I heard Windows 11 has been updated to take screenshots of your computer. Is it theoretically possible for them to delete content from your PC or external hard drives if they can determine that you have pirated content on them? Can they theoretically report you for it? I know it’s unlikely but is it still possible? I’m thinking of switching to Linux and this may be the reason why.
Edit: Thank you all for your educated answers. I really appreciate y’all!
On the realm of possibilities, windows can do whatever it wants. If it is connected to the internet then yeah it would be possible for Microsoft to do something like that, but I wouldn’t be worried about it just for piracy. Something like that could be possible for detecting CP or things on that level but I doubt MS would go low enough to do that for simple pirated content.
First of all, you should definitely switch to Linux for a whole bunch of reasons, not the least of which is that Windows is a privacy and sovereignty disaster.
That said, copyright is a legal concept, not a technological one. There is no algorithmic check to know if content is pirated or not because the computer can’t know what legal rights you have. The file could be identical to one that can be obtained through BitTorrent, but maybe you have a license or are using it in such a way that is Fair Use. No way for the computer to tell.
Microsoft does have the technological capability to make Windows delete your stuff (and the possibility does make using Windows untenable), but they would definitely be wrong to do so.
Right right.
I keep having to say this, as much as I like Linux for certain things, as a desktop it’s still no competition to Windows, even with this awful shit going on.
As some background - I had my first UNIX class in about 1990. I wrote my first Fortran program on a Sperry Rand Univac (punched cards) in about 1985. Cobol was immediately after Fortran (wish I’d stuck with Cobol).
I run a Mint laptop. Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won’t even boot. Windows would never do this, unless you went out of your way to config power management to kill the battery (even then, to really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows will not let a battery get to zero).
There no way even possible via the GUI to config power management for things like low/critical battery conditions /actions.
There are many reasons why Linux doesn’t compete with Windows on the desktop - this is just one glaring one.
Now let’s look at Office. Open an Excel spreadsheet with tables in any app other than excel. Tables are something that’s just a given in excel, takes 10 seconds to setup, and you get automatic sorting and filtering, with near-zero effort. No, I’m not setting up a DB in an open-source competitor to Access. That’s just too much effort for simple sorting and filtering tasks, and isn’t realistically shareable with other people.
Now there’s that print monitor that’s on by default, and can only be shut up by using a command line. Wtf? In the 21st century?
Networking… Yea, samba works, but how do you clear creds you used one time to connect to a share, even though you didn’t say “save creds”? Oh, yea, command line again or go download an app to clear them for for you. Smh.
Someone else said it better than me:
Every time I’ve installed Linux as my main OS (many, many times since I was younger), it gets to an eventual point where every single thing I want to do requires googling around to figure out problems. While it’s gotten much better, I always ended up reinstalling Windows or using my work Mac. Like one day I turn it on and the monitor doesn’t look right. So I installed twenty things, run some arbitrary collection of commands, and it works… only it doesn’t save my preferences.
So then I need to dig into .bashrc or .bash_profile (is bashrc even running? Hey let me investigate that first for 45 minutes) and get the command to run automatically… but that doesn’t work, so now I can’t boot… so I have to research (on my phone now, since the machine deathscreens me once the OS tries to load) how to fix that… then I am writing config lines for my specific monitor so it can access the native resolution… wait, does the config delimit by spaces, or by tabs?? anyway, it’s been four hours, it’s 3:00am and I’m like Bryan Cranston in that clip from Malcolm in the Middle where he has a car engine up in the air all because he tried to change a lightbulb.
And then I get a new monitor, and it happens all damn over again. Oh shit, I got a new mouse too, and the drivers aren’t supported - great! I finally made it to Friday night and now that I have 12 minutes away from my insane 16 month old, I can’t wait to search for some drivers so I can get the cursor acceleration disabled. Or enabled. Or configured? What was I even trying to do again? What led me to this?
I just can’t do it anymore. People who understand it more than I will downvote and call me an idiot, but you can all kiss my ass because I refuse to do the computing equivalent of building a radio out of coconuts on a deserted island of ancient Linux forum posts because I want to have Spotify open on startup EVERY time and not just one time. I have tried to get into Linux as a main dev environment since 1997 and I’ve loved/liked/loathed it, in that order, every single time.
I respect the shit out of the many people who are far, far smarter than me who a) built this stuff, and 2) spend their free time making Windows/Mac stuff work on a Linux environment, but the part of me who liked to experiment with Linux has been shot and killed and left to rot in a ditch along the interstate.
Now I love Linux for my services: Proxmox, UnRAID, TrueNAS, containers for Syncthing, PiHole, Owncloud/NextCloud, CasaOS/Yuno, etc, etc. I even run a few Windows VM’s on Linux (Proxmox) because that’s better than running Linux VM’s of a Windows server.
Linux is brilliant for this stuff. Just not brilliant for a desktop, let alone in a business environment.
Linux doesn’t even use a common shell (which is a good thing in it’s own way), and that’s a massive barrier for users.
If it were 40 years ago, maybe Linux would’ve had a chance to beat MS, even then it would’ve required settling on a single GUI (which is arguably half of why Windows became a standard, the other half being a common API), a common build (so the same tools/utilities are always available), and a commitment to put usability for the inexperienced user first.
These are what MS did in the 1980’s to make Windows attractive to the 3 groups who contend with desktops: developers, business management, end users.
