Microsoft Teams will soon block screen capture during meetings

To be clear this is an option enabled by the host. It most likely won’t be used for normal meetings.

There will be ways to capture it anyway. Probably specific software designed for GPU capture, since that's how these apps "prevent" capturing, using GPU trickery.
- The announcement from MS and the linked article both also mention this, though they recommend the real analogue hole: a separate camera pointed at the screen.

This is so you can then use their super cool and completely accurate AI summary tool that will be coming soon.
- "The meeting was about polishing yaks. The conclusion was green is important fudge."

More and more, I notice that Microsoft's ubiquity in our society is to reinforce the idea that we need to take abuse and reward our abusers in order to be successful.

Why would one use an intentionally impaired tool?
- Because the company one works at is entangled in Microsoft products and totally dependend on it.
- We dont make the decision as to what suite to use?
  Literally no one but our CFO ad shareholders like microsoft.

So you're saying that I can just start an infinite empty meeting in order to block the AI Recall thing from recording my screen?
- Oh, no, AI Recall has "special privileges" - just you lusers don't.

Gonna be difficult to block screen capture when I have a phone in my hand with a camera that can be record what I see.
- Don't be so bold. Microsoft is investing in military AI applications. So don't be surprised when your computer slaps that camera right out of your hands and punches you in the face. /j (or not, idk, things are looking bad)
  
  There are some autonomous cars with lidar out there where the lidar is so powerful it can wreck a camera close up, but is still safe for eyes.
  Switch up FaceID to use a more powerful laser which will wreck the phones camera, and start making webcams for non macs that are required to have this in them for Teams to work.

now that all the performance, reliability, and usability issues are solved in Teams, it's great to see all that energy going into this useful feature that is surely not possible to circumvent in any way.
- Now we get to break it.

There are going to be fifty different bypasses up on github by the end of the week. This makes me want to join a corpo and record their precious meetings

[laughs in rdp from another machine]
- Laughs at all the cell phone camera captures that will start showing up...

I hate stuff like this because screen grabs during meetings or lectures is my favorite way to take notes.
- Nooooo. If you do that, you won't be paying for Teams Premium which has built in support for screen recording. Think of the revenue lost 😭😭
  Edit: I should add /s incase people think I'm a Microsoft shill
- Now I know why they're trying to push corporate users off of Linux, again.

Run teams in a VM and take a screen shot from the host OS.
- Or just use the smartphone camera that almost everyone is going to have anyhow...
  
  Recording a 1h meeting with a smartphone sounds like a nightmare.
  
  Like record it using a camera? That's a substantial downgrade
- on a work laptop?
  
  Some of us have remote desktop capabilities on our wfh machines

they should also blank the screen if the user has recall enabled
- Are you stupid? Next week they will sell an add on that let's you recall the whole meeting. You need to start thinking outside the box if you're gonna make it in scummy corporate sales.

i mean if someone really wanted to commit espionage they'd just take a photo of the screen with their camera.
- I suspect running teams on Windows in Parallels on a Mac would still let me use the Mac’s screen record feature.

The important bit:
Those joining from unsupported platforms will be automatically placed in audio-only mode to protect shared content.
And I presume everything except Windows 11 Teams will be considered “unsupported”.
- I don't know to what extent they'll go, but yes, this and the Advanced Chat Privacy in WhatsApp are just user locking moves.
- So now my clients will have a harder time engaging with my product. Great.
  
  Stop using microsoft teams, ya dolt.
- i trust signing in through the browser on linux will be supported since that's the official way to use teams on linux
  
  except on firefox of course, because fuck you for even trying to protect a little bit of your privacy
- Good. Do me a favour and block the audio as well.
- I used to be able to join teams meetings in the browser version of teams from my Linux machine. I did my last job interview this way
  
  This still works, it is my only method of interaction with Teams
  
  There’s also the unofficial flatpak, which works rather well.
- Aahhwww, that is so sad, I run Linux and soon our entire office will.
  Guess we won't be using teams then, ooaaahhhwww, so sad
  
  What do you use for video calls with screen share?
  My coop uses teams and I want to move them off it.
- Read the article man
  This feature will be available on Teams desktop applications (both Windows and Mac) and Teams mobile applications (both iOS and Android).
- Did you even read the article.

