LOL
Another stupid feature (enforced by regulations/law/policies) that has no real world use, besides making us users angry :-(<p>Like Google collecting all of our location history for their own usage, but not allowing us to see it via web anymore (only on mobiles), or having the android dialer not allowing us to record our own phone conversation (easily circumvented), or movie/music/game publishers not allowing us to backup our own media… you get the point.<p>All these are due to laws and regulations that are there to protect the big companies and don’t take into consideration users and the common sense ;-)
Interesting how this will stop me from taking a picture with my mobile phone. The amount of effort people will go to, to make people's work more cumbersome. I am not screenshotting for espionage, I am screenshotting to accomplish my job.
What's to stop me embedding a pinhole camera in the lamp behind me, zooming it in on the screen, and recording every meeting?<p>These kinds of measures only stop the good guys from doing their jobs. The bad guys put way too much effort into espionage for this to work.
This kills teams for Linux users since there is no desktop client so capturing can't be prevented. Linux users will be audio only in those calls.<p>The worst thing about this feature is that if someone takes a screenshot it will be saved on an IT controlled computer but if users are forced to snap screen caps with their phones the sensitive information ends up on personal devices and probably cloud synced to Google drive etc
At some point, you need to trust your staff. If you do not trust them to keep confidential information private, then why are you giving them the information in the first place?
This is of course, incredibly stupid, due to the analog hole (which to be fair, is mentioned in passing by the article, but doesn't seem to be addressed at all by MS*.) Having this feature just guarantees it will get used, and possibly made into a standard compliance theater feature, hurting legitimate users for very little practical gain.<p>The only <i>real</i> practical gain is that it might prevent malware from being able to capture visible data, but what's funny about that is one of the desktop systems that can prevent unwanted screen capture by design (Wayland) also intentionally doesn't have any support for DRM/HDCP features, so it will likely be stuck on audio-only mode. High five, Microsoft!<p>* I wanted to go to the source directly to check if maybe they just left it out, but the link that they currently have seems to be non-sense. It seems to point to something about "Co-pilot" audio transcription. In Romanian, for whatever reason.<p><a href="https://www.microsoft.com/ro-ro/microsoft-365/roadmap?id=490051" rel="nofollow">https://www.microsoft.com/ro-ro/microsoft-365/roadmap?id=490...</a>
Most folks know this is easily defeated typically by viewing the content on another device (eg via casting it, remote desktop, phone mirroring, etc) or viewing it from within a VM, and then using the native screen capture functionality on the viewing device to record/screenshot whatever you need.<p>That being said - guessing they are doing this for their enterprise customers mainly, where alot of those other options are locked down. But plenty of people already know to just record their screen from their phone anyway - impossible to block that and much safer way to exfiltrate whatever info/data you need.
That's quite unfortunate because due to a screen capture through Snipping Tool I got evidence of my org planning to fire me before even making announcements through a shared PowerPoint deck with a slide containing a org chart which shouldn't really be there at the time in the Teams meeting.<p>So from a employee POV it has its uses.<p>But people who will get in the same situation like me could simply use the camera on their phone pointed at the screen and be done with it, I guess.
> <i>Those joining from unsupported platforms will be automatically placed in audio-only mode to protect shared content.</i><p>Is this anti-competitive and anti-open-standards?
Any security feature that can be totally defeated with a spicy HDMI splitter and a 2nd computer should not exist.<p>This stuff looks much more to me like "fuck the user" than anything else. I am 100% convinced there is a cult of evil bastards at Microsoft, et. al. that is hellbent on making everyone's UI/UX as janky as possible.
This is just to serve as a reminder of who actually "owns" your computer.<p>Overwhelmingly, people who speak in favor of windows, grew up using it. It's like the indoctrination of any religous cult, it works best when you start young.<p>One has to wonder when the world will recover from windoze brain damage...
I screenshot a lot on meetings to take notes, usually when someone is presenting a slide and I want to note down the bits that are relevant to my work. But no, espionage!
I would be glad if they allow to _DISABLE_ incoming video streams! Its such a horro to see every colleague at 8am so big on the screen like as they were sitting on my desk, 10cm away and i can smell their coffee breathe
I very often take screenshots during meetings, it’s a helpful reference point to me. I never used that to save more sensitive data than what I already have access to. Still, I assume my use case will no longer be supported. That’s unfortunate.
This is security theater. It makes you feel secure but it doesn’t actually protect you. If things can not get out do not share them via Trams in the first place.
I can see that some users (management?) would want this because they don't trust their people, but I bet Microsoft wants this to push Teams software on holdouts. I absolutely -hate- the download button for video conferencing (or any) apps that should just stay in the browser but you know they want full control of your device, and how much data they can send back.
I guess that if that's optional, including the "Those joining from unsupported platforms will be automatically placed in audio-only mode" part, then why not. I guess it can prevent some accidental leaks, like with someone hitting PrtScr by mistake.<p>But if someone wants to take a screenshot, the "take a picture with your smartphone" exploit is already very obvious and commonly used, even by non-technical people. I know that confidential information is shared like this all the time, bypassing all security, and everyone turns a blind eye to it, because that's how they get the job done. I fully expect that if that feature is forcibly turned on, people will do it without giving a second thought.<p>And if you want to do it discreetly, just turn off your camera or cover it.<p>There are other ways of working around that, like using a video capture card, but why bother when you have a solution so obvious as taking pictures of the screen, even the article mentions it.
Which APIs would one use to implement this feature on Mac and Windows? For example is there a OS level flag that one can include on windows to not allow capturing of the app’s window - or is a notification sent out when someone tries to capture the screen (and then one can just blank the window)?
