I think that it’s quite bad if Microsoft puts peoples family photos on their servers without the user realizing it. That’s not a niche privacy nerd sentiment, I think that a lot of people would find that creepy. Having the option easily available can be really good for a lot of non-techy people but it should be very clear what stays on your computer and what doesn’t, and how to keep something private if you want to, which I’m not sure that it is if Microsoft quietly backs up Documents, Pictures etc.
Comment on Windows 11 is now automatically enabling OneDrive folder backup without asking permission
DavidGarcia@feddit.nl 4 months ago
devil’s advocate: this will save the vast majority of user (which are completely tech illiterate) from loosing their most important data
lets be real, none of them will use a private or foss backup solution any time soon.
I’d rather not they loose their important family photos for that oh so horrible crime of offending my privacy nerd sensibilities
zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev 4 months ago
off_brand_@beehaw.org 4 months ago
Right, I recall news from years ago where a bunch of celebrities’ very private photos backed up to iCloud were leaked. They may or may not have known they uploaded those to iCloud, I dunno. But imagine what’s up there if you don’t realize you’re doing a backup. Not just photos, but like scanned documents with vulnerable information. And all that personal info in a centralized server is a big ol honeypot for a malicious actor.
It’s not hard to see why this is a vulnerability, is what I’m getting at.
jaden@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
Actually, my father in law just lost 3 months of work yesterday because he synced his documents folder that had an old copy of his book on OneDrive. Maybe if OneDrive was made well, it would prevent data loss.
araneae@beehaw.org 4 months ago
Counterpoint: My sibling had their fucking desktop ransomewared by this thing when they dared to uninstall it. It isn’t privacy nerd sensabilities, Windows now behaves like malware under certain opaque conditions and at unpredictable intervals. This was four years ago on Win 10. How great do you think non savvy people are about clicking things they don’t understand anyway and essentially springing a trap?
Salvo@aussie.zone 4 months ago
The problem is that they are not actively asking permission.
They are technically legally asking permission through the EULA, but nobody reads these.
Apple do this differently, they require the user to opt in for each of their services, and except for a pitiful amount of storage, the user has to pay for a useful amount of storage. This makes the user the customer, instead of the product. They could make it easier to roll-your-own “cloud” storage by NAS, but I assume that it isn’t worth their effort.
muhyb@programming.dev 4 months ago
Except it won’t be their most important data. Either their very first files from their desktop (up to 5 GB), or random 5 GB files (no idea which). Once it’s filled quickly, it will start nagging about buying more storage.
dodgy_bagel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
I’m not confident my tax documents aren’t saved to my dektop.
I usually air gap onto an external disk, but I’ve been busy recently.