[HN Gopher] Microsoft gave FBI set of BitLocker encryption keys ...
___________________________________________________________________
Microsoft gave FBI set of BitLocker encryption keys to unlock
suspects' laptops
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 515 points
Date : 2026-01-23 17:58 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| bigyabai wrote:
| Quid pro quo.
| advisedwang wrote:
| What quid pro quo? Is there an allegation that the FBI gave
| Microsoft something in exchange?
|
| As far as I can see this particular case is a straightforward
| search warrant. A court absolutely has the power to compel
| Microsoft to hand over the keys.
|
| The bigger question is why Microsoft has the recovery feature
| at all. But honestly I believe Microsoft cares so little about
| privacy and security that they would do it just to end the
| "help customers who lose their key" support tickets, with no
| shady government deal required. I'd want to see something more
| than speculation to convince me otherwise.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > The case involved several people suspected of fraud related to
| the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program
|
| If it were preventing a mass murder I might feel differently...
|
| But this is protecting the money supply (and indirectly the
| governments control).
|
| Not a reason to violate privacy IMO, especially when at the time
| this was done these people were only _suspected_ of fraud, not
| convicted.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| They had a warrant. That's enough. Nobody at Microsoft is going
| to be willing to go to jail for contempt to protect fraudsters
| grifting off of the public taxpayer. Would you?
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Not a reason to violate privacy IMO, especially when at the
| time this was done these people were only suspected of fraud,
| not convicted.
|
| Well you can't really wait until the conviction to collect
| evidence in a criminal trial.
|
| There are several stages that law enforcement must go through
| to get a warrant like this. The police didn't literally phone
| up Microsoft and ask for the keys to someone's laptop on a
| hunch. They had to have already confiscated the laptop, which
| means they had to have collected enough early evidence to prove
| suspicion and get a judge to sign off and so on.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > Microsoft told Forbes that the company sometimes provides
| BitLocker recovery keys to authorities, having received an
| average of 20 such requests per year.
|
| At least they are honest about it, but a good reason to switch
| over to linux. Particularly if you travel.
|
| If microsoft is giving these keys out to the US government, they
| are almost certainly giving them to all other governments that
| request them.
| Aurornis wrote:
| It's not like companies have a choice. If they have a key in
| their possession and law enforcement gets an order for it, they
| have to provide it.
| function_seven wrote:
| That only strengthens the parent point. Switch to an OS where
| this requirement doesn't come into play if you're worried
| about any governments having a backdoor into your own
| machine.
| charcircuit wrote:
| If you sync your Linux machines key in the cloud, police
| could subpoena it too. The solution is not to switch to
| Linux, but to stop storing it in plain text in the cloud.
| NewsaHackO wrote:
| Do you know what a private key means in this context?
| charcircuit wrote:
| No, I don't. The bitlocker key is a symmetric key.
| NewsaHackO wrote:
| Ok, do you at least know what private means?
| charcircuit wrote:
| Not public.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Switch to an OS where this requirement doesn't come into
| play
|
| I use BitLocker on my Windows box without uploading the
| keys. I don't even have it connected to a Microsoft
| account. This isn't a requirement.
| knowitnone3 wrote:
| except Microsoft probably as a master key
| Zambyte wrote:
| > It's not like companies have a choice.
|
| > If they have a key in their possession [...]
|
| So they do have a choice.
| mc32 wrote:
| People/users have an option to keep the key themselves.
| Most wouldn't bother to manage encryption keys.
| egorfine wrote:
| And even if they don't have the key. Case in point:
| https://medium.com/@tahirbalarabe2/the-encryption-dilemma-
| wh...
| zugi wrote:
| Thanks for the link, interesting article. The UK is among
| the worst in this regard.
|
| Regarding the article's Apple example:
|
| > The FBI eventually found a third party to break into the
| phone, but the tension between privacy and security remains
| unresolved.
|
| This is actually quite resolved.
|
| - Tech companies in the US are free to write secure
| encryption technologies without backdoors.
|
| - Government is free to try to break it when they have
| valid legal authority.
|
| - Tech companies are obligated to turn over information in
| their possession when given a legal warrant signed by a
| judge based on probable cause that a crime has occurred.
|
| - Tech companies are _not_ required to help hack into
| systems on the government 's behalf.
|
| As far as I'm concerned, in the US things are perfectly
| resolved, and quite well I think. It's the government and
| fear-mongers who constantly try to "unresolve" things.
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| All other governments is a stretch here, but likelihood of at
| least one another government getting same privileges is
| extremely high.
| slashdave wrote:
| Why take the drastic step of switching to linux (a difficult
| endeavor) when you can simply turn off key uploading.
| varun_ch wrote:
| Why continue to use an operating system that's adversarial
| towards you?
| bogwog wrote:
| I will never understand this from software engineers/tech
| people in general. That demographic knows how technology
| works, and are equipped to see exactly where and how
| Microsoft is taking advantage of them, and how the
| relationship is all take and zero give from their end.
| These people are also in the strongest position to switch
| to Linux.
|
| The only explanation that makes sense to me is that there's
| an element of irrationality to it. Apple has a well known
| cult, but Microsoft might have one that's more subtle? Or
| maybe it's a reverse thing where they hate Linux for some
| equally irrational reasons? That one is harder to
| understand because Linux is just a kernel, not a
| corporation with a specific identity or spokesperson
| (except maybe Torvalds, but afaik he's well-regarded by
| everyone)
| wolvoleo wrote:
| Because that gives you a lot more control over your computer
| than just solving this particular issue. If you care about
| privacy it's definitely a good idea.
| egorfine wrote:
| Because Microsoft absolutely _will_ make it mandatory
| somewhere in the not so distant future.
| knowitnone3 wrote:
| oh man, it's so difficult even teenagers can do it within an
| hour and all they have to do is click on a few buttons.
| Aurornis wrote:
| FYI BitLocker is on by default in Windows 11. The defaults will
| also upload the BitLocker key to a Microsoft Account if
| available.
|
| This is why the FBI can compel Microsoft to provide the keys.
| It's possible, perhaps even likely, that the suspect didn't even
| know they had an encrypted laptop. Journalists love the
| "Microsoft _gave_ " framing because it makes Microsoft sound like
| they're handing these out because they like the cops, but that's
| not how it works. If your company has data that the police want
| and they can get a warrant, you have no choice but to give it to
| them.
|
| This makes the privacy purists angry, but in my opinion it's the
| reasonable default for the average computer user. It protects
| their data in the event that someone steals the laptop, but still
| allows them to recover their own data later from the hard drive.
|
| Any power users who prefer their own key management should follow
| the steps to enable Bitlocker without uploading keys to a
| connected Microsoft account.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Any power users should avoid Windows entirely.
| bigyabai wrote:
| If by "power user" you mean "enemy of the state", there's a
| lot of software you'd be better-off avoiding.
| phanimahesh wrote:
| That is a strange viewpoint. Are we calling everyone who
| wants some control over their computers enemies of the
| state?
| bigyabai wrote:
| It's holistic philosophy. You're not going to save
| yourself from FBI surveillance by avoiding Windows, I
| guarantee that to you.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| You're not going to avoid any state surveillance if the
| state is really interested in you specifically.
|
| But you can still help prevent abuses of mass
| surveillance without probable cause by making such
| surveillance as expensive and difficult as possible for
| the state
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Are we calling everyone who wants some control over
| their computers enemies of the state?
|
| As of today at 00:00 UTC, no. But
| there's an increasingly possible future where
| authoritarian governments will brand users who
| practice 'non-prescribed use' as enemies of the state.
| And when we have a government who's leader openly
| gifts deep, direct access to federal power to
| unethical tech leaders who've funded elections
| (ex:Thiel), that branding would be a powerful
| perk to have access to (even if indirectly).
| wolvoleo wrote:
| "enemy of the state" depends a lot on the current state of
| the state.
|
| Eg in England you're already an enemy of the state when you
| protest against Israel's actions in Gaza. In America if you
| don't like civilians being executed by ICE.
|
| This is really a bad time to throw "enemy of the state"
| around as if this only applies to the worst people.
|
| Current developments are the ideal time to show that these
| powers can be abused.
| blipvert wrote:
| Very much hyperbolic about the UK. You're fine protesting
| against Israel, but Palestine Action is a proscribed
| group (not that I agree with that!) and that will land
| you in trouble.
| pawelduda wrote:
| Maybe he's just trying to avoid Candy Crush Saga
| amitav1 wrote:
| I can't think of anybody apart from Osama bin Laden who
| wouldn't want to play Candy Crush. \s
| anonym29 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46700219
|
| Criticizing the current administration? That sounds like
| something an enemy of the state would do!
|
| Prepare yourself for the 3am FBI raid, evildoer! You're an
| enemy of the state, after all, that means you _deserve_ it!
| /s
| drnick1 wrote:
| This. Real "power users" (as opposed to people who aren't
| completely computer-illiterate) use the likes of Arch Linux
| and Gentoo and self-host whatever "cloud" services they need,
| they aren't running Windows and paying for Copilot 365
| subscriptions.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| It's definitely better than no encryption at all, which would
| be what most people would have otherwise.
| cesarb wrote:
| > Any power users who prefer their own key management should
| follow the steps to enable Bitlocker without uploading keys to
| a connected Microsoft account.
|
| Once the feature exists, it's much easier to use it by
| accident. A finger slip, a bug in a Windows update, or even a
| cosmic ray flipping the "do not upload" bit in memory, could
| all lead to the key being accidentally uploaded. And it's a
| silent failure: the security properties of the system have
| changed without any visible indication that it happened.
| tokyobreakfast wrote:
| >even a cosmic ray flipping the "do not upload" bit in memory
|
| Stats on this very likely scenario?
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| It's "HN-likely" which translates to "almost never" in
| reality.
| patja wrote:
| Especially since HN readers are more likely to be using
| ECC memory
| smegger001 wrote:
| if cosmic ray bit flips were so rare then ecc ram
| wouldn't be a thing.
| Sayrus wrote:
| ECC protects against more events than cosmic rays. Those
| events are much more likely, for instance
| magnetic/electric interferences or chip issues.
| wang_li wrote:
| In the 2010 era of RAM density, random bit flips were
| really uncommon. I worked with over a thousand systems
| which would report ECC errors when they happen and the
| only memorable events at all were actual DIMM failures.
|
| Also, around 1999-2000, Sun blamed cosmic rays for bit
| flips for random crashes with their UltraSPARC II CPU
| modules.
| mapontosevenths wrote:
| > actual DIMM failures.
|
| Yep, hardware failures, electrical glitches, EM
| interference... All things that actually happen to actual
| people every single day in truly enormous numbers.
|
| It ain't cosmic rays, but the consequences are still
| flipped bits.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Those random unexplainable events are also referred to
| casually as "cosmic rays"
| Supermancho wrote:
| Happens all the time, in reality (even on the darkside).
| When the atmosphere fails (again, happening all the
| time), error correction usually handles the errant bits.
| strbean wrote:
| > IBM estimated in 1996 that one error per month per 256
| MiB of RAM was expected for a desktop computer.
|
| From the wikipedia article on "Soft error", if anyone wants
| to extrapolate.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| That makes it vanishingly unlikely. On a 16GB RAM
| computer with that rate, you can expect 64 random bit
| flips per month.
|
| So roughly you could expect this happen roughly once
| every two hundred million years.
|
| Assuming there are about 2 billion Windows computers in
| use, that's about 10 computers a year that experience
| this bit flip.
| eszed wrote:
| > 10 computers a year experience this bit flip
|
| That's wildly more than I would have naively expected to
| experience a specific bit-flip. Wow!
| mapontosevenths wrote:
| Scale makes the uncommon common. Remember kids, if she's
| one in a million that means there are 11 of her in Ohio
| alone.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| ~800 bit flips per year per computer. 2 billion computers
| with 800 bit flips each is 1,600,000,000,000 (one point
| six trillion) bit flips.
|
| Big numbers are crazy.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| I saw a computer with 'system33', 'system34' folders
| personally. Also you would never actually know it
| happened because... it's not ECC. And with ECC memory we
| replace a RAM stick every two-three months explicitly
| because ECC error _count_ is too high.
| homebrewer wrote:
| Given enough computers, anything will happen. Apparently
| enough bit flips happen in domains (or their DNS
| resolution) that registering domains one bit away from the
| most popular ones (e.g. something like gnogle.com for
| google.com) might be worth it for bad actors. There was a
| story a few years ago, but I can't find it right now;
| perhaps someone will link it.