This and DRM and other restrictive anti-features like self destroying messages, un-recordable strings, unprintable files are all fully artificial restrictions. They make no sense when the source code is available since removing it is as simple as removing an if.<p>I payed for my device, it is mine, it is up to me to decide whatever I'll do with it. It is my right under the private ownership definition. The current situation on modern devices, especially smartphones, is ridiculous and a complete distortion of rights that are fundamental even for the roots of capitalism.<p>Users should organize and, at the least, avoid using such services even if it means to lose some convenience. Losing my freedom is not a fair price to pay for such conveniences.
I wonder how it will work. The article sounds like it just overrides the print screen button. But what about screen recording apps like OBS? Seems like Teams would need to inject some code deep into the os to block that.
I use a USB-C hub with DisplayLink to drive my setup. This means MacOS thinks I'm recording the screen.<p>I'm a bit worried Team's solution will use those APIs will be used (ie I'll have a choice: see a Teams meeting video OR be hooked up to all my monitors).<p>What I think is a related side effect: I also can't watch video (streaming via web browser or via Apple TV app) with this setup either.
I have a hearing disability. I often recorded meetings so that I could replay and listen to key points again.<p>This is going to block a valid use of screen recording and I wonder if it would violate A.D.A. requirements
Yeah. Concentrating on getting Windows and all MS products to be more secure and robust, instead of building up smoke and mirros would have been too hard I guess.<p>What a waste of developers resources.
I get that it’s basically impossible to enforce but who are all these people that screencap stuff from Teams meetings? Why do you need to do that? Can you not get the actual material you’re capping via somebody emailing/sharing the actual file? If not, why? Are you not allowed to access it? Or are you all just taking candids of your coworkers for your own devious purposes?
Wonder how well it will work from chromium in Wayland.<p>That is, I'm genuinely curious. Like is there any protocol or standard to mark a part of a DOM or a canvas as uncapturable? Up though the compositor and pipewire or however it happens these days?
Very pleased this is coming. Once a week I hold a meeting with stakeholders to show my latest art works and I can hear them push the print screen button. Very annoying. I am trying to get these freshly minted but if is becomes public somebody has screenshotted them, the value plummets
>However, it should be noted that, even if screenshots are blocked, sensitive media and information shared in Teams meetings can still be captured by taking a photo of the conversation.<p>At least the article points out the reason that doing this is completely pointless
This is a pointless feature that’s easily bypassed if you know what you’re doing. It’s there so someone can check a compliance box to make an auditor that doesn’t know much about tech feel better. That’s it.
Nothing is stopping anyone from recording the screen and capturing audio. However that is not the point. These features are required by regulated industries and companies like Microsoft can offer them. Plain and simple.
I remember having this exact debate 30 years ago with a PM. The context was voice messaging but otherwise the same discussion. User could just tape record the message.
I dont think this is as useful if they think it is, whether its a requirement from users or a push from authorities, generally speaking.<p>I mean, no matter what you do - there will always be a workaround. People could just get their phone out and take a picture of the screen. Sure, the quality is not as good - but I am sure it is good enough.<p>I am sure there are other variations to workarounds.<p>Besides, if anyone has a problem being on screen - then dont turn your camera on. However, this is not a solution when working for a company that forces the webcam to be on especially for meetings -- AND THEY CAN RECORD IT!<p>I am sure recordings, if enabled, can be downloaded. This will likely be in a typical video file. I would not be suprised, if you open it in a video program, you can then take pictures. Maybe I am wrong, there.
It's sort of amazing how there is a flood of replies in this thread from people who would never hesitate to override/bypass the protection by using "the analog hole" or some other workaround.<p>And this just goes to show you how easily "Shadow IT" can arise in a place of business.<p>My previous employer subscribed to Google Workspaces, and we used it for Docs and Sheets and Gmail; standard type uses. We also used Slack a lot. Now there were a lot of areas that were clearly off-limits to me as a user. For example, the Google Play Store was completely empty for my account -- I couldn't install any mobile apps at all. This hindered me from creating a separate user on my smartphone just for work.<p>Also, entire Google properties were off-limits, such as Maps. We didn't need or use those in our work there. There was a lot locked down, but there were a lot of things left open around the edges.<p>Now I have a "hacker mindset" where if something isn't working, I'll immediately consider it a glitch or bug, and try to work around it. If I can't sign in to something it's probably a "me" problem and I hammer on the door a bit. Basically the last thing on my mind is security restrictions. And for many of us working with computers, there's just the question of the supervisor asking us to get something done, and we go and try to do it, and that's how rogue WAPs show up in corporate networks; that's how backdoors show up on our desktop PCs, etc.<p>Indeed, many features on Android or Chrome these days are removed due to security trouble. I often realize this after-the-fact, when I think about the implications of using such a feature. Sure, it's a good thing the product is made more secure, but this feature has vanished, usually without adequate explanation, and so my workflow suffers.<p><a href="https://m.xkcd.com/1172/" rel="nofollow">https://m.xkcd.com/1172/</a><p>So the next time I am tempted to just do a workaround for some glitch I perceive, I'm going to ponder it a little more deeply and consider whether there are security implications.
WhatsApp disabled creating screenshots of profile pictures (this annoyed my grandmother), but it cannot really do this when using through the web interface.
is this something you have to enable(or disable) for your tenant? or for a particular meeting? i don't understand from the article<p>i don't see why would you want to enable this, unless you have BYOD allowed
Awesome, this was really needed.<p>No, this isn't a "security" feature and it obviously can be easily circumvented. The reason this is useful is to make it extremely clear to participants that the contents should not be shared by them.
And what will prevent people from patching their Teams clients to still allow screenshots? What will prevent someone from building an unofficial Teams client from scratch that has none of this bullshit in the first place?