You can always count on someone coming along and defending the multi-trillion dollar corporation that just so happens to take a screenshot of your screen every few seconds (among many, many - too many other things)
I big demographic of HN users are people who want to be the multi-trillion dollar corporation so it’s not too surprising. In this case though I think they are right. And I’m a big time Microsoft hater.
There is no point locking your laptop with a passphrase if that passphrase is thrown around.
Sure, maybe some thief can't get access, but they probably can if they can convince Microsoft to hand over the key.
Microsoft should not have the key, thats part of the whole point of FDE; nobody can access your drive except you.
The cost of this is that if you lose your key: you also lose the data.
We have trained users about this for a decade, there have been countless dialogues explaining this, even if we were dumber than we were (we're not, despite what we're being told: users just have fatigue from over stimulation due to shitty UX everywhere); then it's still a bad default.
Just to be clear: bitlocker is NOT encrypting with your login password! I could be a little fuzzy on the details but I believe how it works is that your TPM (Trusted Platform Module) is able to decrypt your laptop, but will only do so if there is a fully signed and trusted boot chain, so if somebody gains access to your laptop and attempts to boot into anything other than Windows, it will ask for the bitlocker key because the TPM won't play ball.
The important bit here is that ~*nobody* who is using Windows cares about encryption or even knows what it is! This is all on by default, which is a good thing, but also means that yes, of course Microsoft has to store the keys, because otherwise a regular user will happen to mess around with their bios one day and accidentally lock themselves permanently out of their computer.
If you want regular FDE without giving Microsoft the key you can go ahead and do it fairly easily! But realistically if the people in these cases were using Linux or something instead the police wouldn't have needed an encryption key because they would never have encrypted their laptop in the first place.
> nobody who is using Windows cares about encryption or even knows what it is!
Right, so the solution is to silently upload their encryption keys to Microsoft's servers without telling them? If users don't understand encryption, they certainly don't understand they've just handed their keys to a third party subject to government data requests.
> otherwise a regular user will happen to mess around with their bios one day and accidentally lock themselves permanently out of their computer.
This is such transparent fear-mongering. How often does this actually happen versus how often are cloud providers breached or served with legal requests? You're solving a hypothetical edge case by creating an actual security vulnerability.
Encryption by default and cloud key escrow are separate decisions. You can have one without the other. The fact that Microsoft chose both doesn't make the second one necessary, it makes it convenient for Microsoft.
> If you want regular FDE without giving Microsoft the key you can go ahead and do it fairly easily!
Then why isn't that the default with cloud backup as opt-in? Oh right, because then Microsoft wouldn't have everyone's keys.
> Right, so the solution is to silently upload their encryption keys to Microsoft's servers without telling them? If users don't understand encryption, they certainly don't understand they've just handed their keys to a third party subject to government data requests.
What exactly are you hoping Windows does here? Anyone who knows anything about Bitlocker knows Microsoft has the keys (that's where you get the key when you need it, which I have needed it many times because I dual boot!) Microsoft could put a big screen on install saying 'we have your encryption keys!' — would this change literally anything? They would need to also explain what that means and what bitlocker is. And then after all of that, the only people who are going to decide 'actually I want to set up FDE myself' are going to be the technical people who already knew all of this already! This is just a non-issue.
> This is such transparent fear-mongering. How often does this actually happen versus how often are cloud providers breached or served with legal requests? You're solving a hypothetical edge case by creating an actual security vulnerability.
This is not fear mongering at all! The nice thing about Bitlocker is that you don't need to put in your key 99% of the time (and in fact 99% of Windows users — who are not technical! — don't even know they have Bitlocker). But occasionally you do need to put it in. Once or twice I've booted to the bitlocker screen and I actually don't even know why. Maybe my TPM got wiped somehow? Maybe my computer shut down in a really weird way? But it happens enough that it's clearly necessary! That big Crowdstrike screwup a year ago; one of the ways to fix it required having your Bitlocker key!
> Encryption by default and cloud key escrow are separate decisions. You can have one without the other. The fact that Microsoft chose both doesn't make the second one necessary, it makes it convenient for Microsoft.
Again, this is not true for a product like Windows where 99% of users are not technical. Remember, Bitlocker does not require your key on startup the vast majority the time! However, there is a chance that you will need the key at some point or you will be locked out of you data permanently. Where should Microsoft give the user the key? Should they say on install 'hey, write this down and don't lose it!' Any solution relying on the user is obviously a recipe for disaster. But again, let me remind you that encryption by default is important because you don't want any old random laptop thief to get access to your chrome account! So yes, I think Microsoft made the best and only choice here.