| pixl97 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT7mnSstKGs
|
| Was in DEFCON19.
| homebrewer wrote:
| Great, thanks. Here's a discussion on this site:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4800489
| lanyard-textile wrote:
| A very old game speedrun -- of the era that speedruns
| weren't really a "thing" like they are today --
| apparently greatly benefited from a hardware bit flip,
| and it was only recently discovered.
|
| Can't find an explanatory video though :(
| direwolf20 wrote:
| The Tick Tock Clock upwarp in Super Mario 64. All
| evidence that exists of it happening is a video
| recording. The most similar recording was generated by
| flipping a single bit in Mario's Y position, compared to
| other possibilities that were tested, such as warping
| Mario up to the closest ceiling directly above him.
| tavavex wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that while no one knows the cause
| definitively, many people agreed that the far more likely
| explanation for the bit change was a hardware fault
| (memory error, bad cartridge connection or something
| similar) or other, more powerful sources of interference.
| The player that recorded the upwarp had stated that they
| often needed to tilt the cartridge to get the game to
| run, showing that the connection had already degraded.
| The odds of it being caused by a cosmic ray single-event
| upset seem to be vanishingly low, especially since
| similar (but not identical) errors have already been
| recorded on the N64.
| drysine wrote:
| At google "more than 8% of DIMM memory modules were
| affected by errors per year" [0]
|
| More on the topic: Single-event upset[1]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECC_memory
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-event_upset
| Aloisius wrote:
| _> At google "more than 8% of DIMM memory modules were
| affected by errors per year"_
|
| That's all errors including permanent hardware failure,
| not just transient bit flips or from cosmic rays.
| gruez wrote:
| >A finger slip, a bug in a Windows update, or even a cosmic
| ray flipping the "do not upload" bit in memory, could all
| lead to the key being accidentally uploaded.
|
| This is absurd, because it's basically a generic argument
| about any sort of feature that vaguely reduces privacy. Sorry
| guys, we can't have automated backups in windows (even opt
| in!), because if the feature exists, a random bitflip can
| cause everything to be uploaded to microsoft against the
| user's will.
| salawat wrote:
| What part of "We can't have nice things" do you not
| understand?
| gruez wrote:
| The part where you're asking me about the phrase when
| it's not been used anywhere in this thread prior to your
| comment.
| redox99 wrote:
| Uploading your encryption keys is not just "any sort of
| feature".
| gruez wrote:
| You're right, it's less intrusive than uploading your
| files directly, like a backup does.
| lazide wrote:
| I'm still pissed about the third+ time one drive
| 'helpfully' backed up all my files after I disabled it.
|
| So that may not be a great example of you're trying to
| make people like Microsoft.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| On the contrary: a backup can be fully encrypted by a key
| under the user's control that isn't available to the
| storage provider.
| Aurornis wrote:
| If users are so paranoid that they worry about a cosmic ray
| bit flipping their computer into betraying them, they're
| probably not using a Microsoft account at all with their
| Windows PC.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| If your security requirements are such that you need to
| worry about legally-issued search warrants, you should not
| connect your computer to the internet. Especially if it's
| running Windows.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| In the modern political environment, everyone should be
| worried about that.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| In all political environments everyone should be worried
| about that. The social temperature can change rapidly and
| you generally can't force a third party to destroy copies
| of your things in a reliable manner.
| oskarw85 wrote:
| Because all cops are honest, all warrants are lawful and
| nothing worrying happens in the land of freedom right
| now.
| Terr_ wrote:
| And what's more, that perfect situation could _never_
| change in the future.
|
| Me-30-years-ago would have called today's government
| crimes and corruption an implausible fever dream.
| qmr wrote:
| Appeal to the law fallacy.
| zhengyi13 wrote:
| Right, this is just a variation on "If you have nothing
| to hide..."
|
| ETA: You're not wrong; folk who have specific, legitimate
| opsec concerns shouldn't be using certain tools. I just
| initially read your post a certain way. Apologies if it
| feels like I put words in your mouth.
| spixy wrote:
| and use ECC memory
| jollyllama wrote:
| There's a lot of sibling comments to mine here that are
| reading this literally, but instead, I would suggest the
| following reading: "I never selected that option!" "Huh, must
| have been a cosmic ray that uploaded your keys ;) Modern OS
| updates _never_ obliterate user-chosen configurations "
| hparadiz wrote:
| They just entirely ignore them instead.
| bobbob1921 wrote:
| This is correct, I also discovered while preparing several
| ThinkPads for a customer based on a Windows 11 image i made,
| that even if you have bitlocker disabled you may also need to
| check that hardware disk encryption is disabled as well (was
| enabled by default in my case). Although this is different
| from bitlocker in that the encryption key is stored in the
| TPM, it is something to be aware of as it may be unexpected.
| egorfine wrote:
| Oh, no accidents needed. Microsoft will soon forcibly extract
| and upload keys to their servers.
|
| Before you downvote, please entertain this one question: have
| you been able to predict that mandatory identification of
| online users under the guise of protecting children would
| literally be implemented in leading western countries in such
| a quick fashion? If you were, then upvote my comment instead
| because you know that will happen. If you couldn't even
| imagine this say in 2023 - then upvote my comment instead
| because neither you can imagine mandatory key extraction.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I can't believe it took this long.
|
| We have mandatory identification for all kinds of things
| that are illegal to purchase or engage in under a certain
| age. Nobody wants to prosecute 12 year old kids for lying
| when the clicked the "I am at least 13 years old" checkbox
| when registering an account. The only alternative is to do
| what we do with R-rated movies, alcohol, tobacco, firearms,
| risky physical activities (i.e. bungee jumping liability
| waiver) etc... we put the onus of verifying identification
| on the suppliers.
|
| I've always imagined this was inevitable.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| The problem is the implementation is hasty.
|
| When I go buy a beer at the gas station, all I do is show
| my ID to the cashier. They look at it to verify DOB and
| then that's it. No information is stored permanently in
| some database that's going to get hacked and leaked.
|
| We can't trust every private company that now has to
| verify age to not store that information with whatever
| questionable security.
|
| If we aren't going to do a national registry that
| services can query to get back only a "yes or no" on
| whether a user is of age or not, then we need regulation
| to prevent the storage of ID information.
|
| We should still be able to verify age while remaining
| psuedo-anonymous.
| xp84 wrote:
| We should easily be able to, but the problem of tech
| illiteracy is probably our main barrier. To build such a
| system you'd need to issue those credentials to the end
| users. Those users in turn would eagerly believe
| conspiracy theories that the digital ID system was
| actually stealing their data or making it available to
| MORE parties instead of fewer (compared to using those ID
| verification services we have today).
| criddell wrote:
| > When I go buy a beer at the gas station, all I do is
| show my ID to the cashier. They look at it to verify DOB
| and then that's it. No information is stored permanently
| in some database that's going to get hacked and leaked.
|
| Beer, sure. But if you buy certain decongestants, they do
| log your ID. At least that's the case in Texas.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > But if you buy certain decongestants, they do log your
| ID.
|
| Yeah, but many people don't actually think War on Drugs
| policies are a model for civil liberties that should be
| extended beyond that domain (or, in many cases, even
| tolerated _in_ that domain.) That policy has been
| effective, I guess, in promoting the sales of alternative
| "decongestants" (that don 't actually work), though it
| did little to curb use and harms from the drugs it was
| supposed to control by attacking supply.
| trashface wrote:
| In PA they scan your ID if you buy beer. There could be a
| full digital record of all my beer purchases for past 15+
| years, although I'm not aware of any aggregation of this
| data that is happening. Not that I expect anyone doing it
| would talk about it.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If we aren't going to do a national registry that
| services can query to get back only a "yes or no" on
| whether a user is of age or not
|
| And note that if we are, the records of the request to
| that database are an even bigger privacy timebomb than
| those of any given provider, just waiting for malicious
| actors with access to government records.
| tzs wrote:
| > If we aren't going to do a national registry that
| services can query to get back only a "yes or no" on
| whether a user is of age or not, then we need regulation
| to prevent the storage of ID information.
|
| Querying a national registry is not good because the
| timing of the queries could be matched up with the timing
| of site logins to possibly figure out the identities of
| anonymous site users.
|
| A way to address this, at the cost of requiring the user
| to have secure hardware such as a smart phone or a smart
| card or a hardware security token or similar is for your
| government to issue you signed identity documents that
| you store and that are bound cryptographically to your
| secure hardware.
|
| A zero knowledge protocol can later be used between your
| secure hardware and the site you are trying to use that
| proves to the site you have ID that says you are old
| enough and it is bound to your hardware without revealing
| anything else from your ID to the site.
|
| This is what the EU had been developing for a few years.
| It is currently undergoing a series of large scale field
| trials, with release to the public later this year, with
| smart phones as the initial secure hardware. Member
| starts will be required to support it, and any mandatory
| age verification laws they pass will require sites to
| support it (they can also support other methods).
|
| All the specs are open and the reference implementations
| are also open source, so other jurisdictions could adopt
| this.
|
| Google has released an open source library for a similar
| system. I don't know if it is compatible with the EU
| system or not.
|
| I think Apple's new Digital ID feature in Wallet is also
| similar.
|
| We really need to get advocacy groups that are lobbying
| on age verification bills to try to make it so when the
| bills are passed (and they will be) they at least allow
| sites to support some method like those described above,
| and ideally require sites to do so.
| teepo wrote:
| Depending on the gas station... I've been to at least a
| dozen in Texas where the clerk scanned the back of my DL
| for proof of age. I'm assuming that something is getting
| stored somewhere..
| zdragnar wrote:
| I definitely don't disagree that the implementation is
| problematic, I'm just surprised it took this long for it
| to happen.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _When I go buy a beer at the gas station, all I do is
| show my ID to the cashier. They look at it to verify DOB
| and then that 's it. No information is stored permanently
| in some database that's going to get hacked and leaked._
|
| That's how it _should_ be, but it 's not how it _is_.
| Many places now scan your ID into their computer (the
| computer which, btw, tracks everything you buy). It may
| not go to a government database (yet) but it 's most
| certainly being stored.
| egorfine wrote:
| > We should still be able to verify age while remaining
| psuedo-anonymous.
|
| That would completely defeat the purpose. The goal is to
| identify online users, not protect children.
| tavavex wrote:
| I don't think that's quite right. The age-gating of the
| internet is part of a brand new push, it's not just
| patching up a hole in an existing framework. At least in
| my Western country, all age-verified activities were
| things that could've put someone in direct, obvious
| danger - drugs, guns, licensing for something that could
| be dangerous, and so on. In the past, the 'control' of
| things that were just information was illusory. Movie
| theaters have policies not to let kids see high-rated
| movies, but they're not strictly legally required to do
| so. Video game stores may be bound by agreements or
| policy not to sell certain games to children, but these
| barriers were self-imposed, not driven by law.
| Pornography has really been the only exception I can
| think of. So, demanding age verification to be able to
| access large swaths of the internet (in some cases
| including things as broad as social media, and similar)
| is a huge expansion on what was in the past, instead of
| just them closing up some loopholes.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| The problem is that there is nothing done to protect
| privacy.
|
| There is already plenty of entities that not only have
| reliable way of proving it's you that have access to
| account, but also enough info to return user's age
| without disclosing anything else, like banks or govt
| sites, they could (or better, be forced to) provide
| interface to that data.
|
| Basically "pick your identity provider" -> "auth on their
| site" -> "step showing that only age will be shared" ->
| response with user's age and the query's unique ID that's
| not related to the user account id
| zdragnar wrote:
| I don't disagree that the implementation is all kinds of
| wrong. I'm just surprised it took them this long to
| compel it.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| It would make me a lot less angry if Microsoft didn't go out of
| their way to force people to use a Microsoft account of course.
| postalcoder wrote:
| I'm not sure how to do this on Windows, but to disable
| FileVault cloud key backup on Mac, go to `Settings > Users &
| Groups > click on the (i) tooltip next to your account` and
| uncheck "Allow user to reset password using Apple Account".
|
| This is a part of Settings that you will never see at a passing
| glance, so it's easy to forget that you may have it on.
|
| I'd also like to gently push back against the cynicism
| expressed about having a feature like this. There are more
| people who benefit from a feature like this than not. They're
| more likely thinking "I forgot my password and I want to get
| the pictures of my family back" than fully internalizing the
| principles and practices of self custody - one of which is that
| if you lose your keys, you lose everything.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Or use a local account to login ?
