“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.
Yeah, this is a “feature” for the companies with the “enterprise” warning label who would rather waste a lot of effort on ineffective compliance checklists than actually make sure their software is up-to-date with security fixes.
Nope. Compliance check lists matter when you are audited by external companies for things like PCI. It’s also not a lot of effort, nor is it ineffective, nor is making sure software is up to date ignored.
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.
Especially in the companies with the enterprise warning label non-technical idiots are in charge of setting technical policies because it is all about office politics there.
If a company on enterprise plans has non-IT technical people doing their technical policies then nothing will save them.
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.
Sure, but it takes extra steps and the results won’t be as good as direct screen capture. It won’t stop someone determined, but it’s annoying enough that most people won’t bother.
Sure, it keeps honest people honest, but does little if anything to stop the actual problem.
Bit more effort and harder to do when something only briefly flashes on screen than it is to hit the screenshot button on almost every keyboard.
If you know it’s blocked, you can have the camera ready. This is only going to keep honest people honest.
As I said in another comment:
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.
This is only going to keep honest people honest.
It’s going to keep the overwhelming amount of people “honest”, and it’s going to give companies an extra tick box on any security audits that are integral to the company doing business.
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.
Don’t worry, Recall will record everything done on the Windows machine.
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 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
There’s also the unofficial flatpak, which works rather well.
No, it sucks. The Linux app does not support screen sharing on Wayland, but it works fine in the browser
I use Wayland at work, and haven’t had any issues sharing my screen on Teams.
Ah. I haven’t switched to Wayland yet so I wasn’t aware of that issue.
This still works, it is my only method of interaction with Teams
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.
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
I use Edge on Linux for working with Microsoft stuff on my corporate laptop. For everything else I use Firefox there. Privacy preserved, basically.
Privacy preserved, basically.
only if the browser cannot run in the background, and it cannot access any of your fikes, the DBus of your regular user’s session, and other facilities
You lock it with flatpak as much as you can. Also, don’t keep it running if not needed.
Also, don’t keep it running if not needed.
can you enforce that with flatpak? I often see the notification that “X program is still running in the background” or something similar, but the flatpak permission settings did not seem to have such a setting
No but, you can just close 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).
So now my clients will have a harder time engaging with my product. Great.
Stop using microsoft teams, ya dolt.
My workplace barely groks opportunity cost on their main product, and I’m not responsible for the IT. When it breaks constantly, I say “yeah we know it breaks like this, get them to fix it.”
Not my circus, I just stamp the tickets.
Did you even read the article.
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.
Good. Do me a favour and block the audio as well.
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?
Most of our engineering is on Linux
God I wish my company allowed that
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.
This is fairly common in software development.
I’m still at my first job in Software Development.
If Co is willing to use it in current state, all the breaking in the world is not going to change their mind.
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
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.
Thx for the answer, that makes sense. I’m more in the mechanical sector now and don’t have much to do with silicon design.
We have Linux. We just use the in browser app. Works fine.
I see. Using the browser app certainly doesn’t sound like the optimal solution, but if it works fine, then that’s great. Unfortunately that’s not feasible for my case.
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.
Pointless.
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.
I’ll have to use the camera phone again then.
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.
/s
Now we get to break it.
Rules for thee not mee
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.
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.
1hr? Maybe just wear an action camera, if you can sit well in front of the screen during whole meeting. (j/k)
EDIT: For smartphone, get a selfie stand if you have place to set it up, do not try to hold the phone with your hand for 1 hour.
This is the right way, but holding it in their hands will be the way so many clever rebels do it at first.
Thanks Microsoft, I’m investing in cell-phone tripods today.
Like record it using a camera? That’s a substantial downgrade
Doesn’t matter for the “problem” they are trying to solve. Nobody interested in the “sensitive” information of another company will complain about picture quality if the information is readable enough.
A lot of people havw been doing it anyway.
on a work laptop?
Some of us have remote desktop capabilities on our wfh machines
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.”
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.
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.
I don’t want to be that guy, but why use Windows at that point?
An OS is a tool.
And you are a tool if you use the wrong tool for a purpose.
E.g. an essential program that only runs on windows and is either impossible or troublesome to run elsewhere.I agree. That’s why I wouldn’t install Windows 11 on an unsupported CPU in the first place, let alone keep it installed after having one issue after another like the comment I replied to had mentioned.
Seems like the wrong tool to me.
…for now.
