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Comment by zuminator | Hacker News Reader

That was very well written and reasonable, neither minimizing the risks nor succumbing to hysteria.

The idea behind Recall, universal, machine-assisted search, is a good one but it's embarrassingly clear that in terms of implementation, this ain't it, chief. Microsoft should do what Google has done with Sky -- withdraw the product, take the hit, and hope that something can be salvaged from this debacle, both in terms of an improved product, and better company-wide testing and rollout practices.

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I think the idea is a good one, I just have zero trust in Microsoft to have my interests in mind so it becomes a question of when, not if, it becomes abused, if not by them then some bad actor.

This is poorly written and completely nonsensical.

Also a clickbait: nobody is stealing anything.

If you get malware or you have other admins on your computer, they can already record anything you do at their will.

The data is NOT uploaded to M$.

The whole fuss is stupid and I am impressed 90% comments here seem to think otherwise.

If you get malware, these malware will only begin to record things once they are installed. They do not automatically get years of computer use history. Until Recall.

It seems like you live in the same kind of detached echo chambers as the people at Microsoft who approved this feature. No wonder you find this nonsensical. I bet the product managers responsible for this also find this article nonsensical.

Right, the malware will only able to get all the documents you wrote during the years of using the computer, all the emails you ever got or sent, all your chat conversations, your bank account details, photos and videos you made, complete browsing history, access to your work account(s).

Of course it is critical that it does not also know what porn you watched in incognito, or what you had in snapchat messages.

Wait, scratch the snapchat. I don't think they have desktop client.

You ignore this basic computer operation called delete

Majority of people only ever delete bad shots from a set of N identical photos or random stuff by accident or because they run out of space.

Why do you think it makes sense to only care about the majority?

Also, majority is using voice/video calls which aren't stored anywhere

Do I? How did you come to this conclusion?

If majority wants to use Ctrl+C to copy, and the rest want to use Alt+M or don't care either way, then the most sensible thing to do is have Ctrl+C copy by default, and make a setting for the rest, which is exactly what is done here.

Because you reference the behavior of the majority as a counter-argument.

So if 40% of people use delete for more than a dupe photo and thus would benefit from this even if they were hacked (vs Recall), how does the fact that the majority doesn't do that counter the benefit for this non-majority group? If you only care about the majority, this makes sense

Your reply reads like you completely ignored the previous comment, because it basically answers all questions/addresses points you posed in this one.

Your analogy is wrong in both characterizing the problem and offering a solution:

1. The majority doesn't want this just because they fail to protect their data properly

2. Defaults matter and having an option doesn't imply perfect awareness/disabling by that non-majority group

So at most you've somewhat reduced the affected group while still not addressing the original issue why you think it's ok to ignore the non-majority (It also doesn't address the video calls)

So no, your comment answered none of my points

1 basically contradicts the whole premise from 6 or so levels above that for majority this does not present any additional risks to their data, because they never delete it anyway.

2 addressed above

"ignoring" non-majirity addressed in Ctrl+C comment.

1. was about a different flaw in your argument, not 6 above. That one is also wrong, see X levels above re video calls which you don't need to explicitly delete for them to disappear from malware's view without Recall

2 addresses above, including Ctrl+C, so you need something new to address it

There are a number of things that do disappear. But when you put them in the line next to bank credentials, private pictures, passwords, and private documents, they pale in comparison.

Re: awareness. Are you saying the only MS problem is they are not marketing capabilities enough? Assuming the video calls point is addressed, your whole "feature is extremely bad" argument is that it is on by default, and one has to know to do something to turn it off if they don't want it?

What's this Google Sky that was withdrawn?

Sorry, my flub, I meant OpenAI's Sky of course!

> In practice, that audience’s needs are a very small (tiny, in fact) portion of Windows userbase — and frankly talking about screenshotting the things people in the real world, not executive world, is basically like punching customers in the face. The echo chamber effect inside Microsoft is real here, and oh boy… just oh boy. It’s a rare misfire, I think.

> I think it’s an interesting entirely, really optional feature with a niche initial user base that would require incredibly careful communication, cybersecurity, engineering and implementation. Copilot+ Recall doesn’t have these. The work hasn’t been done properly to package it together, clearly.

Definitely needed some copy editing however.

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