| dcrazy wrote:
| I'm not sure if you misunderstand how macOS accounts work
| or how FileVault works.
|
| There are two ways to log into macOS: a local user account
| or an LDAP (e.g. OpenDirectory, Active Directory) account.
| Either of these types of accounts may be associated with an
| iCloud account. macOS doesn't work like Windows where your
| Microsoft account _is_ your login credential for the local
| machine.
|
| FileVault key escrow is something you can enable when
| enabling FileVault, usually during initial machine setup.
| You must be logged into iCloud (which happens in a previous
| step of the Setup Assistant) and have iCloud Keychain
| enabled. The key that wraps the FileVault volume encryption
| key will be stored in your iCloud Keychain, which is end-
| to-end encrypted with a key that Apple does not have access
| to.
|
| If you are locked out of your FileVault-encrypted laptop
| (e.g. your local user account has been deleted or its
| password has been changed, and therefore you cannot provide
| the key to decrypt the volume encryption key), you can
| instead provide your iCloud credentials, which will use the
| wrapping key stored in escrow to decrypt the volume
| encryption key. This will get you access to the drive so
| you can copy data off or restore your local account
| credentials.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > There are two ways to log into macOS: a local user
| account or an LDAP (e.g. OpenDirectory, Active Directory)
| account.
|
| And just in case it wasn't clear enough, I'd add: a local
| user account is standard. The only way you'd end up with
| an LDAP account is if you're in an organization that
| deliberately set your computer up for networked login;
| it's not a typical configuration, nor is it a component
| used by iCloud.
| vik0 wrote:
| You can always count on someone coming along and defending the
| multi-trillion dollar corporation that just so happens to take
| a screenshot of your screen every few seconds (among many, many
| - too many other things)
| patja wrote:
| Are you referring to Microsoft Recall? My understanding is
| that is opt-in and only stored locally.
| parliament32 wrote:
| Stored locally.. until it's uploaded by OneDrive or Windows
| Backup?
| Aurornis wrote:
| Sorry to interrupt the daily rage session with some neutral
| facts about how Windows and the law work.
|
| > that just so happens to take a screenshot of your screen
| every few seconds
|
| Recall is off by default. You have to go turn it on if you
| want it.
| dns_snek wrote:
| It only became off by default after those "daily rage
| sessions" created sufficient public pressure to turn them
| off.
|
| Microsoft also happens to own LinkedIn which conveniently
| "forgets" all of my privacy settings every time I decide to
| review them (about once a year) and discover that they had
| been toggled back to the privacy-invasive value without my
| knowledge. This has happened several times over the years.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Microsoft doesn't take the screenshot; their operating system
| does if Recall is enabled, and although the screenshots
| themselves are stored in an insecure format and location,
| Microsoft doesn't get them by default.
| gruez wrote:
| Yes, because object level facts matter, and it's
| intellectually dishonest to ignore the facts and go straight
| into analyzing which side is the most righteous, like:
|
| >Microsoft is an evil corporation, so we must take all bad
| stories about them at face value. You're not some corpo
| bootlicker, now, are you? Now, in unrelated news, I heard
| Pfizer, another evil corporation with a dodgy history[1] is
| insisting their vaccines are safe...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer#Legal_issues
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| I big demographic of HN users are people who want to be the
| multi-trillion dollar corporation so it's not too surprising.
| In this case though I think they are right. And I'm a big
| time Microsoft hater.
| dijit wrote:
| The defenders of Microsoft are right?
|
| How?
|
| There _is no point_ locking your laptop with a passphrase
| if that passphrase is thrown around.
|
| Sure, maybe some thief can't get access, but they
| _probably_ can if they can convince Microsoft to hand over
| the key.
|
| Microsoft should not have the key, thats part of the whole
| point of FDE; nobody can access your drive except you.
|
| The cost of this is that if you lose your key: you also
| lose the data.
|
| We have trained users about this for a decade, there have
| been countless dialogues explaining this, even if we were
| dumber than we were (we're not, despite what we're being
| told: users just have fatigue from over stimulation due to
| shitty UX everywhere); then it's still a bad default.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| This happens everywhere. There is a reason there are memes
| about people defending multi-billion dollar corporations.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A ... Then, years later
| every one acts like Snowden had some big reveal.
|
| There is the old password for candy bar study:
| https://blog.tmb.co.uk/passwords-for-chocolate
|
| Do users care? I would posit that the bulk of them do not,
| because they just dont see how it applies to them, till they
| run into some type of problem.
| mcmcmc wrote:
| AI enshittification is irrelevant here. Why is someone
| pointing out that sensible secure defaults are a good thing
| suddenly defending the entire company?
| ChromaticPanic wrote:
| Uploading your encryption keys up to someone else's machine
| is not a sensible default
| crazygringo wrote:
| It generally is, because in the vast majority of cases
| users will not keep a local copy and will lose their
| data.
|
| Most (though not all) users are looking for encryption to
| protect their data from a thief who steals their laptop
| and who could extract their passwords, banking info, etc.
| Not from the government using a warrant in a criminal
| investigation.
|
| If you're one of the subset of people worried about the
| government, you're generally not using default options.
| ChromaticPanic wrote:
| For laptops sure, but then those are not reasons for it
| to be default on desktops too. Are most Windows users on
| laptops? I highly doubt that. So it is not a sensible
| default.
| Xss3 wrote:
| Most pc users are using laptops, yes. Above 60%.
|
| Even offices usually give people laptops over desktops so
| that they can bring it to meetings.
| dijit wrote:
| > It generally is, because in the vast majority of cases
| users will not keep a local copy and will lose their
| data.
|
| What's the equivalent of thinking users are this stupid?
|
| I seem to recall that the banks repeatedly tell me _not_
| to share my PIN number with anyone, including (and
| especially) bank staff.
|
| I'm told not to share _images_ of my house keys on the
| internet, let alone handing them to the government or
| whathaveyou.
|
| Yet for some unknown reason _everyone_ should send their
| disk encryption keys to one of the largest companies in
| the world (largely outside of legal jurisdiction),
| because _they_ _themselves_ can 't be trusted.
|
| Bear in mind that with a(ny) TPM chip, you don't need to
| _remember_ anything.
|
| Come off it mate. You're having a laugh aren't you?
| paulpauper wrote:
| VeraCrypt exists for this reason or other open source programs.
| Why would you ever trust encryption to closed source?
| Hizonner wrote:
| The "reasonable default" is to force the user to actually make
| the choice, probably after forcing the user to prove they
| understand the implications.
| x0x0 wrote:
| I don't think there's a good answer here.
|
| Users absolutely 100% will lose their password and recovery
| key and not understand that even if the bytes are on a desk
| physically next to you, they are gone. Gone baby gone.
|
| In university, I helped a friend set up encryption on a drive
| w/ his work after a pen drive with work on it was stolen. He
| insisted he would not lose the password. We went through the
| discussion of "this is real encryption. If you lose the
| password, you may as well have wiped the files. It is not in
| any way recoverable. I need you to understand this."
|
| 6 weeks is all it took him.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| Apple gives users the choice during set up assistant, no
| reason Microsoft can't.
| knollimar wrote:
| I bet he learned a valuable lesson
| Melatonic wrote:
| Exactly. And any halfway decent corporate IT setup would be
| managing the keys themselves as well (although I would imagine
| many third party tools could also be compelled to do this with
| a proper warrant)
|
| Bitlocker on by default (even if Microsoft does have the keys
| and complies with warrants) is still a hell if a lot better
| than the old default of no encryption. At least some rando
| can't steal your laptop, pop out the HDD, and take whatever
| data they want.
| riversflow wrote:
| > you have no choice but to give it to them
|
| There is always a choice.
| drnick1 wrote:
| > Any power users who prefer their own key management should
| follow the steps to enable Bitlocker without uploading keys to
| a connected Microsoft account.
|
| The real issue is that you can't be sure that the keys aren't
| uploaded even if you opt out.
|
| At this point, the only thing that can restore trust in
| Microsoft is open sourcing Windows.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > The real issue is that you can't be sure that the keys
| aren't uploaded even if you opt out.
|
| The fully security conscious option is to not link a
| Microsoft account at all.
|
| I just did a Windows 11 install on a workstation (Windows
| mandatory for some software) and it was really easy to set up
| without a Microsoft account.
| vanviegen wrote:
| And how do you know the keys are never uploaded if you
| don't have an account?
| jjnoakes wrote:
| The same way you know that your browser session secrets,
| bank account information, crypto private keys, and other
| sensitive information is never uploaded. That is to say,
| you don't, really - you have to partially trust Microsoft
| and partially rely on folks that do black-box testing,
| network analysis, decompilation, and other investigative
| techniques on closed-source software.
| criddell wrote:
| Air gap the machine.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Last time I needed to install Windows 11, avoiding making a
| Microsoft account required (1) opening a command line to
| run `oobe/bypassnro`, and (2) skipping past the wifi config
| screen. While these are quick steps, neither of those are
| at all "easy", since they require a user to first know that
| it is an option in the first place.
|
| And newer builds of Windows 11 are removing these methods,
| to force use of a Microsoft account. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/10/07/microsoft-
| confirms-...
| zyx321 wrote:
| By selecting Domain Join, which is available on
| Professional edition and above.
| epistasis wrote:
| > it was really easy to set up without a Microsoft account.
|
| By "really easy" do you mean you had a checkbox? Or "really
| easy" in that there's a secret sequence of key presses at
| one point during setup? Or was it the domain join method?
|
| Googling around, I'm not sure any of the methods could be
| described as "really easy" since it takes a lot of
| knowledge to do it.
| catchmost wrote:
| I recently had to install Windows for the first time in
| ages because reasons, and it really wasn't very hard. The
| setup really just presents two options at a time: the
| cloudy option, and the other option. If in doubt, the
| flashy one is the cloudy one. I kept selecting the non
| cloudy option and got to the desktop without signing up
| for anything. Sure it took more clicking than last time I
| went through this, but really wasn't nearly as bad as
| people say and didn't take any windows know-how or
| googling. Might be very different between editions and
| regions though...
|
| Edit: ofc we all agree local accounts needs to be a
| supported option, but perhaps we should be more careful
| about yelling from the rooftops that it's practically
| impossible. I've been told for years now that it's really
| hard or impossible, and it really was not that hard
| (yet...)
| epistasis wrote:
| You're a bit vague here, but I'm 99% sure such options
| were not available when I installed Win 11 a few months
| ago.
|
| Chastising people about "yelling" is not really an
| appropriate thing to say here.
| g947o wrote:
| > It protects their data in the event that someone steals the
| laptop, but still allows them to recover their own data later
| from the hard drive.
|
| False. If you only put the keys on the Microsoft account, and
| Microsoft closes your account for whatever reason, you are
| done.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't forcing you to divulge your
| encryption password compelled speech? So the police can crack
| my phone but they can't force me to tell them my PIN.
| fn-mote wrote:
| In the US.
|
| But this is irrelevant to the argument made above, right?
| dcrazy wrote:
| Warrants are a mechanism by which speech is legally
| compelled.
|
| The 5th Amendment gives you the right to refuse speech that
| might implicate you in a crime. It doesn't protect Microsoft
| from being compelled to provide information that may
| implicate one of its customers in a crime.
| salawat wrote:
| Indeed. Third Party Doctrine has undermined 4th/5th
| Amendment protections due to the hair brained power grab
| that was "if you share info with a third party as art of
| the only way of doing business, you waive 4th Amendment
| protections. I ironically, Boomers basically knee-capped
| Constitutional protections for the very data most
| critically in need of protection in a network state.
|
| Only fix is apparently waiting until enough for to cram
| through an Amendment/set a precedent to fix it.
| qingcharles wrote:
| Well, SCOTUS has ummed and erred over several cases about
| whether to extend the 4th Amend to third party data in
| some scenarios. IIRC there is an online email case
| working up through 9th Cir right now?
|
| One of the reasons giving for (usually) now requiring a
| warrant to open your phone they grab from you is because
| of the amount of third-party data you can access through
| it, although IIRC they framed is a regular 4th Amend
| issue by saying if you had a security camera inside your
| house the police would be bypassing the warrant
| requirement by seeing directly into your abode.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| They can't force you to tell them your PIN in some countries,
| but they can try all PINs, and they can search your desk
| drawer to find the post-it where you wrote your PIN.
| qingcharles wrote:
| They can also hold you in a jail cell until the end of time
| until you give it up, in many places.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Good PINs are ones you're not allowed to brute force. You
| can easily configure an iPhone to wipe itself after too
| many wrong guesses. There's a single checkbox labeled
| "Erase Data", saying "Erase all data on this iPhone after
| 10 failed passcode attempts."
