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Windows 10 Will Soon Lock Your PC When You Step Away From It (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Microsoft is working on a new Windows 10 feature that will automatically lock and secure a PC when the operating system detects someone has moved away from the machine. The feature is labelled as Dynamic Lock in recent test builds of Windows 10, and Windows Central reports that Microsoft refers to this as "Windows Goodbye" internally. Microsoft currently uses special Windows Hello cameras to let Windows 10 users log into a PC with just their face. Big corporations teach employees to use the winkey+L combination to lock machines when they're idle, but this new feature will make it an automatic process. It's not clear exactly how Microsoft will detect inactivity, but it's possible the company could use Windows Hello-compatible machines or detect idle activity and lock the machine accordingly. Windows can already be configured to do this after a set time period, but it appears Microsoft is streamlining this feature into a simple setting for anyone to enable. Microsoft is planning to deliver Dynamic Lock as part of the Windows 10 Creators Update, expected to arrive in April.
Meta+L before you step away.
I have even worked at places where not locking your computer when you are away from it is a fireable offence (after a few warnings).
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Very useful for malware. Now there is a built in function to trigger them mining trojans.
If you have a short-range radio like bluetooth on your PC and phone, it should be trivial to monitor for a loss of connectivity.
The hard part is that it would drain both your phone's battery and, if it was a laptop running on battery, its battery.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It's called a screen-saver which turns off the display and requires a password, and it's been a feature of Windows since at least 2000/XP. It can also be set by group policy. "Inactivity" as questioned in TFS is just defined as "not providing any input" for a certain amount of time.
Why is this news? Because people that didn't know it existed will now have it set by default? OK, good. They should, and they likely won't know what happened anyway. They'll wiggle the mouse or whatever it is they do when they work on a computer that doesn't do this and click their name because they don't have a password set, or who knows what else.
Unless they're going the stupid route and not making this the same as current "unlock" functionality, but then I don't get the comparison to Winkey+L
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While I agree it's smart to lockdown your workstation in a business environment, I've worked in some where this tech will be abused to time track employees who spent 3 minutes too long in the restroom.
That said, they already ran shitty 3rd party software that tracked mouse and keystrokes so maybe nothing changes. Oh man did we lose some developers who treated it as a challenge and scripted activity (poorly) while they were afk. I suppose there are probably some more clever devs plugging along with better scripting. Though if they are that clever they would have gotten the fuck out of that work environment.
The real killer tech will be the unskippable ads that 'helpfully' pause themselves while you don't have eyeballs on them, and resume when you're back at the computer...
My monitor at work has the ability to detect if someone is sitting within a certain distance from it. If no-one is in range then after a couple of minutes it would automatically turn off the screen. The distance can be defined in the settings.
I'm sure there are a small number of people on here (who will likely comment) whose working patterns means that this wouldn't work for them - but it seemed to work for the 500 odd people we have on the floor.
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Windows 10 Will Soon Lock Your PC When You Step Away From It
Bloody hell, will it? Even though I'm running Windows 7/Centos 7? That's very clever.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
This isn't a screen saver time out. This is presence detection. It won't wait a configured (10) minutes of inactivity to lock the screen. The camera "sees" the user and even knows which user it is seeing. The camera then locks the screen immediately when the user is not present.
I'm curious though, if this can be easily defeated with a picture of the user being used to unlock the PC?
If they use your webcam to monitor your activity then this will be a privacy nightmare. I will duct tape my camera if it comes to that or better yet just disable the option if it comes enabled
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
This is going to be so good if they use webcams like for Hello. Which means they get to look at you 24/7 with your consent.
I predict the usual Microsoft screwups with their initial roll-out of this.
People's computers will blackout the screen during extended video playback, especially HTPC users sitting back away from their computers.
The camera "sees" the user and even knows which user it is seeing. The camera then locks the screen immediately when the user is not present.
How long before the computer "sees" the user and notifies the police that they can pick up their known dissident. I mean, really, given the kind of governance we're about to enter into, this (not to mention Alexa-like audio surveillance "features") are the last thing I'd want on any equipment in my home.
