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.

Comments

Should already be habit

[The-Ixian]

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).

Re:Should already be habit

[Anonymous Coward]

I've worked in a place where the same is a trollable offense; many messages will be sent in your name.

Re:Should already be habit

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked in a place where if you try to leave your work station the guards attack you until you black out.

Re:Should already be habit

[OzPeter]

It got to be a habit for me at a previous job when I had co-workers who would hope they can get their hands on an unattended machine. One poor schlub left his machine unattended while I was out at lunch. When I came back from lunch, the guy who left the machine unattended was being fired because his machine mysteriously sent nasty E-mails to C-level brass and their families, the source code he was working on was replaced with just commented out rants and checked into SVN, and copy of some phishing message with Locky attached was executed from his machine.

That says more about the quality of the company culture than anything else. Did someone do this because they were so pissed off at the C levels that they felt that this was a reasonable thing to do? Or did they do this because they wanted to get the victim fired - for whatever reason. And I don't know what is worse .. doing it for the lulz or doing it because of a vendetta.

Re:Should already be habit

[iamgnat]

Screwing with people is a time honored past time in geek culture.

Screwing with someone's livelihood is not cool.

The anecdote you supplied goes way beyond "fair game" and "mischief" and is simply disgusting.

Re:Should already be habit

[DeathElk]

Thanks for the heads up. I've got new material for the screening tests. A potential employee with that kind of attitude has no place in our (or any) organisation.

Re:Should already be habit

[WolfgangVL]

That's fucking terrible. If I even saw that kind of shit from the other side of the room I would demand the little-dick prankster fuck be walked out or I quit on the spot. What a horrible environment to work in. This trash speaks to the (in)ability of your management team, the fuck-each-other-over-as-hard-as-you-can corporate bonus games that have permeated the tech industry, and your personal lack of integrity, knowing it all went down like that and not speaking up to put the real offender in the hotseat instead of watching the victims career nose-dive cuz he forgot to lock his system.

Totally should already be a habit, and is a requirement at every single serious tech job I've ever worked, but the first offence is maybe inverting some colors and flipping the monitor sideways, not taking kill-shots at your coworkers livelihood, destroying company source-code and sending email to managements families.

Anybody quietly aware of this action is an accomplice, and deserving of termination as well.

No. This is Different.

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Yay for privacy

[TheEdgeOfRage]

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.

Congratulations,your PC is now a governance device

[FreeUser]

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.

Re:This has gone far enough!

[PolygamousRanchKid]

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.

Windows 10 will soon install itself on your PC when you step away from it, even though you are running Windows 7/Centos 7.

Better than a timeout

[Webmoth]

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.