|
| You bet I have that enabled.
| fylo wrote:
| My toddler would wipe my phone with that on
| kstrauser wrote:
| We each have our own threat models. Toddlers are high on
| that list, to be sure.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| Yes, _you_ cannot be compelled to testify against yourself,
| but Microsoft is under no such obligation when served a
| warrant because of third party doctrine. Microsoft holding
| bitlocker recovery keys is considered you voluntarily giving
| the information to a third party, so the warrant isn 't
| compelling _you_ to do anything, so not a rights violation.
|
| But, the 5th amendment is also why its important to not rely
| on biometrics. Generally (there are some gray areas) in the
| US you cannot be compelled to give up your password, but
| biometrics are viewed as physical evidence and not protected
| by the 5th.
| nly wrote:
| In the UK they can jail you just for not providing an
| encryption key
| matja wrote:
| RIPA 2000 part III section 49
| mmh0000 wrote:
| In theory...
|
| In practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_re_Boucher
|
| The government gets what the government wants.
| kypro wrote:
| I think this is a fair position and believe you're making it in
| good faith, but I can't help but disagree.
|
| I think the reasonable default here would be to not upload to
| MS severs without explicit consent about what that means in
| practise. I suspect if you actually asked the average person if
| they're okay with MS having access to all of the data on their
| device (including browser history, emails, photos) they'd
| probably say no if they could.
|
| Maybe I'm wrong though... I admit I have a bad theory of mind
| when it comes to this stuff because I struggle to understand
| why people don't value privacy more.
| armada651 wrote:
| > If your company has data that the police want and they can
| get a warrant, you have no choice but to give it to them.
|
| They can fight the warrant, if you don't at least object to it
| then "giving the keys away" is not an incorrect
| characterization.
| plagiarist wrote:
| This is my thought also. So they're only holding the keys to
| prevent anyone from whining about lost data, they don't
| actually want to be responsible.
| mistercheph wrote:
| Yeah guys, if it's encrypted by default, it's not a violation
| of user security or privacy expectations to have a set of
| master keys that you hold onto and give to third parties to
| decrypt user devices. I mean it was just encrypted by
| default... by default...
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > Any power users who prefer their own key management should
| follow the steps to enable Bitlocker without uploading keys to
| a connected Microsoft account.
|
| Except the steps to to that are disable bitlocker, create a
| local user account (assuming you initially signed in with a
| Microsoft account because Ms now forces it on you for home
| editions of windows), delete your existing keys from OneDrive,
| then re-encrypt using your local account and make sure not to
| sign into your Microsoft account or link it to Windows again.
|
| A much more sensible default would be to give the user a choice
| right from the beginning much like how Apple does it. When you
| go through set up assistant on mac, it doesn't assume you are
| an idiot and literally asks you up front "Do you want to store
| your recovery key in iCloud or not?"
| modeless wrote:
| They don't do that for iMessage though...
| https://james.darpinian.com/blog/apple-imessage-encryption
| thewebguyd wrote:
| Only because others you communicate with may not have ADP
| turned on, which is a flaw with any service that you cannot
| control what the other end does or does not do, not unique
| to Apple/iMessage outside of using something like Signal.
| modeless wrote:
| Most other E2EE messaging services do not break their own
| E2EE by intentionally uploading messages or encryption
| keys to servers owned by the same company in a form that
| they can read. For example, Google's Messages app does
| not do this for E2EE conversations. This isn't something
| that only Signal cares about.
| dgrunwald wrote:
| > make sure not to sign into your Microsoft account or link
| it to Windows again
|
| That's not so easy. Microsoft tries really hard to get you to
| use a Microsoft account. For example, logging into MS Teams
| will automatically link your local account with the Microsoft
| account, thus starting the automatic upload of all kinds of
| stuff unrelated to MS Teams.
|
| In the past I also had Edge importing Firefox data (including
| stored passwords) without me agreeing to do so, and then
| uploading those into the Cloud.
|
| Nowadays you just need to assume that all data on Windows
| computers is available to Microsoft; even if you temporarily
| find a way to keep your data out of their hands, an update
| will certainly change that.
| LtdJorge wrote:
| Teams inside a VM it is, then.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| It's not just Teams. You need to be constantly vigilant
| not to make any change that would let them link your MS
| account to Windows. And they make it more and more
| difficult not only to install but also use Windows
| without a Microsoft account. I think they'll also enforce
| it on everybody eventually.
| prmoustache wrote:
| You need to just stop using windows and that's it.
|
| The only windows I am using is the one my company makes
| me use but I don't do anything personal on it. I have my
| personal computer next to it in my office running on
| linux.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| Or: Put all of Windows inside of a VM, within a host that
| uses disk encryption -- and let it run amok inside of its
| sandbox.
|
| I did this myself for about 8 years, from 2016-2024.
| During that time my desktop system at home was running
| Linux with ZFS and libvirt, with Windows in a VM. That
| Windows VM was my usual day-to-day interface for the
| entire system. It was rocky at first, but things did get
| substantially better as time moved on. I'll do it again
| if I have a compelling reason to.
| theLiminator wrote:
| Yes, they push the MS account stuff very hard. I've found
| Windows so actively hostile to the user that I basically
| only use Linux now.
|
| I used to be a windows user, it has really devolved to the
| point where it's easier for me to use Linux (though I'm
| technical). I really feel for the people who aren't
| technical and are forced to endure the crap that windows
| pushes on users now.
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| > actively hostile
|
| That's the real problem MS has. It's becoming a meme how
| bad the relationship between the user and windows is.
| It's going to cause generational damage to their company
| just so they can put ads in the start menu.
| josephg wrote:
| It's a pity for Apple that they keep making macOS worse
| with each major update. Modern Apple hardware running
| snow leopard would be a thing of beauty.
|
| At this rate, my next laptop might end up being a
| framework running Linux.
| seemaze wrote:
| I switched from Windows to Mac 15 years ago. It was a
| revelation when the terrible habits of verbally abusing
| my computer and anxiety saving files every 22 seconds
| just evaporated.
|
| Those old habits have been creeping back lately through
| all the various *OS 26 updates. I too now have Linux on
| Framework. Not perfect, but so much better for my
| wellbeing.
| b112 wrote:
| Maoboro cigarettes uaed to be for women, including red
| tipped filters to hide lipstick marks. Sales waned, so
| they actually rebranded the cigarette for men, and even
| succeeded in making it a definition of manliness.
|
| Advertising stories like that, make sure M$ execs could
| care less about damage to their image.
|
| Especially when profit leers its head.
|
| (at least, I presume?!?)
| to11mtm wrote:
| It is sad that we got to here from when the worst problem
| was a tile start menu (I liked 8.1 and it ran good on
| fairly trash hardware.)
| xp84 wrote:
| Do we have confirmation that it's a must to upload the key
| if you use an MS account with Windows? Is it proven that
| it's not possible to configure Windows to have an MS
| account linked, maybe even to use OneDrive, while not
| uploading the BitLocker key?
|
| Btw - my definition of "possible" would include anything
| possible in the UI - but if you have to edit the registry
| or do shenanigans in the filesystem to disable the upload
| from happening, I would admit that it's basically
| mandatory.
| ls612 wrote:
| I just checked on my personal desktop, which has Windows
| 11 installed using a local user account and is signed
| into my MS account for OneDrive and my account is listed
| as having no recovery codes in the cloud. I don't recall
| editing anything in the registry to accomplish this it
| was the default behavior for having a local user account.
| I copied my recovery codes when I built the machine and
| pasted them into an E2EE iPhone note which should allow
| me to recover my machine if disaster strikes (also
| everything is backed up to Backblaze using their client
| side encryption).
| replyifuagree wrote:
| > logging into MS Teams
|
| I mean, this is one application nobody should ever log
| into!
| IAmBroom wrote:
| That's nice.
|
| I, however, like getting my paycheck, and so I have no
| choice.
| spockz wrote:
| Of course. But I suppose you run Teams on a company
| provided/managed, or at least paid for by the company,
| device?
|
| Just don't use that machine for anything private.
|
| Is anyone using their private devices for work? (Also
| there is teams for Linux and on the web, if that is not
| prevented by the policy of your org.)
| klardotsh wrote:
| In the startup world, BYOD is/was exceedingly common. All
| but two jobs of my career were happy to allow me to use
| my own Linux laptop and eschew whatever they were
| otherwise going to give me.
|
| Obviously enterprises aren't commonly BYOD shops, but
| SMBs and startups certainly can be.
|
| ... whether the people who would do such BYOD things are
| at all likely to be Windows users who care about this
| Bitlocker issue, is a different debate entirely.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Then the founders do something really stupid, and the law
| decides that your equipment may be evidence.
|
| Unless you're a founder, you should always use company
| provided equipment.
| layer8 wrote:
| That means you'll do that on the work machine provided by
| your employer, not on your personal machine.
| plaguuuuuu wrote:
| teams works fine in website form for me because it IS a
| website (that uses an extra ~1gb of ram running as a
| desktop app because its also a separate browser)
| shawnz wrote:
| Why would you need to create a local account? You can just
| not choose to store the keys in your Microsoft account during
| BitLocker setup: https://www.diskpart.com/screenshot/en/other
| s/windows-11/win...
|
| Admittedly, the risks of choosing this option are not clearly
| laid out, but the way you are framing it also isn't accurate
| shakna wrote:
| All "Global Reader" accounts have
| "microsoft.directory/bitlockerKeys/key/read" permission.
|
| Whether you opt in, or not, if you connect your account to
| Microsoft, then they do have the ability fetch the
| bitlocker key, if the account is not local only. [0] Global
| Reader is builtin to everything +365.
|
| [0] https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/entra-
| docs/commit/2364d8da9...
| crazygringo wrote:
| They're Microsoft and it's Windows. They always have the
| _ability_ to fetch the key.
|
| The question is _do_ they ever fetch and transmit it if
| you opt out?
|
| The expected answer would be no. Has anyone shown
| otherwise? Because hypotheticals that they _could_ are
| not useful.
| lazide wrote:
| Considering all the shenanigans Microsoft has been up to
| with windows 11 and various privacy, advertising, etc.
| stuff?
|
| Hell, all the times they keep enabling one drive despite
| it being really clear I don't want it, and then uploading
| stuff to the cloud that I don't want?
|
| I have zero trust for Microsoft now, and not much better
| for them in the past either.
| cyberax wrote:
| This is for the _ActiveDirectory_. If your machine is
| joined into a domain, the keys will be stored in the AD.
|
| This does not apply to standalone devices. MS doesn't
| have a magic way to reach into your laptop and pluck the
| keys.
| riskable wrote:
| > MS doesn't have a magic way to reach into your laptop
| and pluck the keys.
|
| Of course they do! They can just create a Windows Update
| that does it. They have full administrative access to
| every single PC running Windows in this way.
| shawnz wrote:
| Furthermore it seems like it's specific to _Azure_ AD,
| and I 'm guessing it probably only has effect if you
| enable to option to back up the keys to AD in the first
| place, which is not mandatory
|
| I'd be curious to see a conclusive piece of documentation
| about this, though
| cyberax wrote:
| Regular AD also has this feature, you can store the
| encryption keys in the domain controller. I don't think
| it's turned on by default, but you can do that with a
| group policy update.
| gruez wrote:
| >Except the steps to to that are disable bitlocker, create a
| local user account (assuming you initially signed in with a
| Microsoft account because Ms now forces it on you for home
| editions of windows), delete your existing keys from
| OneDrive, then re-encrypt using your local account and make
| sure not to sign into your Microsoft account or link it to
| Windows again.
|
| 1. Is there any indication it forcibly uploads your recovery
| keys to microsoft if you're signed into a microsoft account?
| Looking at random screenshots, it looks like it presents you
| an option https://helpdeskgeek.com/wp-
| content/pictures/2022/12/how-to-...
|
| 2. I'm pretty sure you don't have to decrypt and rencrypt the
| entire drive. The actual key used for encrypting data is
| never revealed, even if you print or save a recovery key.
| Instead, it generates a "protectors", which encrypts the
| actual key using the recovery key, then stores the encrypted
| version on the drive. If you remove a recovery method (ie.
| protector), the associated recovery key becomes immediately
| useless. Therefore if your recovery keys were backed up to
| microsoft and you want to opt out, all you have to do is
| remove the protector.
