The Windows 11 Apocalypse thread

[Skybird]

[Eichhörnchen]

Originally Posted by Skybird

If you hear of this for the first time: Recall is a default-activated and mandatory "service" that creates screenshots of your screen every 5 seconds and stores these on your HD, exposing them to criminal hackers who attack your machine as well as allows remote-analysis by Microsoft' well-meaning AI tools

Surely all you need to do - if you've somehow mistakenly downloaded Recall - is delete the folder it created to store all your stuff?

[Skybird]

See the video one post before yours, Eichhörnchen. What there is said about the role of AI in smartphones surveilling your deeds, habits, choices and verbal messages, is also true for the Recall data treasure chest on your HD - or do you really want to rely on Microsoft's sugarcode-wordings that they will not access that data? Das will ich doch nicht hoffen...! The screen content of every five seconds screenshots is being stored in a format that AI can analyse. And that is the real purpose behind it.


Also, a hacker getting this database of encoded screenshots, knows everything you entered on your PC that way. Sensitive data. Porn pics. Maybe PIN numbers. Customer data if its a business machine. Business plans. Hidden chats with your hidden girlfriend your wife does not know of.

Microsoft hides accessability to Recall options to switch it off. In the EU Recall must be an opt-in option, outside the EU they just have switched it to "mandatory", it is on by default and hard to switch off. They do that on purpose, and its not that easy at all to deactivate it, and even if the screen tick box said it is off now - how do you now that it is off indeed...? Its just a graphics you get displayed, it says "off". Pixels on a screen. Windows notoriously telephones home. Why is that?

Why is it that on my Windows 10 machine the telemetry "service" is practically impossible to switch off in the meaning of it not being activated automatically when booting? And while MS says it only collects data on my hardware setup and components why must it then scan and run my HD and SSD 20-30 m minutes every time I boot - it surely is just a thing of seconds to scan all technical compenents of my system and driver versions and put these data up in a simple file...?

(I made it a rule to go inbto Taks Msanager every time I boot and tnhere deaciutvate Telemtry Service manually, after every booting. I trtied all registry hacks that there on the web tio get rid of telemetry, and ran all tips and recipes - none of these work, that thing is what MS wants active, and they made sure you cannot switch it off. - WHY...? When it is only about collecting data on your hardware setup? And why must you telephone home these simple informaitons every time you boot? And why must all your HD and SSD apparently completely get scanned for that, 20-30 minutes long...???)

Dont be naive. >>> Do. Not. Trust. <<< When it comes to Microsoft, Google, and Apple, always assume the worst. Betting on it will make you a rich man. Privacy is against their business interests. And against government interests.

That video is about smartphones, and yet I put that in here - for a purpose.

Windows 11 is a privacy and security nightmare. Worse than anything I just years ago could imagine. An no, Apple OS and Google are NOT any better.

Some now want to add AI modules even into Linux. These idiots must have lost their senses. Its like starting a vaccination campaign against health.

[Skybird]

[Skybird]

https://www.youtube.com/@robbraxmantech/videos

[Catfish]

And we can thank Apple, Microsoft, Zuckerberg and Musk for this.

[Skybird]

And Bezos. And China. And ourselves. By our consumer and political election decisions we let them go ahead with this.

Die dümmsten Kälber wählen sich ihre Metzger selber.

Edit: the guy is good, he knows his stuff and his explanations and videos show that he has really seen through it in depth. I can only recommend many of his videos. We currently give up, voluntarily, our freedom and independence. We must have completely lost all our marbles.

Butler, come soon and start your djihad...

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Butler, come soon and start your djihad...

.. yes only we have to do it ourselves

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/23/t...man/index.html

Also Musk is not against AI, not at all. He is against OPEN AI, the one that is free

edit:
"The Biden administration’s prospective “AI Bill of Rights,” for instance, seeks to regulate AI with an eye to protecting individual rights and civil liberties. For all its ambition, such a framework fails to reckon with the threat of mass economic displacement—and resulting social disruption—posed by AI."
The page has been put off the net right after Trump's inauguration lol
https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ai-b...compactmag.com

[Buddahaid]

Just bought a new PC from a boutique shop with Windows 11. Boutique shop because they don’t install bloatware nor do they activate onedrive and because software I use almost daily will not run on Windows 10 January 2026. Also buying before the idiotic tariff wars double the price.

[Catfish]

After some resistance Microsoft has now abandoned its Win 11 recall 'feature'. Though it was not intended to spy on users it could have certainly been used like that.
Original intent was to easily find earlier files, websites and own action that may have been forgotten.
Officially..

[Skybird]

Where have you that ^ from, Catfish?

Last year the eU demanded from MS that Recall must be made an installabe item of choice by the user, and that it must be an active opt-in, not opt-out, by the user. That was around April last year.

Microsoft reacted by delaying the rollout of Recall in Europe by a few months, then presented a new code for the whole W11 OS where Recall then was integral part of the file explorer, which before it was not. This new architecture then was their foul excuse to argue that they cannot make Recall a choice by the user since without Recall the file explorer would not work and hence the whole OS would not work. Quite underhanded move by them.

