also be unable to disable it. Even if it can't be locked, disabling it could result in punishment from a parent or the abuser.

Is it really disabled or is it "disabled" in that what the user sees is it being disabled while it's still collecting information and/or sending information to Microsoft in the background?

Such a feature should never have been automatically enabled in the first place. It's bad, predatory design to have such a feature enabled from the start and to expect users AKA customers to go out of their way to look up and then opt-out of something.

If disabling it really disables it, it can still result in stress and concern that it's not. The vast majority of people do not have the skills or knowledge to look into the OS guts to give themselves peace of mind that it really truly is disabled.

I'm sure I'm missing some, too.

TLDR is disabling is a bandaid someone else may rip off for you, someone may hurt you if you use, it may not work at all except as a placebo, and should have never been needed in the first place.

[sharkneto]

Me, buying minor conveniences for my apartment that I've put off buying for four years because I'd get around to it: Wow This Is So Nice

[yjlom]

About MS Recall

The problem

So, apparently Microsoft decided to put an AI on their operating system that uses regular screenshots to store, index, and describe every single thing the user does on their computer. If you enter a password -- it's stored and indexed; if you send a message: it's stored and indexed. It stores all that in a neat little unencrypted database that doesn't require elevated privileges to access, meaning any hostile program only needs a few seconds at most to perform weeks worth of data collection, and it's already processed for easy use by the cracker. Even if the data stays on device, the applications for facilitating domestic abuse are absolutely terrifying.

I don't use DOS, so it doesn't affect me, right?

Wrong. Chances are, your bank, your hospital, your employer, your school, your tax office use it. This "feature" can be deactivated, and I seriously hope it will be on every single system handling sensitive data (or better stop using that operating system altogether), but it only takes one employee viewing it on their personal computer for a major data leak to occur.

The wider problem

The data is supposedly and presumably stored on-device which should mean Microsoft doesn't collect it, but the operating system as a whole is also proprietary and closed-source, meaning:

it's very hard to tell what the system does or doesn't do, the only recourse we have are to look at outgoing data packets (not foolproof) or study the disassembly (difficult and illegal)

it is both extremely hard and illegal to make and maintain forks (modified versions), which means if they do something their users absolutely can't agree with, they're left with three choices:

use an outdated version -- not the best for security, and Microsoft makes updates mandatory

switch operating systems -- can be time-consuming and costly to do, especially if the user relies on system-specific functionality (I'd recommend getting started on this asap)

just accept it -- what most will probably end up doing