| fpoling wrote:
| With Bitlocker it is still possible to have single password-
| based key. But enabling that requires to enter a few commands
| on the command line.
| lazide wrote:
| And you can be sure it didn't add a 'recovery' key, how?
| pnw wrote:
| You can turn it off without resorting to a local account,
| although it's non-obvious.
|
| GPEdit -> Computer Configuration - Administrative Templates -
| Windows Components - BitLocker Drive Encryption - Operating
| System Drives - "Choose how BitLocker-protected operating
| system drives can be recovered"
|
| Repeat for other drives.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| That would be all well and good if any of this was communicated
| to the user.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| To be fair, if they didn't have BitLocker enabled at all, the
| FBI would have just scanned the hard-drive as-is. The only
| usefulness of BitLocker is if a stranger steals your laptop,
| assuming Microsoft doesn't hand out the keys to just anybody,
| your files should be safe, in theory.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Power users should stop bothering with Windows nonsense and
| install Linux instead so that they can actually have control
| over their system.
|
| It's 2026. The abuses of corporations are well documented.
| Anyone who still chooses Windows of their own volition is quite
| literally asking for it and they deserve everything that
| happens to them.
| SmellTheGlove wrote:
| I'll bite. What Linux distro currently has the nicest desktop
| experience? I work on a MacBook but my desktop is a windows
| PC that I use for gaming and personal projects. I hear Proton
| has made the former pretty good now, and the latter is mostly
| in WSL for me anyway. Maybe a good time to try.
|
| What do you suggest? I'll try it in a VM or live usb.
| amitav1 wrote:
| Something with KDE. Never used KDE extensively because I
| hate non-tiling WMs, but something like Kubuntu would give
| you a more windows-esque experience by default. Here's the
| download link:
|
| https://kubuntu.org/download/
|
| Bon appetit!
| andai wrote:
| I don't use KDE either, but it does seem to be the most
| Windows adjacent choice. Unless you like very old
| versions of Windows in which case you may prefer XFCE
| like me (Xubuntu or the xfce variant of Linux mint).
|
| I heard Kubuntu is not a great distro for KDE, but I
| can't comment on that personally.
| mmh0000 wrote:
| That's literally like asking "What car has the best driving
| experience?". There is no one answer.
|
| If you want something that "just works," Linux Mint[1] is a
| great starting point. That gets you into Linux without any
| headache. Then, later when bored, you can branch out into
| the thousands[2] of Linux distributions that fill every
| possible niche
|
| [1] https://linuxmint.com/
|
| [2] https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| I would never, recommend anything from Debian-family for
| consumer use. Its literally outdated linux, under the
| marketing 'stable'.
|
| Fedora is so significantly better.
|
| I wouldn't confuse popularity for good. Ubuntu gave away
| free CDs in the 2000s and are living off old marketing.
|
| Debian family is so bad. You will be in the terminal
| constantly just trying to get stuff to work. Stick to a
| well maintained, up to date, consumer distro, Fedora.
|
| (reminder that Fedora is Not Arch)
| jbstack wrote:
| There are so many distros that it really depends on your
| use-case and it's hard to make a generic suggestion. Ubuntu
| is a common recommendation for first timers, mainly because
| as the most popular distro you'll easily be able to Google
| when you need help with something, and it also uses the
| most popular package format (.deb). There's also Linux Mint
| which is basically Ubuntu but with some of the latter's
| more questionable choices removed (e.g. snaps) and minus
| the big corp owner. By using one of these you'll also be
| learning skills relevant to Debian (which Ubuntu is derived
| from) which is a solid choice for servers.
|
| Regardless of which distro you choose, your "desktop
| experience" will be mostly based on what desktop
| environment you pick, and you are free to switch between
| them regardless of distro. Ubuntu for example provides
| various installers that come with different DEs installed
| by default (they call them "flavours":
| https://ubuntu.com/desktop/flavors), but you can also just
| switch them after installation. I say "mostly" because some
| distros will also customise the DE a bit, so you might find
| some differences.
|
| "Nicest desktop experience" is also too generic to really
| give a proper suggestion. There are DEs which aim to be
| modern and slick (e.g. GNOME, KDE Plasma, Cinnamon),
| lightweight (LXQt), or somewhere in between (Xfce). For
| power users there's a multitude of tiling window managers
| (where you control windows with a keyboard). Popular
| choices there are i3/sway or, lately, Niri. All of these
| are just examples, there are plenty more DEs / WMs to pick
| from.
|
| Overall my suggestion would be to start with something
| straightforward (Mint would probably be my first choice
| here), try all the most popular DEs and pick the one you
| like, then eventually (months or years later) switch to a
| more advanced distro once you know more what your goals are
| and how you want to use the system. For example I'm in the
| middle of migrating to NixOS because I want a fully
| declarative system which gives the freedom to experiment
| without breaking your system because you can switch between
| different temporary environments or just rollback to
| previous generations. But I definitely wouldn't have been
| ready for that at the outset as it's way more complex than
| a more traditional distro.
| taberiand wrote:
| If you're a developer, try NixOS. The code based
| configuration can be daunting but LLMs are very good at
| writing it.
| jbstack wrote:
| Not sure it's good as a starter distro, but other than
| that I agree. I was put off NixOS for a long time despite
| loving the principles behind it. Then a few weeks ago I
| had ChatGPT give me a short course on it, including
| flakes and the basics of the Nix language. I completed
| that in a few hours and achieved more than I ever had
| reading the Nix docs and blogs etc. Now I'm able to use
| an LLM to help me write flakes while also understanding
| what it is doing (I'm not a fan of blindly using AI
| generated code).
| taberiand wrote:
| That's what I'm getting at - the nixos learning curve is
| flattened out completely with LLMs to the point that I do
| recommend it as a starter distro for anyone technically
| competent (as it's still crucial to actually read and
| understand what the LLM produces)
| amlib wrote:
| If you want maximum commodity and as many things to "just
| work" as possible out of the box, go for good old plain
| Ubuntu.
|
| If you care a little more about your privacy and is willing
| to sacrifice some commodity, go for Fedora. It's community
| run and fairly robust. You may have issues with media
| codecs, nvidia drivers and few other wrinkles though. The
| "workstation" flavor is the most mature, but you may want
| to give the KDE version a try.
|
| If you want an adventure, try everything else people are
| recommending here :)
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| For gaming I suggest a Steam Deck. I love mine, it's an
| awesome Linux device. Not locked down either.
| jbstack wrote:
| You only have to run through a modern Windows installer to
| understand how screwed you are if you install it. Last time I
| did this for a disposable Windows VM (a couple of years ago)
| I remember having to click through a whole bunch of prompts
| asking about all the different types of data Microsoft wanted
| my computer to send them. Often the available answers weren't
| "yes" or "no" but more like "share all data" vs "share just
| some data". After that I recall being forced to sign up for
| an outlook account just to create a local login unless I
| unplugged my network cable during the install. I've heard
| they have closed that loophole in recent installers.
|
| I'd already long since migrated away from Windows but if I'd
| been harbouring any lingering doubts, that was enough to
| remove them.
| joering2 wrote:
| > you have no choice but to give it to them
|
| Will they shoot me in head?
|
| What if I truly forgot the password to my encrypted drive? Will
| they also shoot me in the head?
| qingcharles wrote:
| Do they need to actually shoot you? Have you had a loaded gun
| pressed to your head and asked for your password?
|
| What about your wife's head? Your kids' heads?
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Doesn't windows 11 force you to use a Microsoft account
| bilekas wrote:
| There needs to be more awareness into setting up W11 install
| ISO's which can be modified to disable bitlocker by default,
| disable the online account requirement.
|
| I recently needed to make a bootable key and found that Rufus
| out of the box allows you to modify the installer, game
| changer.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| >Any power users who prefer their own key management should
| follow the steps to enable Bitlocker without uploading keys to
| a connected Microsoft account.
|
| I have W11 w a local account and no bitlocker on my desktop
| computer, but the sheer amount of nonsense MS has been doing
| these days has really made me question if 'easy modding*' is
| really enough of a benefit for me to not just nuke it and
| install linux yet again
|
| * You _can_ get the MO2 mod manager running under linux, but it
| 's a pain, much like you can also supposedly run executable
| mods (downgraders, engine patches, etc) in the game's context,
| but again, pain
| throwawayqqq11 wrote:
| The reasonable default is transparency about it and 2FA for
| recovery scenarios.
| kermatt wrote:
| If you are super concerned about their privacy, should you be
| using Windows anyway? Or any commercial OS for that matter?
| estimator7292 wrote:
| > Journalists love the "Microsoft gave" framing because it
| makes Microsoft sound like they're handing these out because
| they like the cops, but that's not how it works. If your
| company has data that the police want and they can get a
| warrant, you have no choice but to give it to them.
|
| These two statements are in _no way_ mutually exclusive.
| Microsoft is gobbling up your supposedly private encryption
| keys _because_ they love cops and _want_ an excuse to give your
| supposedly private data to cops.
|
| Microsoft could simply _not collect your keys_ and then would
| have no reason or excuse to hand them to cops.
|
| Microsoft _chose_ to do this.
|
| Do not be charitable to fascists.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> If your company has data that the police want and they can
| get a warrant, you have no choice but to give it to them._
|
| Yes. The thing is: Microsoft made the design decision to copy
| the keys to the cloud, in plaintext. And they made this
| decision with the full knowledge that the cops could ask for
| the data.
|
| You _can_ encrypt secrets end-to-end - just look at how
| password managers work - and it means the cops can only
| subpoena the useless ciphertext. But Microsoft decided not to
| do that.
|
| I dread to think how their passkeys implementation works.
| Retr0id wrote:
| At Microsoft-scale, data requests from law enforcement are an
| inevitability. Designing a system such that their requests are
| answerable is a choice. Signal's cloud backup system is an
| example of a different choice being made.
| knowitnone3 wrote:
| So you're saying Microsoft gave the FBI the key?
| Centigonal wrote:
| MacOS has this feature as well. It used to be called "Allow my
| iCloud account to unlock my disk," but it keeps getting renamed
| and moved around in new MacOS versions. I think it's now tied
| together with remote password resets into one option called
| "allow user to reset password using Apple Account."
| morshu9001 wrote:
| The problem is they don't make this clear to the user or make
| it easy to opt out. Contrast with how Apple does it.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Also, this essay by Mickens at USENIX over a decade ago -
| https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf
|
| Tl;dr - "Basically, you're either dealing with Mossad or not-
| Mossad. If your adversary is not-Mossad, then you'll probably
| be fine if you pick a good password and don't respond to emails
| from ChEaPestPAiNPi11s@ virus-basket.biz.ru. If your adversary
| is the Mossad, YOU'RE GONNA DIE AND THERE'S NOTHING THAT YOU
| CAN DO ABOUT IT" (Mickens, 2014)
| themafia wrote:
| Hacker News defending corporate key escrow. Wow.
|
| > It protects their data in the event that someone steals the
| laptop, but still allows them to recover their own data later
| from the hard drive.
|
| It allows /anyone/ to recover their data later. You don't have
| to be a "purist" to hate this.
| Spivak wrote:
| There is no other way for this to work that won't result in
| an absolutely massive number of people losing their data
| permanently who had no idea their drive was encrypted. Well
| there is, leave BitLocker disabled by default and the drive
| unencrypted. Now the police don't even have to ask!
|
| With this scheme the drive is recoverable by the user and
| unreadable to everyone except you, Microsoft, and the police.
| Surely that's a massive improvement over sitting in plaintext
| readable by the world. The people who are prepared to do
| proper key management will know how to do it themselves.
|
| Apple does the same thing with FileVault when you set up with
| your iCloud account where, again, previously your disk was
| just left unencrypted.
| knallfrosch wrote:
| 20 requests per year also doesn't sound like a privacy problem.
| These are people where the police got a search warrant for the
| hard drives.
|
| I'd be more concerned about access to cloud data (emails,
| photos, files.)
| Noaidi wrote:
| The same is true for Apple laptops! Take a look in your
| Passwords app and you will see it automatically saves and syncs
| your laptop decryption key into the cloud.
|
| So all the state needs to get into your laptop is to get access
| from Apple to your iCloud account.
| b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote:
| >The defaults will also upload the BitLocker key to a Microsoft
| Account if available.
|
| >This is why the FBI can compel Microsoft to provide the keys.
|
| >in my opinion it's the reasonable default
|
| I really can't imagine what kind of person would say that with
| a straight face. Hanlon's razor be damned, I have to ask: are
| you a Microsoft employee or investor?