And no, I don't have anything to hide. But conversely, I also don't use the restroom in the middle of 5th Avenue. Privacy is a thing, even in a world full of morons who think it isn't.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
It's times like this that I'm happy my work's IT department is mildly incompetent. We just finished the Windows 7 rollout last year and they're still patting themselves on their backs.
Figure that by the time they are ready to go to the next version of Windows I'll be retired.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/10/15/2121214/sonar-software-detects-laptop-user-presence
Actually been using it although it drove a co-worker batty because he heard the high-frequency ticks and he couldn't find the source.. ;)
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
This just gives them a plausible excuse to snap your picture every second and send it to headquarters for "security validation". For the best possible user experience, of course. File this under "do not want".
but they are constantly monitoring/recording my movements.
I don't see any issues here, do you?
Only big corporations teach that?
Would indeed be great for any sort of business/public environment.
Not it it works as well as automatic lights which, at least where I work, seem to stay on over night without anyone in my office and then regularly turn off every ~30 minutes or so when I am in the office. If I have to keep waving at the computer as well as the lights to prove I am still there it is not going to improve my productivity.
Now my PC will be watching me at the keyboard. What's next, having it watch me sleep?
And... Just to throw in my $0.02, both the Windows "Hello" and proposed "Goodbye" features sound pretty troublesome.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I'm not keen at having any more cameras pointed at me -- but if there was something very simple like an IR sensor that can detect presence/motion/etc, then this might be useful....
Evolution: love it or leave it
I think the idea is that if you are at your desk but idle (say, for example, you're on a long phone call with your chair tipped back and your feet on the desk), the computer won't lock down after X minutes of inactivity passes. But if you step away, it locks within seconds. You probably want to have some delay before locking, just in case you bend down to tie your shoe or something else where you are out of the view of the camera for a moment.
The problem with the typical timeout we've used for years is that it can leave the desktop vulnerable between the time you leave the computer and the timeout expires. Most places set the timeout to several minutes to avoid employee irritation of having to unlock their computers several times a day, just because they were doing something else even though the computer was never out of their sight. A timeout is, at best, a compromise between security and convenience.
This new method has the potential to improve BOTH security and convenience.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
Just make the punishment for hacking extremely high. It worked for narcotics right.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
How will this work when Mary calls the helpdesk, and as soon as Victor the desktop tech sits down the screen locks because Mary isn't the one sitting there?
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
How did your two companies handle the telemtry feature?
Trust me... this is all about creating a world wide facial recognition database... fucking evil scum suckers.
Mr Uzi and Miss Sten prefer you to demonstrate your moves.
As in 'Goodbye forever, don't let the virtual door hit you in the virtual ass on the way out'.
This week they literally forced us onto Windows 10, in the most fascist way possible: Remotely bricking our machines. Bastards. Windows 10 makes my eyes bleed..
Electrical tape over your camera, friend. Problem solved.
Why would most companies care about telemetry being sent back to MS?
I don't respond to AC's.
My office computer is set to lock on wake and lock on screensaver, and some days I'll forget to win+L and come in to work the next morning, wiggle the mouse to wake the monitor, and the computer will not be locked.
This isn't new to Windows 10, either. My 8.1 laptop, when I open the lid there's a 50/50 chance it will automatically unlock itself. I open the lid, the screen turns on to the clearly labeled "This computer is locked" screen, which will then sometimes within a second or so slide up automatically without me touching a thing.
If it happened every single time then obviously I fucked up on the configuration, but when it only sometimes works, I'd like to know what the hell is going on.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Remember when back in the windows 3.1 days, when you could set the orientation of the mouse, and you'd have that little race car thingy that would help you do it? My favorite, besides the background screen grab one you mentioned, was when someone walked away, turn the mouse 180 degrees, and then set the orientation. When they came back, the look on their face when the mouse moved LEFT, then they moved it RIGHT, DOWN when they moved it UP was priceless!
Snowden confirmed beyond any doubt that Microsoft is an NSA partner and spying is big business (that's why the NSA has so many partners amongst software proprietors). We all knew Microsoft was and is a software proprietor. After this 'feature' becomes commonplace it will be easier to convince people that they don't need or want that pesky indicator light next to the camera/mic showing when the camera/mic is on. After all, it's always lit and therefore 'useless'.