BitLocker encrypts data on a disk using what it calls a Full Volume Encryption Key (FVEK).[1][2] This FVEK is encrypted with a separate key which it calls a Volume Management Key (VMK) and the VMK-encrypted FVEK is stored in one to three (for redundancy) metadata blocks on the disk.[1][2] The VMK is then encrypted with one or more times with a key which is derived/stored using one or more methods which are identified with VolumeKeyProtectorID.[2][3] These methods include what I think would now be the default for modern Windows installations of 3 "Numerical password" (128-bit recovery key formatted with checksums) and 4 "TPM And PIN". Previously instead of 4 "TPM And PIN" most Windows installations (without TPMs forced to be used) would probably be using just 8 "Passphrase". Unless things have changed recently, in mode 4 "TPM And PIN", the TPM stores a partial key, and the PIN supplied by the user is the other partial key, and both partial keys are combined together to produce the key used to decrypt the VMK.
Seemingly once you've installed Windows and given the Microsoft your BitLocker keys in escrow, you could then use Remove-BitLockerKeyProtector to delete the VMK which is protected with mode 3 "Numerical password" (recovery key).[4] It appears that the escrow process (possibly the same as used by BackupToAAD-BitLockerKeyProtector) might only send the numerical key, rather than the VMK itself.[5][6] I couldn't find from a quick Internet search someone who has reverse engineered fveskybackup.dll to confirm this is the case though. If Microsoft are sending the VMK _and_ the numerical key, then they have everything needed to decrypt a disk. If Microsoft are only sending the numerical key, and all numerical key protected VMKs are later securely erased from the disk, the numerical key they hold in escrow wouldn't be useful later on.
Someone did however ask the same question I first had. What if I had, for example, a billion BitLocker recovery keys I wanted to ensure were backed up for my protection, safety and peace of mind? This curious person did however already know the limit was 200 recovery keys per device, and found out re-encryption would fail if this limit had been reached, then realised Microsoft had fixed this bug by adding a mechanism to automatically delete stale recovery keys in escrow, then reverse engineered fveskybackup.dll and an undocumented Microsoft Graph API call used to delete (or "delete") escrowed BitLocker recovery keys in batches of 16.[7]
It also appears you might only be able to encrypt 10000 disks per day or change your mind on your disk's BitLocker recovery keys 10000 times per day.[8] That might sound like a lot for particularly an individual, but the API also perhaps applies a limit of 150 disks being encrypted every 15 minutes for an entire organisation/tenancy. It doesn't look like anyone has written up an investigation into the limits that might apply for personal Microsoft accounts, or if limits differ if the MS-Organization-Access certificate is presented, or what happens to a Windows installation if a limit is encountered (does it skip BitLocker and continue the installation with it disabled?).
The vast, vast majority of Windows users don't know their laptops are encrypted, don't understand encryption, and don't know what bitlocker is. If their keys weren't stored in the cloud, these users could easily lose access to their data without understanding how or why. So for these users, which again is probably >99% of all windows users, storing their keys in the cloud makes sense and is a reasonable default. Not doing it would cause far more problems than it solves.
And the passphrase they log in to windows with is not the key, Microsoft is not storing their plain text passphrase in the cloud, just to be clear.
The only thing I would really fault Microsoft for here is making it overly difficult to disable the cloud storage for users who do understand all the implications.
> The vast, vast majority of Windows users don't know their laptops are encrypted, don't understand encryption, and don't know what bitlocker is.
Mate, if 99% of users don't understand encryption, they also don't understand that Microsoft now has their keys. You can't simultaneously argue that users are too thick to manage keys but savvy enough to consent to uploading them.
> If their keys weren't stored in the cloud, these users could easily lose access to their data without understanding how or why.
As opposed to losing access when Microsoft gets breached, or when law enforcement requests their keys, or when Microsoft decides to lock them out? You've traded one risk for several others, except now users have zero control.
The solution to "users might lock themselves out" is better UX for local key backup, not "upload everyone's keys to our servers by default and bury the opt-out". One is a design problem, the other is a business decision masquerading as user protection.
> The only thing I would really fault Microsoft for here is making it overly difficult to disable the cloud storage for users who do understand all the implications.
That's not a bug, it's the entire point. If it were easy to disable, people who understand the implications would disable it. Can't have that, can we?
It only became off by default after those "daily rage sessions" created sufficient public pressure to turn them off.
Microsoft also happens to own LinkedIn which conveniently "forgets" all of my privacy settings every time I decide to review them (about once a year) and discover that they had been toggled back to the privacy-invasive value without my knowledge. This has happened several times over the years.
Daily rage is exactly what technology affine people need to direct at Microslop, while helping their loved ones and ideally businesses transition away from the vendor lockin onto free software.
AI enshittification is irrelevant here. Why is someone pointing out that sensible secure defaults are a good thing suddenly defending the entire company?
It generally is, because in the vast majority of cases users will not keep a local copy and will lose their data.
Most (though not all) users are looking for encryption to protect their data from a thief who steals their laptop and who could extract their passwords, banking info, etc. Not from the government using a warrant in a criminal investigation.
If you're one of the subset of people worried about the government, you're generally not using default options.
For laptops sure, but then those are not reasons for it to be default on desktops too. Are most Windows users on laptops? I highly doubt that. So it is not a sensible default.