| coderatlarge wrote:
| user notification is another major litmus test.
| jajuuka wrote:
| Similar case with Apple devices. They default to backing up to
| Apple servers where they are unencrypted. So they can provide
| data to police if requested. But for anyone concerned about
| privacy they can use Advanced Data Protection which encrypts
| all their data and prevents Apple from reading it or recovering
| it.
|
| Definitely agree that choices like these are the most sane for
| the default user experience and that having these advanced
| options for power users to do with it what they want is a fair
| compromise. Wish more people were open to designing software
| for the average person and compromising on a middle ground the
| benefits both kinds of users.
| ratelimitsteve wrote:
| >can compel Microsoft to provide the keys
|
| can they compel testimony? keys, passcodes and the like are
| usually considered testimony. did they try? the usual story
| here is that they don't have to, that the big corporations will
| turn over any info they have on request because they can and
| the government makes a better friend than a single user. the
| article mentions 20 "requests" per year on average but doesn't
| say anything about the government using force.
|
| I agree with your conclusion though: data you share with anyone
| is data you've shared with everyone and that includes your
| encryption keys. if that matters to you, then you need to take
| active steps to ensure your own security because compelled or
| not, the cloud providers aren't here to help keep you safe.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| > Any power users who prefer their own key management should
| follow the steps to enable Bitlocker without uploading keys to
| a connected Microsoft account.
|
| You mean "Install Linux",because that's easier than dealing
| with the steps required to do that on Windows
| lrvick wrote:
| Microsoft could have done key backups to secure enclaves that
| will only return them to a user able to produce valid
| signatures using a backup code or otherwise they hold. Hell
| they were the ones that normalized remote attestation.
|
| But Microsoft chose to keep them plain text, and thus they are,
| and will continue to be abused.
|
| We must not victim blame. This is absolutely corruption on
| microsofts part.
| elzbardico wrote:
| And the only reason windows uploads the keys is that Microsoft
| wants to help the government while fucking you.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| So long as Microsoft also "give customer set of BitLocker
| encryption keys to unlock their own laptop" in the right set of
| conditions.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| None of this matters. XKCD. Hit him with this $5 wrench until
| he gives you the keys.
| beeflet wrote:
| Mass surveillance through $5 wrench (and massive thug salary)
| attacks do not scale, but mass surveillance through turn-key
| decryption does.
| lokar wrote:
| This is a really bad take
|
| The choice is not between honoring the warrant and breaking the
| law.
|
| They can go to a judge and fight the warrant. Other companies
| have done this.
|
| Microsoft won't, one more reason I will never use anything from
| them.
| tucnak wrote:
| Water is wet. More news at 11
| yndoendo wrote:
| Water is not wet. Water makes non-hydrophobic materials wet.
|
| This news piece from a non-tech organization will help educate
| non-tech people.
| tokyobreakfast wrote:
| This is almost certainly users who elect to store their BitLocker
| keys in OneDrive.
|
| Don't think Apple wouldn't do the same.
|
| If you don't want other people to have access to your keys, don't
| give your keys to other people.
| parineum wrote:
| Both Microsoft and Apple (I think Apple does) have the option
| to encrypt those keys with the user's password where they are
| storing them.
| malfist wrote:
| It is the default setting on windows 11 to share your key with
| microsoft.
| raverbashing wrote:
| It's also the "default" in Windows 11 to require a recovery
| bitlocker key every time you do a minor modification to the
| "bios" like changing the boot order
| giobox wrote:
| > Don't think Apple wouldn't do the same.
|
| Of course Apple offers a similar feature. I know lots of people
| here are going to argue you should never share the key with a
| third party, but if Apple and Microsoft didn't offer key escrow
| they would be inundated with requests from ordinary users to
| unlock computers they have lost the key for. The average user
| does not understand the security model and is rarely going to
| store a recovery key at all, let alone safely.
|
| > https://support.apple.com/en-om/guide/mac-help/mh35881/mac
|
| Apple will escrow the key to allow decryption of the drive with
| your iCloud account if you want, much like Microsoft will
| optionally escrow your BitLocker drive encryption key with the
| equivalent Microsoft account feature. If I recall correctly
| it's the default option for FileVault on a new Mac too.
| tokyobreakfast wrote:
| That's what I said. I admit the double-negative grammar is a
| bit confusing.
| ezfe wrote:
| Apple's solution is iCloud Keychain which is E2E encrypted,
| so would not be revealed with a court order.
| tokyobreakfast wrote:
| What is your proof they don't have a duplicate key that
| also unlocks it? A firm handshake from Tim?
| otterley wrote:
| If they say they don't, and they do, then that's fraud,
| and they could be held liable for any damages that
| result. And, if word got out that they were defrauding
| customers, that would result in serious reputational
| damage to Apple (who uses their security practices as an
| industry differentiator) and possibly a significant
| customer shift away from them. They don't want that.
| tokyobreakfast wrote:
| Absent the source code, it's incredibly difficult to
| disprove when the only proof you have is good vibes.
| otterley wrote:
| There are many things you can't prove or disprove in this
| world. That's where trust and reputation comes in - to
| fill the uncertainty gap.
| fsflover wrote:
| You mean, trust and reputation of Apple? They're not
| exactly high:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45520407
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42014588
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26644216
| otterley wrote:
| At the end of the day, it's all about how you weigh the
| evidence. If those examples are sufficient to tip the
| scales for you, that's your choice. However, Apple's
| overall trustworthiness--particular when it comes to
| protecting people's sensitive data--remains high for in
| the market. Even the examples you posted aren't
| especially pertinent to that (except for iCloud Keychain,
| where the complaint isn't whether Apple is securely
| storing it, but the fact that it got transmitted to them
| in the first place, and there exists some unresolved
| ambiguity about whether it is appropriately deleted on
| demand).
| ezfe wrote:
| None of these really match the scenario we're discussing
| here. Some are typical big company stuff, some are
| technical edge cases, but none are "Apple lies about a
| fundamental security practice consistently and with
| malice"
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| Cognitive Dissonance. You already made up your mind, no
| evidence will change it. Any evidence you get is cast
| aside for one reason or another.
| fsflover wrote:
| > "Apple lies about a fundamental security practice
| consistently and with malice"
|
| Uploading passwords to the cloud should count. Also this:
| https://sneak.berlin/20231005/apple-operating-system-
| surveil...
| direwolf20 wrote:
| The government would never prosecute a company for fraud
| where that fraud consists of cooperating with the
| government after promising to a suspected criminal that
| they wouldn't.
| otterley wrote:
| That's not the scenario I was thinking of. There are
| other possibilities here, like providing a decryption key
| (even if by accident) to a criminal who's stolen a
| business's laptop, or if a business had made contractual
| promises to their customers, based on Apple's promises to
| them. The actions would be private (civil) ones, not
| criminal fraud prosecution.
|
| Besides, Apple's lawyers aren't stupid enough to forget
| to carve out a law-enforcement demand exception.
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| Apple has the number 1 marketing team in the world. They
| got away with PRISM and terrible security.
|
| They are immune to reputation damage. Teens and moms
| don't care.
| eddyg wrote:
| You should watch the _whole_ BlackHat talk (from 2016!)
| from Apple 's Head of Security Engineering and
| Architecture, but especially this part:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGFriOKz6U&t=1993s
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| Lot of trust in the words that cannot be verified.
| jcalvinowens wrote:
| > Apple's solution is iCloud Keychain which is E2E
| encrypted, so would not be revealed with a court order.
|
| Nope. For this threat model, E2E is a complete joke when
| both E's are controlled by the third party. Apple could be
| compelled by the government to insert code in the client to
| upload your decrypted data to another endpoint they
| control, and you'd never know.
| dcrazy wrote:
| That was tested in the San Bernardino shooter case. Apple
| stood up and the FBI backed down.
| jcalvinowens wrote:
| It's incredibly naive to believe apple will continue to
| be able to do that.
| ezfe wrote:
| Yeah and Microsoft could insert code to upload the
| bitlocker keys. What's your point? Even linux could do
| that if they were compelled to.
| jcalvinowens wrote:
| > Even linux could do that if they were compelled to.
|
| An open source project absolutely cannot do that without
| your consent if you build your client from the source.
| That's my point.
| ezfe wrote:
| Wait I'm sorry do you build linux from source and review
| all code changes?
| jcalvinowens wrote:
| You missed the important part:
|
| > For this threat model
|
| We're talking about a hypothetical scenario where a state
| actor getting the information encrypted by the E2E
| encryption puts your life or freedom in danger.
|
| If that's you, yes, you absolutely shouldn't trust US
| corporations, and you should absolutely be auditing the
| source code. I seriously doubt that's you though, and
| it's certainly not me.
|
| The sub-title from the original forbes article (linked in
| the first paragraph of TFA):
|
| > But companies like Apple and Meta set up their systems
| so such a privacy violation isn't possible.
|
| ...is completely utterly false. The journalist swallowed
| the marketing whole.
| ezfe wrote:
| Okay, so yes I grant your point that people where
| governments are the threat model should be auditing
| source code.
|
| I also grant that many things are possible (where the
| journalist says "isn't possible").
|
| However, what remains true is that Microsoft appears to
| store this data in a manner that can be retrieved through
| "simple" warrants and legal processes, compared to Apple
| where these encryption keys are stored in a manner that
| would require code changes to accomplish.
|
| These are fundamentally different in a legal framework
| and while it doesn't make Apple the most perfect amazing
| company ever, it shames Microsoft for not putting in the
| technical work to accomplish these basic barriers to
| retrieving data.
| armadyl wrote:
| This is a wildly unrealistic viewpoint. This would assume
| that you somehow know the language of the client you're
| building and have total knowledge over the entire
| codebase and can easily spot any sort of security issues
| or backdoors, assuming you're using software that you
| yourself didn't make (and even then).
|
| This also completely disregards the history of
| vulnerability incidents like XZ Utils, the infected NPM
| packages of the month, and even for example CVEs that
| have been found to exist in Linux (a project with
| thousands of people working on it) for over a decade.
| piccirello wrote:
| In Apple's case, starting with macOS Tahoe, Filevault saves
| your recovery key to your iCloud Keychain [0]. iCloud Keychain
| is end-to-end encrypted, and so Apple doesn't have access to
| the key.
|
| As a US company, it's certainly true that given a court order
| Apple would have to provide these keys to law enforcement.
| That's why getting the architecture right is so important. Also
| check out iCloud Advanced Data Protection for similar
| protections over the rest of your iCloud data.
|
| [0] https://sixcolors.com/post/2025/09/filevault-on-macos-
| tahoe-...
| teejmya wrote:
| > Don't think Apple wouldn't do the same.
|
| Except for that time they didn't.
|
| https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/
| paulpauper wrote:
| Just use open source encryption
| eddyg wrote:
| You shouldn't include Apple in this.
|
| As of macOS Tahoe, the FileVault key you (optionally) escrow
| with Apple is stored in the iCloud Keychain, which is
| cryptographically secured by HSM-backed, rate-limited
| protections.
|
| You can (and should) watch
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGFriOKz6U&t=1993s for all the
| details about how iCloud is protected.
| bigyabai wrote:
| You can (and should) read _Mr. Fart 's Favorite Colors_ as a
| response, explaining how "perfect" security becomes the enemy
| of principled security: https://medium.com/@blakeross/mr-
| fart-s-favorite-colors-3177... Unbreakable
| phones are coming. We'll have to decide who controls the
| cockpit: The captain? Or the cabin?
|
| The security in iOS is not to designed make _you_ safer, in
| the same way that cockpit security doesn 't protect economy
| class from rogue pilots or business-class terrorists. Apple
| made this decision years ago, they're right there in Slide 5
| of the Snowden PRISM disclosure. Today, Tim stands tall next
| to POTUS. Any preconceived principle that Apple might have
| once clung to is forfeit next to their financial reliance on
| American protectionism:
| https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/05/trump-threatens-trade-
| probe-...
