Signal Blocks Windows Recall – Source: www.schneier.com

Clive Robinson • May 23, 2025 2:08 PM

Thin edge of nightmare that is client side scanning

Many have noted that they,

“Have no need or want of recall”

Unfortunately that is not true. It is one of those insidious things you unknowingly become reliant on.

Think of it as the silent servant who tidies up and cleans behind you, and most importantly puts things “back in their place”, so you do not have to think about where they are.

Anyone who currently has more than three or four “browser tabs open” are obvious shoe ins so

“Will be seduced by the dark side Recall is.”

Microsoft know this from the earliest user testing of Win 3 and earlier.

In a way Recall will replace the need for people to think and remember. This in turn will on the surface enable them to get more done in less time…

So will change the way they work to just “load pages” then “skim with recall” and treat it as their own “search engine” etc.

And that is why it will become essential for the weak of will and those who do not learn to use a work tool correctly.

Which brings up the flip side…

For as long as mankind has been able to record thoughts on objects like mud paint on cave walls he has used tools.

Proficiency in the use of tools has two advantages,

1, They act not just as force multipliers but enable other force multipliers to be made, so increasing an individuals ability to survive.

2, All tools because they are force multipliers are dangerous to use and can easily cause harm to the user and those around them.

So a person who uses tools has to learn skills to get the benefit not the harm from them.

However since the Victorian era and the cost of developing skills, “inventors” have come up with ways to constrain force multipliers such that the cause less harm and become much easier to use.

In WWII and the post war 1950/60’s was an era when factories went up everywhere and just about anyone who could “walk and talk” could be given well paying jobs. It was also the time modern semiconductors were invented and valves/tubes replaced. Soon countries in the Far east were using those semiconductors to manufacture goods “more desirable” than those based on valves/tubes and by the 1970’s factories in the US and Europe could nolonger compete and started to close. The rest of US and EU factories tended to follow suit and closed.

In a way this did not matter much because in the 1980’s the “knowledge industries” came into being. And for those that could make the switch work was less physically stressful and increasingly better paid.

Some are saying that AI “assisted by client side scanning” will provide factories for the “knowledge industries”. “AI in use” actually started back in the 1980’s with “fuzzy logic” and “expert systems” quite skilled jobs such as train drivers and doctors started to be replaced by control systems and computers, because they had become inexpensive enough.

Likewise those working in factories in the Far East started to be replaced by “robots” that were in effect trained by skilled workers being “observed at work”.

It is this latter point that people need to consider carefully. Because Recall will get used by Microsoft to “train their systems” thus make anyone with a repetitive task be it physical or mental “replaceable”.

I’ve talked in the past about the two basic types of “Make Work” and how something like 20-30% of the workforce falls into either type. So something like 50% of jobs will get replaced by much more basic AI systems than the current LLM and ML systems we see and talk about.

The thing is you will not be able to buy and own any of these worker replacement AI Systems. You will only be able to rent them and thus become subject to what are in effect monopolistic organisations like Microsoft.

Worse with each tiny change, you will have to sign up to new ever more invasive agreements where Microsoft etc can take the skills of your workers and then rent them back to you.

I’ve warned about this with Palantir that aims to kill off human detectives, investigators, and analysts and replace them with their systems. Also they gain access to all the data that they then “repackage” to be used by other organisations at high price.

I for one as a UK Citizen am not pleased that all my confidential medical records are in Palantir’s systems thus available to any and all of their “paying customers” such as the US ICE etc.

Imagine what Microsoft could gain from you via “client side scanning” not just of what you do, but how you do it. Ask yourself which is more valuable to you, the “work content” or how you “process the work” to add real value to it, thus earn an income?

But further consider others with significant interest in “client side scanning”. We know that law enforcement have desires you can not believe about “Client Side Scanning” hooked up to AI systems.

Think about how they have backdoored users web browsers, mobile phones etc and get away with it because they run rings around the intent of the law if not the letter.

Microsoft Recall is going to become a “silent partner” to all “police states” and all states will use Recall to become step by step “police states”…

And Microsoft, Palantir and others see vast fortunes to be made in “renting” these systems and the data and skills they collect back to people to short sighted or stupid to realise just what these systems will do, not just to individuals, organisations and even themselves.

Look on Recall and all “client side scanning” as a form of “gateway drug” that will turn people into addicts that Microsoft etc will more ruthlessly exploit than the worst of “Street Dealers” working school playgrounds etc…