All this without considering the systems management requirements of even an SMB with perhaps a dozen users (let alone an enterprise with tens of thousands).
I read all of this and totally agree. I got a good laugh out of the snippet of the comment you pulled about making a radio out of coconuts on a desert island example. Because you know that’s pretty damn true.
What I find obnoxious with Linux and always had to this day, was the pretentiousness of some users that will spend any waking minute to browbeat anyone into using Linux. They always show up whenever someone has something to complain about with Microsoft Windows, big or small. Never fails, both ironically and unironically.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, THE moment people realize how much tinkering they’ll have to spend time at the terminal for, will turn them away from Linux. Yeah sure you’ve got the software library manager which is leaps and bounds an improvement. But by and large, you will still do a lot of installing, configuring, troubleshooting and more with the terminal. You’re going to be required to know commands and it’s going to require a lot of time at the search engine.
And nearly nobody has the patience for that at all. They want a computer and they want the operating system to do everything they want it to do for them. Windows just does that for them and more.
Linux to me, will always be a OS of choice for any laptop new or old that I get. It will never have a sniff at taking over my desktop because I just know that if I ran a Linux OS full-time everyday, that my limits will have been exhausted and I’ll be running back to Windows in no time. All because Linux can’t do everything I would want it to do, despite the progress it has made and it’s progress that shouldn’t be scoffed at either considering the long way it has come to be where it is today.
People who proudly proclaim they’re going to Linux whenever MIcrosoft shoots their feet off, is just making a rebellious statement. Who knows for real as to how comfortable they’d really be if they were using Linux 24/7.
While I agree with you, I think Microsoft as a giant corporation could still go for the “shoot first, ask questions later” approach, and delete your content and make you appeal if you disagree.
Yeah, that’s the “(and the possibility does make using Windows untenable)” part.
What you have heard about is a feature called “Recall”, which is something that has not actually rolled out and will only be coming to PCs with specific neural processing units. Other windows users will not be affected (although of course that will change over time as old devices are replaced with new).
Is it possible? Yes, of course it’s possible. You could say that about pretty much any operating system - including Linux distros - if the functionality turns out to be popular.
However, to be 100% clear, this is functionality that the user can disable (either entirely, or on an app-by-app basis). And data is never transacted to the cloud or with Microsoft. What’s on the device does not leave the device. It’s also really not in Microsoft’s own interest at all to try taking on that responsibility… How would they know if you paid for an app/game/song or not, even if they wanted to?
But back to your question: yes, of course it is possible. This type of technology has already been prototyped in different ways (e.g. Apple have done work about identifying CSAM on the iPhone, although not implemented).
Yes, Linux gives you a lot more control. If you were to make the switch, I would list a hundred other reasons that are far more compelling than this storm in a teacup.
That said, there’s absolutely no reason a Linux distro couldn’t also bring the same functionality, if there is consumer appetite for it.
If you are looking to truly make it “impossible”, you need to air-gap your machine and not connect to the internet anymore.
I would be more concerned about it deleting legally owned content that, for whatever reason, is no longer licensed.
For example:
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html
And I’m concerned that being unequally concerned about these two things puts the focus back on how the person obtained the data, and takes it away from the most important issue which is whether the person has a right to private space of their own on their computer.
While possible, I don’t thing MS would it opens too many problems for them.
Something to consider, say you had pirated content on your PC and you were in the middle of a lawsuit related to that pirated content, Microsoft then deletes that content from your PC as part of an automated system action. Did MS commit an act of evidence destruction?
It happens already. Windows “Defender” consistently quarantines pirated dll files i.e. EMP.dll might get flagged and you won’t be able to play your game like you expected because the file is now missing and you have to restore it.
The Windows system user has full control over the PC including hard drive content and network connection, so yes, it is theoretically possible. However, there are endpoint protection tools that also have full control over Windows, and if the OS ever deleted a user’s stuff, they’d notice and it would become public, which would be an insane PR nightmare for Microsoft.
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There’s a difference between “haha silly LLM” and an operating system used by potentially billions of people, including businesses, governments, military, scanning and deleting your potentially sensitive information.
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Anything is theoretically possible on a closed source operating system. But it’s not likely. First of all, this “feature” is only compatible with “Copilot+” PCs, so your system probably won’t even get it. It also would run foul of privacy laws in in many places. Especially if they did that while claiming the screenshots only stay local. That’d be a huge lawsuit waiting to happen.
By “them” you mean Microsoft? Sure it’s theoretically possible. Just not realistic at all. Unless you pirate windows itself, MS doesn’t care about your pirated content.
There is a much more plausible ways of getting your data deleted or reported, like getting hacked, ransomwared or monitored by the government.
Switching OSes for that reason is a bit like moving to a bombshelter because you’re afraid of getting hit by an asteroid.
I could have sworn I read something about Windows 10 was already found deleting copyrighted material, maybe it was a fever dream.
I’m on Windows 10 and it hasn’t deleted anything I’ve pirated.
If this was true, my entire music collection, emulated games, the ebooks .etc would be all gone by now and I’d have nothing.
But yet, they remain.
Loot abides.
I doubt they’ll use screen shots to implement anything like piracy controls. It’s too messy and inaccurate, and there are easy and accurate ways to check for file signatures. Every virus scanner already does it.
If they’re going to institute license controls that’s how it would work. Any signature of unlicensed software would get locked out by file heuristics.