> It generally is, because in the vast majority of cases users will not keep a local copy and will lose their data.
What's the equivalent of thinking users are this stupid?
I seem to recall that the banks repeatedly tell me not to share my PIN number with anyone, including (and especially) bank staff.
I'm told not to share images of my house keys on the internet, let alone handing them to the government or whathaveyou.
Yet for some unknown reason everyone should send their disk encryption keys to one of the largest companies in the world (largely outside of legal jurisdiction), because theythemselves can't be trusted.
Bear in mind that with a(ny) TPM chip, you don't need to remember anything.
Come off it mate. You're having a laugh aren't you?
> What's the equivalent of thinking users are this stupid?
What's the equivalent of thinking security aficionados are clueless?
Security advice is dumb and detached from life, and puts ubdue burden on people that's not like anything else in life.
Sharing passwords is a feature, or rather a workaround because this industry doesn't recognize the concept of temporary delegation of authority, even though it's the basics of everyday life and work. That's what you do when you e.g. send your kid on a grocery run with your credit card.
Asking users to keep their 2FA recovery keys or disk encryption keys safe on their own - that's beyond ridiculous. Nothing else in life works that way. Not your government ID, not your bank account, not your password, not even the nuclear launch codes. Everything people are used to is fixable; there's always a recovery path for losing access to accounts or data. It may take time and might involve paying a notary or a court case, but there is always a way. But not so with encryption keys to your shitposts and vacation pictures in the cloud.
Why would you expect people to follow security advice correctly? It's detached from reality, dumb, and as Bitcoin showed, even having millions of dollars on the line doesn't make regular people capable of being responsible with encryption keys.
Your credit card analogy is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, but it's carrying the wrong cargo. Sending your kid to the shops with your card is temporary delegation, not permanent key escrow to a third party you don't control. It's the difference between lending someone your house key for the weekend and posting a copy to the council "just in case you lose yours". And; you know that you've done it, you have personally weighed the risks and if something happens with your card/key in that window: you can hold them to account. (granted, keys can be copied)
> Nothing else in life works that way. Not your government ID, not your bank account, not your password, not even the nuclear launch codes.
Brilliant examples of why you're wrong:
Government IDs have recovery because the government is the trusted authority that verified you exist in the first place. Microsoft didn't issue your birth certificate.
Nuclear launch codes are literally designed around not giving any single entity complete access, hence the two-person rule and multiple independent key holders. You've just argued for my position.
Banks can reset your PIN because they're heavily regulated entities with legal obligations and actual consequences for breaching trust. Microsoft's legal department is larger than most countries' regulators.
> even having millions of dollars on the line doesn't make regular people capable of being responsible with encryption keys.
Right, so the solution is clearly to hand those keys to a corporation that's subject to government data requests, has been breached multiple times, and whose interests fundamentally don't align with yours? The problem with Bitcoin isn't that keys are hard - it's that the UX is atrocious. The solution is better tooling, not surveillance capitalism with extra steps.
You're not arguing for usability. You're arguing that we should trust a massive corporation more than we trust ourselves, whilst simultaneously claiming users are too thick to keep a recovery key in a drawer. Pick a lane.
So what happens if your motherboard gets fried and you don’t have backups of your recovery key or your data? TPMs do fail on occasion. A bank PIN you can call and reset, they can already verify your identity through other means.
> So what happens if your motherboard gets fried and you don't have backups of your recovery key or your data?
If you don't have backups of your data, you've already lost regardless of where your recovery key lives. That's not an encryption problem, that's a "you didn't do backups" problem, which, I'll agree is a common issue. I wonder if the largest software company on the planet (with an operating system in practically every home) can help with making that better. Seems like Apple can, weird.
> TPMs do fail on occasion.
So do Microsoft's servers. Except Microsoft's servers are a target worth attacking, whereas your TPM isn't. When was the last time you heard about a targeted nation-state attack on someone's motherboard TPM versus a data breach at a cloud provider?
> A bank PIN you can call and reset, they can already verify your identity through other means.
Banks can do that because they're regulated financial institutions with actual legal obligations and consequences for getting it wrong. They also verified your identity when you opened the account, using government ID and proof of address.
Microsoft is not your bank, not your government, and has no such obligations. When they hand your keys to law enforcement, which they're legally compelled to do, you don't get a phone call asking if that's alright.
The solution to TPM failure is a local backup of your recovery key, stored securely. Not uploading it to someone else's computer and hoping for the best.
Yes, because object level facts matter, and it's intellectually dishonest to ignore the facts and go straight into analyzing which side is the most righteous, like:
>Microsoft is an evil corporation, so we must take all bad stories about them at face value. You're not some corpo bootlicker, now, are you? Now, in unrelated news, I heard Pfizer, another evil corporation with a dodgy history[1] is insisting their vaccines are safe...
Microsoft doesn't take the screenshot; their operating system does if Recall is enabled, and although the screenshots themselves are stored in an insecure format and location, Microsoft doesn't get them by default.