They then claimed that it cna be switche don or off and that would be an opt-in decision during installation or first launch of a new rig with preinstalled W11. That was a lie, too. Tech bloggers time and again - you can check yourself on youtube - have tested it, there is a way how users can check the working state of Recall via command line interface (!!), in other words Microsoft did its best to make Recall verification as difficult as possible and they hid Recall alltogether from the user. And - wonder oh wonder - these tests always showed that Recall is on all new installations - ACTIVE. The tecnically unknowing user who just uses his system for playing or business or home computing has zero chance to ever get aware of the issue - or its dangerous implications.

Dont be surpised that Microsoft is lying.

Recall is essential for them, and not that harmless as you think , Kai. Its a fundament of their long term business strategy and vision of creating a digital full world replicate of each and everything that feeds not several external, separated AIs , but just one single AI. Their top CEO has put it in very open words, that leave no space for interpretations. If they do not harvest all and every event and piece of data fro everywhere, all the time, always, they cannot do this.

Its madness, yes. Its dangerous to the max. Its hubris.


Digital assistants and now the general spreading of AI also serve this purpose.

You are free to believe their claims, of course. But I would call doing so naive.

https://www.youtube.com/@robbraxmantech/videos

Also note that they have changed anotherthing, against the user's interest, as so often. With having a Microsoft account being mandatory now to run W11 and with being online all the time being mandatory as well, also being engaged with Microsoft cloud service and all the abonements needed in a professional environment, Microsoft has now deleted the option to log out of any of these service - even if you are on a public on a foreign machine. In other words, no matter from which place and machine you access your account(s) and data, you will stay endlessly logged in on that machine, leaving you vulnerable to every other foreign user on that machine using your account and accessing your data. You cannot log out of your accounts from that machine. Think of that! And make sure you think deep and well.

My neck hair raises at the outlook of spending thousands of coins on a new machine that ist completely owned by Microsoft and is their licensed property and that spies on my all day long, in 5 second intervals, and phones home to mother and tells her what it has seen me doing on screen, , and where MS and hardware manufacturers conspire and implement hardware features that increasingly are meant to prevent using another OS on this hardware than W11, or using W11 without completely exposing yourself to the total surveilance regime of Microsoft. Its not your machine. And if you let this foreign sniffer tool in, its no longer your life. Tjhat is no exaggeration.

For MS, all depends on enforcing access to your most private of your private life. Its their future. And you can bet they will not let you off the hook, nor will they ever fully comply with EU regulations hindering them.

In other words, they have declared full unlimited war on the user, private or business, and they will accept nothing but your unconditional surrender. That they will sugarcoat all this, does not change anything.

Amongst our owners' group in the house I live inm there is one pensioneered former judge, and one still active business and company lawyer. Both say the situatioon with Recall must be of even legal concern for businesses and lawyers, because W11 violates the right to confidentiality between professional and client and the sensitive data that is exchanged between them and is subject to the duty of confidentiality is exposed to access by Microsoft, and gets collected by routine by Microsoft. This even makes a lawyer, journalist or doctor legally liable to prosecution. The lawyer has therefore changed the system in his law firm and thrown out everything from Microsoft. He is currently on Linux, but is not happy with it and wants to switch to Apple. That governments and the EU do niot bite harder against Microsoft is becasue a.) government agencies cna get sopecial verisons that have indeed no survuellance and sniffing software on board, b) business and public amdinstraiton have made themnslkeves absokutely depending on Microsoft compatability software, and c.) the EU wants total surveillance of citizens, too, like China.

Do watch the linked videos in my posts #16 and #19.

And since you plan to go W11, Kai: be mindful about drive encryption which also is mandatory now. If you lose the key, your data is lost.

Edit:
just one or two weeks ago, there was another nice move by MS. Their recent bigge ruodate was a amsscare for many user'S machines, it apparently was extrenely buggy and caused a lot of problems and showstoppers. Micorosft reaction was typicval MS: they stopped the option to delay updates, and enforced this known broken, crippling faulty updates on everybody, from just a few days later on: unreoaure,d unfixed, broken as it is.

[Skybird]

Surprisingly, he rates Apple the worst.

But be reminded that VPNs do not work trustworthily anymore, and that end-to-end encryption also is no more.



Personally, I have my smartphone active, but in a muffled case and always at home, i never take it with me. For emergency calls from my parents, I have an old mobile with me, a Samsung E1150:

No sensitive data on my smartpohone, no banking or shopping stuff, no access to my bank acount data. The biggest risk I currently have, is Paypal and its hilariously easy ways to be abused by fraudsters and robbers. I just need a better trustworthy alternative, and they will be dead for me. But there is none, digital payment options always imply risks that are quite bigger than the ordinary consumer is aware of - or wants to be made aware of. Guests account for paypal. IBAN for bank accounts. More it doe snti take to screw you. Many do not know how easy it is - it does not need your active help. Currently your only protection is the size of the swarm you swim in, predators cannot bite each and every fish in it.