Don’t worry, Recall will record everything done on the Windows machine.

Yes.

Microsoft Teams will soon encourage users to point their phones at their screens from off camera during meetings
- Yeah seriously; this won't even stop normies. Everybody knows how to take a picture with their phone. Why bother?
  
  Hell a lot of people would probably default to using a phone because they don't know how print screen works.

My company is transitioning to teams. Most of our engineering is on Linux.
Can Microsoft please hurry up and break teams so we can't transition?
- OK, I'm really curious on what programs your engineers use then. Engineering has been one of the use-cases for me, that made it basically impossible to switch to Linux full-time. If you know, please tell me.
  
  All the EDA tools for silicon design are Linux based.
  
  We have Linux. We just use the in browser app. Works fine.
- Most of our engineering is on Linux
  God I wish my company allowed that
  
  This is fairly common in software development.
  
  I have a Linux work laptop which they let us have but we still have to use the MS crap. Fortunately most of it is accessible through the browser but a lot of the Office apps are broken, or missing features on web.
- Don't worry, teams is always somewhere between 10%-30% broken, always something n doesn't work, there are always a bunch of people that can't get in the meeting, that can't share screens all of the sudden because fuck you, that's why
  Teams is the absolute worst and not a day goes by without people shitting on it, and we're only using it because most of our customers do but internally we will switch to something open source soon, because I get to make that decision 😎
  
  I have looked but I just couldn't find an open source alternative that supported Teams core features like showing an error every time I login.
  
  you know, sometimes I wonder if Matrix could be used in a business setting, and worry about its rough edges and buggy features of Element. but you know what! it would probably be fine! not worse than teams, and at least they don't want to fuck you over!
- Those joining from unsupported platforms will be automatically placed in audio-only mode to protect shared content.
  I think this has gone and done it for you
- If Co is willing to use it in current state, all the breaking in the world is not going to change their mind.

So many commenters here and at the article get a hard on to bash MS for anything.
MS won’t make this a requirement, nor will they make using the Teams app a requirement. This isnt some backhanded way to get people to switch from Linux to windows.
This is MS responding to an enterprise feature request.
- I bet they will still make it default.
- The reflexive hate for M$ is not irrational fan-boys bashing a rival, but bitterness over prolonged and profound annoyance, suffering, and downright abuse experienced through using the products produced by that dogshit company.
  I switched because I wanted software that didn't hate me and my values.
  What's irrational is the Stockholm-syndrome Windows user who thinks it's normal and right to run software that spies, advertises, and generally treats users like a resource to be exploited.
  
  Both are irrational IMO. Don't make up reasons to hate a feature, but do attack the features that spy on you.
- The moment a certain company is mentioned in an article, lemmy will go rabid, it doesn’t really matter what the article is about. I am a Linux nerd and if MS crashed and burned tomorrow I wouldn’t exactly shed a tear but the knee jerk reactions are pretty weird to observe.
- Yeah, commented on the sister thread of this over on the technology subreddit that this wouldnt be a default on feature, and probably be either something the meeting owner has to enable (or tenant admins set to enabled in a policy) or it will be part of sensitivity labels or DLP policies.
  Instant downvote.
- Because Lemmy Linux bros like to get their titty in a twist.
  
  I think it's more that average users aren't accustomed to seeing Linux be a larger part of discussions here than on corporate platforms.

It's okay people, even if the feature in itself is not awful, MS Teams still is awful. We can still bash on MS to relieve past Windows trauma.

So it would block screen/video capture, but will it block sound-only capture, too?
- It will be funny if they try, because plenty of presentation setups will break
  
  Jerb security.

Pointless.

I'll have to use the camera phone again then.

This is why they require a TPM, your motherboard will be DRM against you owning the operating system and it will only run signed software.
- I installed Windows 11 with an unsupported CPU, kinda funny how it just worked despite all their screeching that it wouldn't work and updating not working, but installing with installation media was flawless.
  It's a real bitch, automatically logging me into my partner's account for the whole system and overriding my local user settings when I open MS Office apps Excel or Word (but that's just Windows), and it cries about my lack of TPM on those apps and the Start menu when it does log in and cries about me not being logged into a MS account otherwise, but you know what? Everything still actually operates.
  
  I don't want to be that guy, but why use Windows at that point?
  