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| I was going to say: "Well Apple historically is an easy target
| of Pegasus" but that can only be used a few times before Apple
| figures out the exploit and fixes it. Its more expensive than
| just asking the Apple.
|
| But given PRISM, I'm sure Apple will just give it up.
| Jigsy wrote:
| This is by far one of the best advertisements for LUKS/VeraCrypt
| I've ever seen.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| Agree, use Linux, use LUKS.
|
| PGP WDE was a preferred corporate solution, but now you have to
| trust Broadcom.
| Coeur wrote:
| Remember when the original dev of TrueCrypt (the VeraCrypt
| predecessor) suddenly abandoned the project and wrote that
| people should use BitLocker instead? [1] [2]
|
| We now know that BitLocker is not secure, and an intelligent
| open source dev saying that was probably knowingly not saying
| the truth.
|
| The best explanation to me is that this was said under duress,
| because somebody wanted people to move away from the good
| TrueCrypt to something they could break.
|
| [1] https://truecrypt.sourceforge.net
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueCrypt#End_of_life_announce...
| dmitrygr wrote:
| This is why local account setup is so important on windows, and
| why microsoft makes it harder and harder each update.
| paulpauper wrote:
| or not use microsoft products for encryption
| SilverElfin wrote:
| This is disappointing but I wonder if this is quid pro quo.
| Microsoft and Nadella want to appear to be cooperating with the
| government, so they are given more government contracts and so
| they don't get regulatory problems (like on antitrust or
| whatever).
| ferrouswheel wrote:
| It's interesting how many comments these days are like, "well of
| course".
|
| Back in the day hackernews had some fire and resistance.
|
| Too many tech workers decided to rollover for the government and
| that's why we are in this mess now.
|
| This isn't an argument about law, it's about designing secure
| systems. And lazy engineers build lazy key escrow the government
| can exploit.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Back in the day hackernews had some fire and resistance.
|
| Most of the comments are fire and resistance, but they commonly
| take ragebait and run with the assumptions built-in to
| clickbait headlines.
|
| > Too many tech workers decided to rollover for the government
| and that's why we are in this mess now.
|
| I take it you've never worked at a company when law enforcement
| comes knocking for data?
|
| The internet tough guy fantasy where you boldly refuse to
| provide the data doesn't last very long when you realize that
| it just means you're going to be crushed by the law and they're
| getting the data anyway.
| nemomarx wrote:
| If you design it so you don't have access to the data, what
| can they do? I'm sure there's some cryptographic way to avoid
| Microsoft having direct access to the keys here.
| t-3 wrote:
| If you design it so you don't have access to the data, how
| do you make money?
|
| Microsoft (and every other corporation) _wants_ your data.
| They don 't want to be a responsible custodian of your
| data, they want to sell it and use it for advertising and
| maintaining good relationships with governments around the
| world.
| NegativeK wrote:
| > If you design it so you don't have access to the data,
| how do you make money?
|
| The same way companies used to make money, before they
| started bulk harvesting of data and forcing ads into
| products that we're _already_ _paying_ _for_?
|
| I wish people would have integrity instead of squeezing
| out every little bit of profit from us they can.
| bnjms wrote:
| People arguably cannot have integrity unless all other
| companies they compete with also have integrity. The
| answer is legislation. We have no reason to allow our
| government to use "private" companies to do what they
| cannot then turn over the results to government agencies.
| Especially when willfully incompetence.
|
| The same can be said of using "allies" to mutually snoop
| on citizens then turning over data.
| caminante wrote:
| What are you talking about?
|
| _> I 'm sure there's some cryptographic way to avoid
| Microsoft having direct access to the keys here._
|
| FTA (3rd paragraph): don't default upload the keys to MSFT.
|
| _> If you design it so you don't have access to the data,
| what can they do?_
|
| You don't have access to your own data? If not, they can
| compel you to reveal testimony on who/what is the next step
| to accessing the data, and they chase that.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| "Good" companies in the old days would ensure they don't have
| your data, so they don't have to give it to the police.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Plenty of companies would do that if they could. The
| problem is it has become illegal for them to do that now.
| KYC/AML laws form the financial arm of warrantless global
| mass surveillance.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| KYC/AML is luckily still confined to the financial
| sector. There's no law for operating system vendors to do
| KYC/AML.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| There is no law _yet_.
|
| Where I live, government passed a similar law to the UK's
| online identification law not too long ago. It creates
| obligations for operating system vendors to provide
| secure identity verification mechanisms. Can't just ask
| the user if they're over 18 and believe the answer.
|
| The goal is of course to censor social media platforms by
| "regulating" them under the guise of protecting children.
| In practice the law is meant for and will probably impact
| the mobile platforms, but if interpreted literally it
| essentially makes free computers illegal. The implication
| is that only corporation owned computers will be allowed
| to participate in computer networks because only they are
| "secure enough". People with their own Linux systems need
| not apply because if you own your machine you can easily
| bypass these idiotic verifications.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Which law is that?
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Online Safety Act in the UK.
|
| In Brazil, where I live, it's law 15.211/2025. It makes
| it so that the tech industry must verify everyone's
| identity in order to proactively ban children from the
| harmful activities. It explicitly mentions "terminal
| operating systems" when defining which softwares the law
| is supposed to regulate.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > I take it you've never worked at a company when law
| enforcement comes knocking for data?
|
| The solution to that is to not have the data in the first
| place. You can't avoid the warrants for data if you collect
| it, so the next best thing is to not collect it in the first
| place.
| scoofy wrote:
| "But I forgot my password! You need to fix this!"
|
| The technology exists to trivially encrypt your data if you
| want to. That's not a product most people want, because the
| vast majority of people (1) will forget their password and
| don't want to lose their data, and (2) aren't particularly
| worried about the feds barging in and taking their laptop
| during a criminal investigation.
|
| That's not what the idealists want, but that's the way the
| market works. When the state has a warrant, and you've got
| a backdoor, you're going to need to give the state the keys
| to the backdoor.
| amelius wrote:
| Until the NSA knocks on your door and says encrypt it like
| this.
| morshu9001 wrote:
| That's not the point. Microsoft shouldn't be silently taking
| your encryption key in the first place. The law doesn't
| compel them to do that.
| smt88 wrote:
| It's not silent. It tells you when you set up BitLocker and
| it also allows you to recover the drive.
| CodingJeebus wrote:
| It's not about engineers being lazy, it's about money.
|
| Trying to resist building ethically questionable software
| usually means quitting or being fired from a job.
| conception wrote:
| No this is lazy. Microsoft shouldn't have access to your
| keys. If they do, anyone who hacks Microsoft (again) also has
| them.
| kypro wrote:
| I agree with you, but also think this is only true because we
| as an industry have been so completely corrupted by money at
| this point.
|
| In the 90s and 00s people overwhelmingly built stuff in tech
| because they cared about what they were building. The money
| wasn't bad, but no one started coding for the money. And that
| mindset was so obvious when you looked at the products and
| cultures of companies like Google and Microsoft.
|
| Today however people largely come into this industry and stay
| in it for the money. And increasingly tech products are
| reflecting the attitudes of those people.
| smegger001 wrote:
| it the natural results this site catter not just to tech nerds
| but one chasing venture capital money. its an inudustry that
| has never seen a dark patern it didn't like. we have gone from
| "don't be evil" to "be evil if makes the stonks go up"
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| Saying "of course" doesn't mean we agree with it or fail to try
| to resist it. It's simply not surprising that this happened.
|
| When you get high up in an org, choosing Microsoft is the
| equivalent of the old "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".
| You are off-loading responsibility. If you ever get high up at
| a fortune 500 company, good luck trying to get off of behemoths
| like Microsoft.
| egorfine wrote:
| > This isn't an argument about law, it's about designing secure
| systems
|
| False. You can design truly end-to-end encrypted secure system
| and then the state comes at you and says that this is not
| allowed, period. [1]
|
| [1] https://medium.com/@tahirbalarabe2/the-encryption-dilemma-
| wh...
| al_borland wrote:
| I'd love to see companies stop service in countries that
| request things like this, to put pressure on the governments
| to not be scumbags.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Another one: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-
| news/2024/nov/05/sessi...
| kccqzy wrote:
| I don't see that at all. Instead, I think tech workers,
| including the engineers and the product managers, are correctly
| prioritizing user convenience over resistance to government
| abuse. It's honestly the right trade off to make. Most users
| worry about casual criminals, not governments. Say a criminal
| snatching your laptop and accessing your files that way. If you
| worry about governments you should already know what to do.
| hmokiguess wrote:
| I actually understood that as in "of course . . . because
| Microsoft"
| salawat wrote:
| It's why tech loves young engineers who just do what their
| told, of old engineers only as long as they can't say no. Once
| you dig into the system and see how all the pieces fit
| together, you can't ethically or morally continue to
| participate any longer. Learned that the hard way. In the
| middle of an attempt at midlife career change because of it to
| maybe free myself to write software that needs to be written
| instead of having to have a retained lawyer on hand to wrangle
| employment contract clauses to keep my work belonging to me.
| futuraperdita wrote:
| > Too many tech workers decided to rollover for the government
| and that's why we are in this mess now.
|
| It has nothing to do with the state and has to do with getting
| the RSUs to pay the down payment for a house in a HCOL area in
| order to _maybe_ have children before 40 _and_ make the KPIs so
| you don 't get stack-ranked into the bottom 30% _and_ fired at
| big tech, or grinding 996 to make your investors richest _and_
| you rich-ish in the process if you 're unlikely enough to exit
| in the upper decile with your idea. This doesn't include the
| contingent of people who fundamentally believe in the state,
| too.
|
| Most people are activists only to the point of where it begins
| to impede on their comfort.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > Too many tech workers decided to rollover for the government
|
| s/workers/Corporations/
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| yeah, every time someone says 'good, government must protect us
| from terrorists', they need to remember that sometimes
| govt := new_govt terrorist := you
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Unfortunately there's a loud contingent of incredibly proud
| idiots that post here as well that really like to pretend they
| know what they're doing.
|
| The people going 'well of course' or 'this is for the user'
| drive me insane here because as said, there are secure ways you
| can build a key escrow system so that your data and systems are
| _actually_ secure. From a secure design standpoint it feels
| more and more like we 're living in Idiocracy as people argue
| insecure solutions are secure actually and perfectly
| acceptable.
| Spivak wrote:
| This is such a lazy take and ignores that this is the only
| system that has the property of not losing data when users
| forget their passwords and lose (or likely never write down)
| their recovery key.
|
| That's it. That's the whole thing. Whatever "secure system" you
| build will not have this property and users will lose their
| data, be mad at you, and eventually you'll have to turn it off
| by default leaving everyone's data in plaintext. It's a
| compromise that improves security for people who previously
| left their disk unencrypted. It changes nothing for people who
| previously did their own key management.
|
| You won't be able to turn the first group into the second
| group. That's HN's "Average Familiarity" fallacy. The fact that
| basically every 2FA system has a means of recovering your
| account by removing it should tell you that even technical
| people are shit at key management.
| mihaaly wrote:
| And too many tech workers decided to rollover for the big
| companies too. Accepting and advocating whatever they do. Even
| when it is tricky, can find the way to defend the big names,
| because they are big names, they know the way, they became big!