A right and proper view would say you can't trust software proprietors (yes, as long as the corporate repeater sites like /. keep publishing the same kinds of stories, they'll merit the same responses because these stories all have the same lack of software freedom at their core). That indicator light was always under proprietary software control anyway, so you couldn't ever really trust the device wasn't on even when the light was off. Increasingly computers are a user-accepted means of spying on people in their homes, their cars, their workplace, and anywhere else they travel. A combination of desktop and portable computers all running proprietary, user-subjugating OSes with built-in cameras/mics has made this degree of spying viable for years. Consider the power of data collection in your tracker (or, less honestly: "cell phone"/"mobile phone") which primarily tracks your location many times a minute (via GPS and cell tower triangulation); this device has a mic you don't control and can't determine when it's on. The computer is very capable of secretly recording and sending audio data. Most trackers have video cameras too, with predictable benefit for spying. People can be monitored all-day every day, even while they sleep (some people sleep in front of a "smart" TV with a computer and camera/mic built into it, because that makes the TV "smart"!). They also have a charging tracker next to them all night long (because they're desperate to believe that they need to be reachable all the time).
Sadly, there are too many IT people who haven't thought this through and value minor conveniences over privacy. Knowing when such monitoring is beneficial and when it's harmful is beyond the scope of allowable debate in the corporate media, and there's simply no room for teaching people about software freedom or why we should value software freedom for its own sake. IT pros should help teach people what's possible here, not act as a bulwark for proprietors, spies, and push deeper user subjugation.
Digital Citizen
typing, pause, LOCK SCREEN, unlock screen,
typing, pause, LOCK SCREEN, unlock screen,
typing, pause, LOCK SCREEN, unlock screen,
SoB, just because you can't see me, doesn't mean I'm not there.
Why would most companies care about telemetry being sent back to MS?
Because you don't know what the fuck's being sent. It might be transmitting \\COKEWAN\Corp\ATL\CocaColaRecipe.txt and all of your other trade secrets directly to Microsoft. Why risk that?
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Windows already goes into the login screen if it's left long enough that the powersaver kicks in
Windows refuses to install if you don't create a Hotmail account or whatever they call it these days. Windows 11 or 12 can refuse to run if it cannot see your face. Most people will put up with it.
Linux has had a Bluetooth package for running scripts when a paired device is outside or inside an estimated parameter for about 10 years. Hell, even my custom distro that I built as an amateur has it. Also, Linux has had facial recognition for login for years, but no one with half a brain would trust something like that, especially with Micro$oft, to which also is partnered up with Conanical, Ubuntu's main supporter of well...everything about it. I really wish Micro$oft (Apple too) would stop making it look like they came up with something new when they just still ideas from the Linux and open source communities. TheOuterLinux.com
"Windows Goodbye" sounds like a nice name for a Linux distro.
Windows 10 feature that will automatically lock and secure a PC when the operating system detects someone has moved away from the machine
Hopefully it isn't like those automatic toilets that flush and splash your ass when you reach for the toilet paper.
Or is this another mandatory feature? Because I totally hate it when my screen locks every five seconds. I can decide on my own whether an environment is safe for leaving my screen unlocked or not.
Normally I wouldn't worry about something like this, but this is Microsoft we are talking about. They think they know my situation so much better than I do, they need to make this choice for me.
Why was he fired when it seems VERY obvious he did not do it.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
Frankly, this is really old news.
I Use "Windows Goodbye" daily since 2008.
It's called Linux.
You just have to check the right option :
"Erase disk and install linux mint"
https://learnlinuxandlibreoffi...
aaaaaaa
I have a monitor with a setting to dim automatically if it detects I'm not there. Of course, just like a crappy bathroom faucet sensor, almost anything can throw it off, including wearing a black shirt.
I once did a linux prototype like this that would lock and unlock your computer based on phone proximity using bluetooth. Worked like a charm. No camera required.
Listen to my music.
Well, you can be a cowardly cuck and accept Miscreant-o-soft's phallus into your backside all you want, meanwhile the rest of us will continue to fight for what's right and what's ours. I hope for your sake you enjoy being a 'power bottom'.