  ...for now.
  
  What CPU?
  The list of unsupported CPUs is for OEMs licensing new computers as Windows 11 certified.
  Nothing stopping you installing Windows 11 or upgrading to Windows 11 with an incompatible CPU.
  The only item that requires a hack is the lack of TPM. Now that I still don't understand.
  Also, Office by default installs with licensing configured per machine but can be installed so it is licensed per user.

Rules for thee not mee

"This feature will be available on Teams desktop applications (both Windows and Mac) and Teams mobile applications (both iOS and Android)."
What about Teams browser?
OBS Studio has been able to record Teams meetings so far, on Linux.
- regarding the quote, will they just not let linux users connect to the call when that restriction is turned on?
  edit: nvm, the article talks about that too

So does running teams in a windows vm prevent me to take a screenshot on the Linux host? I can't imagine it would.
- I can't see how it would. Can a VM tell it's a VM?
  
  There are plenty of ways for a VM to tell that it's a VM and not on baremetal, but there's not really a way for a program running on an OS in the VM to block the Host OS or hypervisor software from capturing an image of the screen of the VM.
  
  It's too late for this philosophical questions

Welp, there goes any accountability.

Microsoft is working on adding a new Teams feature that will prevent users from capturing screenshots of sensitive information shared during meetings.
Clickbait title
- No, the title is quite accurate. There is no magic to discern "sensitive" data from that which is not.
  
  It’s not accurate because it will be an optional feature.
- Doubt it will prevent flameshot from working if I use teams in firefox
  
  "This feature will be available on Teams desktop applications (both Windows and Mac) and Teams mobile applications (both iOS and Android)."
  Knowing ms they'll just make browsers audio only going forward

So take a fucking picture with your phone
- No you.

"To address the issue of unauthorized screen captures during meetings, the Prevent Screen Capture feature ensures that if a user attempts to take a screen capture, the meeting window will turn black, thereby protecting sensitive information," Microsoft shared in a new Microsoft 365 roadmap entry.
"This feature will be available on Teams desktop applications (both Windows and Mac) and Teams mobile applications (both iOS and Android)."
Yeah, seems like a perfectly reasonable feature to add. It will also likely be a toggle-able feature switch.
Surely there’s no way Lemmy gets angry at this, right?
Reads comments
- The feature is fine in theory. In practice, especially with work from home, it’s useless to achieve the goal it set out to. The article even points it out.
  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.
  Taking photos of screens makes a crappy photo but it’s still a photo of whatever they didn’t want you to take a screenshot of. It’s actually probably worse because now that sensitive info likely isn’t even on a company controlled device anymore and might be uploaded to iCloud or Google automatically because of it.
  
  The feature is fine in theory. In practice, especially with work from home, it’s useless to achieve the goal it set out to. The article even points it out.
  While true, that doesn't really matter when it comes to enterprise. For security compliance you have to be shown to be doing everything that you can to prevent security breaches etc. This feature is another tick box that you can show to whoever is doing your audits to show that you are doing it.
  Also most people don't sit there in meetings with their finger on the screenshot key ready to go - but it is simple to just press a screenshot key on your keyboard. It's a little bit harder to have your phone up and with the camera open the entire time ready to take photos, especially if cameras are on - especially if something just pops up briefly on screen and you realise you want to capture it.
  I don't know your experience in enterprise, but I can tell you that a feature like this will be much applauded by those running companies for the reasons above.
- My problem with it is that it gives a sense of security that does not exist.
  Non-Technical folk will click the button and think they're safe
  
  My problem with it is that it gives a sense of security that does not exist.
  It gives security for 99% of people that will ever be on the calls, and most importantly it gives the company something to point to whenever they get security audits.
  Non-Technical folk will click the button and think they’re safe
  Non-technical folk aren't usually responsible for setting policies in enterprise software lol. They won't have an option.
- I mean... Would it do the same with a 3rd party screenshot app? Or even something like obs? So many ways around it, no reason to get too upset.
  
  Probably, but won't really know until it comes out.
- I really want to dump on them but I can't find anything wrong with the feature... That's depressing, I'll have to look elsewhere for my dose of "MS can't do anything right lol"
  
  You can just take a picture with a camera, which is included with a device pretty much everyone carries with them every day.