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| I used to be a principled freedom fighter. But others
| defected(thinking mostly about Apple users...). I promoted open
| source software, even dealing with the pains.
|
| So now I just use whatever I want. Someone else can be a tech
| moralist.
| raincole wrote:
| The resistance is to switch to Linux.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Too many tech workers decided to rollover for the government
| and that's why we are in this mess now.
|
| It isn't really about the government. It's about a bunch of
| people trying to convince you that the locked-down proprietary
| closed source corporate crap that they use isn't _in and of
| itself_ a security risk, no matter what the quality of the code
| _that you 've never seen_ is. Apple, Microsoft, Google etc.
| aren't your friends; no matter how brand loyal you are, they'll
| never care whether you're alive or dead.
|
| FOSS isn't your friend either, but they're not asking you to
| trust them. Any exposure to these world spanning juggernaut
| military and intelligence contractor companies is a security
| hole. It's insane that people (thinking of Europeans now) get
| fired up to switch from this stuff because _Trump_ but not
| because _of course you should._ Instead they 're busy calling
| being suspicious of Microsoft _old_ and hatred of Apple 's
| customer corral _stuck up_ and the desire to own your own
| machine _fanatical_ and _judgemental_. Have you ever considered
| that you 've been programmed to say and encourage dumb stuff
| that is completely against your own interests and supports the
| interests of the people who sell things to you?
|
| You're convinced by the argument that people dumber than you
| have to be protected from their own machines (by corporations
| who have no interest in or obligation to protect them) - have
| you ever thought that people are saying the same thing about
| you? That you have to be protected from writing things you
| shouldn't write or talking to people you shouldn't be talking
| to? And the world isn't a meritocracy: the people on the top
| are inbred creeps. You've given up your freedom to dummies with
| marketing departments.
| concinds wrote:
| The median user's threat model doesn't include the government,
| but does include data loss, forgetting the password, or a thief
| stealing your laptop. Microsoft struck the right balance.
|
| I'm glad the knee-jerk absolutists are marginal, for one. A
| world run by you people would be much worse for anyone who
| isn't you.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Today the median users threat model absolutely includes the
| government! They are snatching people up left and right,
| including their electronics.
|
| I don't get how people like you trust the corporation or the
| government that much. If we were all more cognizant of
| security and privacy, it would be much harder for large orgs
| to break our society the way they are doing today.
| beeflet wrote:
| The median user would be better off in a society where
| computers are not needed for daily life. The median user
| doesn't understand computers. In their life, computers only
| manfiest as a tool of control imposed by the people who
| understand computers over those that don't.
|
| This is one such example.
|
| This sort of utilitarian nitpicking over the convenience of a
| "median" user is like maximizing the happiness of a cow on a
| factory farm. The cow would be better off if it did not exist
| at all. It is a matter of freedom and dignity.
| aeternum wrote:
| Not your keys not your {thing}
| observationist wrote:
| Hear that? It's the sound of the year of the Linux desktop.
|
| It's time - it's never been easier, and there's nothing you'll
| miss about Windows.
| tombert wrote:
| I've been trying to get my parents to move, but until Microsoft
| Office _desktop_ is able to be run natively on there my parents
| won 't entertain the subject.
|
| I've tried to get them to use the web version of office, I've
| tried to get them to use OnlyOffice and LibreOffice, I've even
| tried showing them LaTeX as a last ditch effort, but no, if it
| isn't true Microsoft Branded Office 2024, the topic isn't even
| worth discussing [1].
|
| I'm sure there are technical reasons why Wine can't run Office
| 2024, and I am certainly not trying to criticize the wine
| developers at all, but until I can show Wine running full-fat
| MS Office, my parents will always "miss" Windows.
|
| To be clear, I _hate_ MS Office. _I_ do not miss it on Linux. I
| 'm pretty sure my parents could get by just fine with
| LibreOffice or OnlyOffice or Google Docs, but they won't hear
| it.
|
| I've also tried to get them to use macOS, since that does have
| a full-fat MS Office, I've even offered to buy them Macbooks so
| they can't claim it's "too expensive", and they still won't
| hear it. I love my parents but they can be stubborn.
|
| [1] Before you accuse me of pushing for "developer UI", LaTeX
| was _not_ something I led with. I tried the more "normy-
| friendly" options first.
| rz2k wrote:
| I use macOS most of the time, but switch to a Windows VM for
| Excel. Without the same keyboard shortcuts, the macOS version
| ends up having a fraction of the power available to
| experienced users of the Windows version. For people who use
| Excel extensively, LibreOffice or Google Sheets would have to
| offer some remarkable new killer features to make it worth
| the switch. I don't think feature parity alone would make the
| benefits of Linux outweigh the significant transition costs.
| observationist wrote:
| Is your last name Segurakreischer? Have them try - leave the
| Windows computer online and accessible, give your parents a
| linux box and have them use it exclusively unless they
| absolutely 100% need to get back on the Windows machine for
| some reason, and talk with you about it. Set up a NAS with an
| external HD and a shared folder on both the windows and linux
| box, so if they actually do need to go back to Windows, they
| aren't leaving anything stuck on the Linux box.
|
| That's a 100% easy peasy safe mode, the worst they're likely
| to encounter is a brief 2 minute call with you, and in the
| worst case scenario, they get to go back to Windows without
| having to be scared of losing anything.
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| Just remember, never use or recommend Debian-
| family(Ubuntu/Mint) or you will be back to windows. Do not fall
| for the marketing term Stable, which means outdated and
| contains bugs that are fixed.
|
| Fedora is my recommendation. I remind people Fedora is _not_
| Arch. Fedora is a consumer grade OS that is so good, I don 't
| lump it in with the word Linux.
| observationist wrote:
| Once you've got a bit of savvy, do Arch. But if you're
| looking for "good" and "just works" and you don't want to
| tinker and/or occasionally scream at your computer in
| inchoate fury, Fedora is the way.
|
| You can build your ideal fantasy setup piecewise, and I
| definitely recommend getting there, but Fedora is nice, and
| clean, and has plenty of "just works", and 99.999% of the
| problems you might run into, someone else has, too, and they
| wrote a treatise and tutorial on how to fix it and why it
| happened.
| g947o wrote:
| So, forcing user to connect to Internet and log in to Microsoft
| account has more to do than tracking you and selling ads --
| Microsoft may be intentionally helping law enforcement unlocking
| your computer -- and that's not a conspiracy.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] Discussion on source:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46731694
| axus wrote:
| Here's a story about what the FBI may do when they don't unlock
| the laptop:
|
| https://cointelegraph.com/news/fbi-cant-be-blamed-for-wiping...
|
| Perhaps next time, an agent will copy the data, wipe the drive,
| and say they couldn't decrypt it. 10 years ago agents were
| charged for diverting a suspect's Bitcoin, I feel like the
| current leadership will demand a cut.
| alexfromapex wrote:
| I don't know how many bad things Microsoft has to do before
| consumers realize they are a terrible company and you should stop
| buying their stuff.
| uriegas wrote:
| The problems of centralization. Some economic sectors are
| centralized by nature, IT is not.
| MattSteelblade wrote:
| Based on the comments in the thread, I sense I will be in the
| minority, but for most consumers this is a reasonable default.
| Broadly speaking, the threat model most users are concerned with
| doesn't account for their government. The previous default is no
| encryption at rest, which doesn't protect from the most common
| threats, like theft or tampering. With BitLocker on, a new risk
| for users is created: loss of access to their data because they
| don't have their recovery key. You are never forced to keep your
| recovery keys in Microsoft's servers and it's not a default for
| corporate users.
| nancyminusone wrote:
| I'll always remember - when I was first learning about it, one
| of the interesting counter-arguments to ignoring privacy was
| "what if the Nazis come back, would you want them to have your
| data?". I suppose there's some debate these days, but hostile
| governments seem a lot closer than they were 10-15 years ago.
|
| Will this make people care? Probably not, but you never know.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| "Closer"? They're already here. Trusting corporations or
| governments is inherently moronic.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Even in the best of times. Why widen your attack surface
| unnecessarily? Do you tell people your passwords and PINs
| at parties?
|
| What governments and corporations (and plenty of bad actors
| in the FOSS world) have done is make this the default; made
| it easy to mindlessly hand people your privacy without even
| knowing. Opt-out, if you know the setting exists, and can
| find it.
| Avamander wrote:
| It's certainly a reasonable default. People lose or have their
| laptops stolen much more often than they get targeted by their
| governments.
|
| Though that doesn't mean Microsoft couldn't implement a way of
| storing these keys so that they can't be accessed by Microsoft.
| Still better than nothing though.
| t1234s wrote:
| If you use a local windows account does it still upload your
| bitlocker key to M$?
| masfuerte wrote:
| No, and by default the keys are stored on the disk so it's not
| actually secure.
|
| If you open the BitLocker control panel applet your drive(s)
| will be labelled as "Bitlocker waiting for activation".
| mmmlinux wrote:
| Oh? Do tell how to retrieve those insecure keys. I have an
| old laptop I would love to get access to again.
| diego_moita wrote:
| This isn't even about Microsoft or BitLocker. This is about the
| U.S.A.: anyone who thrusts the rule of law in the U.S. is a fool.
|
| Yes, the American government retrieves these keys "legally". But
| so what? The American courts won't protect foreigners, even if
| they are heads of state or dictators. The American government
| routinely frees criminals (the ones that donate to Republicans)
| and persecutes lawful citizens (the ones that cause trouble to
| Republicans). The "rule of law" in the U.S. is a farce.
|
| And this is not just about the U.S. Under the "five eyes"
| agreement, the governments of Canada, UK, Autralia and New
| Zealand could also grab your secrets.
|
| Never trust the United States. We live in dangerous times. Ignore
| it at your own risk.
| gethly wrote:
| it's like microsoft has nothing better to do other than keep
| digging the hole to burry windows as mainstay operating system
| deeper and deeper with every new day.
| AmazingTurtle wrote:
| I have opted out of all cloud services in my windows
| installation; I use a passphrase, too (it is even before booting
| the computer). I feel like this is pretty safe
| knowitnone3 wrote:
| except MS could easily turn something on without you knowing
| and be uploading your files to their cloud. Yes, I believe they
| would stoop that low and even lower.
| mmooss wrote:
| > Johns Hopkins professor and cryptography expert Matthew Green
| raised the potential scenario where malicious hackers compromise
| Microsoft's cloud infrastructure -- something that has happened
| several times in recent years -- and get access to these recovery
| keys.
|
| Bitlocker isn't serious security. What is the easiest solution
| for non-technical users? Does FDE duplicate Bitlocker's
| funcationality?
| estimator7292 wrote:
| My Linux drives are all encrypted, and one of the wonderful
| features of this is that there is no entity or force on this
| planet that can decrypt them.
|
| What happens if I forget my keys? Same thing that happens if my
| computer gets struck by a meteor. New drive, new key, restore
| contents from backups.
|
| It's simple, secure, set-and-forget, and absolutely nobody but me
| and your favored deity have any idea what's on my drives.
| Microsoft and the USGov don't have any business having access to
| my files, and it's completely theoretically impossible for them
| to gain access within the next few decades.
|
| Don't use Windows. Use a secure operating system. Windows is not
| security for you, it's security for a hostile authoritarian
| government.
| deejaaymac wrote:
| I wish there was more people like you and me.
|
| Privacy is not a crime.
| NegativeK wrote:
| I wish people didn't have to be like us to have privacy.
| tombert wrote:
| Yeah, if the drive can be encrypted by an external party that
| you didn't give permission, I'm not sure how it's really
| "encryption" other than burning cycles when doing writes.
| digiown wrote:
| It's a good start, but FDE alone is still fairly easy to
| compromise in many cases. If you ever type the password under a
| camera, it may be leaked. If the device ever leaves your
| possession and you don't have secure boot, your bootloader can
| be trivially altered to leak the password. Then there are
| keyloggers. And cold boot attacks can often be done if your
| system is running.
| exabrial wrote:
| The US Government has quickly realized the utility of monopolies
| and no longer goes after them.
| mawise wrote:
| I consider myself pretty pro-privacy, but there is so much
| dragnet surveillance and legitimate breaches of the fourth
| amendment that I have a hard time getting up in arms over a
| company complying with a valid search warrant that is scoped to
| three hard drives (and which required law enforcement to have
| physical possession of the drives to begin with).
|
| This is so much more reasonable than (for example) all the EU
| chat control efforts that would let law enforcement ctrl+f on any
| so-called private message in the EU.
| gdevenyi wrote:
| What was the point of mandatory TPM then? I thought they were
| storing the keys securely there!
| layer8 wrote:
| Keys are stored securely in a TPM in the sense that a random
| program has no access to it. They are not stored safely there
| in the sense that they couldn't possibly get destroyed. TPM
| hardware, or the motherboard that hosts it, occasionally fails.
| Or you might want to migrate your physical hard drive to a
| different PC. That's the purpose of backing up the keys to the
| cloud. Alternatively, you can write down a recovery key and put
| it in your safe. Personally, I put it in my password vault that
| also happens to be backed up to the cloud (though not
| Microsoft's).
| kmoser wrote:
| > The hackers would still need physical access to the hard drives
| to use the stolen recovery keys.
|
| Or remote access to the computer. Or access to an encrypted
| backup drive. Or remote access to a cloud backup of the drive. So
| no, physical access to the original hard drive is not
| _necessarily_ a requirement to use the stolen recovery keys.
| cmurf wrote:
| I'm certain I should encrypt my data, backup all LUKS headers,
| and backup all data.
|
| But what about unsophisticated users? In aggregate it might be
| true data exfiltration is worse than data loss? I don't know if
| that's true.
|
| But what is true is enabling encryption by default without
| automated backup and escrow will lead to some data loss.
|
| It's difficult for me to separate the aggregate scenarios from
| individual scenarios. The individual penalty of data loss can be
| severe. Permanent.
| aeon_ai wrote:
| Hello there!
|
| Have you heard of our lord and savior, Linux?
| tamimio wrote:
| In the year of 2026, the rule of thumb is if you can get your
| work done without touching windows, then you should. It goes
| without saying you should never trust any third party let alone a
| big corp.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| Relevant XKCD
|
| https://xkcd.com/538/
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-01-23 23:00 UTC)