One more reason never to use a ~~Microsoft~~ Microslop product.
this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2026
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LINUX.
🐧
So glad im on Linux
Regarding this as a flaw is a bit thin right? Massive breach of trust and huge legal issues.
Don't store your secrets on the cloud.
EVER.
sentiment yes but there are FOSS tools to store things in google/microsoft/apple drives or the various object stores (s3, backblaze, etc) that work just like the various drives, but with end to end encryption where you control the keys
in general just don’t let anyone else control your encryption keys… where you store things is almost beside the point
bonus: encryption means they can’t dedupe/compress so you get to waste their money
Could you point me in the right direction for these tools?
If they're selling bitlocker as "full-disk encryption", doesn't that open them up to a class action since encryption with a backdoor isn't encryption?
The keys were very likely uploaded to the linked MS-account.
This is communicated as a backup in case you loose the key.
Breach of trust? Yep
Backdoor? Not very much.
Uploading the key to the cloud is a backdoor. The encryption is only as secure as the your key.
Sure doesnt sound like that to me.
A backdoor is a typically covert method of bypassing normal authentication or encryption in a computer, product, embedded device (e.g. a home router), or its embodiment
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backdoor_(computing)
Not very covert if it is offered to a user.
If MS gives up the key that is stored plainly in their system, that is a problem. But not a backdoor.
This is quite literally the police knocking on the front door and demanding the key.
This is a meaningless, pedantic argument. Call it backdoor or something else, it does not matter. What matters is that it renders the encryption worthless.
If I stick the key outside of the apartment the lock is also useless.
In the end it's the carelessness of the user and not some nefarious scheme the big bad corp trying to come for your homework folder.
You should really touch some grass and stop playing cyberpunk2077 so much. For your own mental being.
We're talking about the default option here.
Nah, it's encryption all right, they just back up the key in case you lose it. Which is a feature. https://aka.ms/bitlockerrecovery
I hear iMessage e2e-encrypted messages are also backed up into cloud as plaintext...
Apple did add a new feature to iCloud called Advanced Data Protection, which enables E2E encryption on iCloud contents, which includes message and device backups.
After enabling this, it is likely prudent to regenerate FileVault keys. It’s also notable that for the initial setup of macOS, it does offer you to forego uploading the recovery key to iCloud, but selecting this option presents a warning stating that Apple will be unable to help you retrieve your data if you lose it. Thus, I am certain most Mac users just upload them to iCloud, which opens them up to exactly the same issue as in the article, but does help protect against thieves or adversaries with brief device access.
I have tried to convince Apple users I know to enable ADP, but I have been faced with the expected dismissal of it being unnecessary because they are not interesting, etc.
More people need to engage in a culture of security and privacy when it comes to their digital lives.
Edit: added missing word
plain text is probably the wrong phrasing, but apple does control all your keys
no matter who it is, the key holder can always read your data
Grey area, user chose to store the private bitlocker key to their online Microsoft acct, it's optional. It's still a dirtbag move, but probably less illegal.
While optional, it is also the default behavior.
it's default in that it's the top item on the list, but I can't actually fault them much here, that dialog is crystal clear and you have to log into a Microsoft account to save it there. They don't really push you very hard to put the key into their cloud.
I fault them more for not using zero-knowledge encryption to protect the user's key.
the other options won't let you continue without performing the actions in a way that windows likes. So for someone trying to set up their PC, only the first option has zero cost.
option two requires an external drive without encryption
option 3 requires setting up a printer from that screen, so you can print the page. it won't let you continue otherwise.
if you want to back up in some other way, you just don't (or use PDF conversion from the print dialog)
They want the key, verifiably off the box, in clear text. Any usb stick. any sd card. Not great, but not any barrier that's worse than needing to setup a microsoft account.
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Why can't just one of our companies not be blood-sucking assholes?
*laughs in rich*
It’s all being dumped into data centers now. Google and Meta don’t need your face to prove who you are to create a new login, they need it to link data. What’s awful is the need to log in is so intense, it worked. Apparently YouTube aspirations are worth it. And shopping Facebook marketplace.
Now, Amazon isn’t allowing returns for many an individual without a pic or upload of government issued ID. Amazon allowed you to both pay and have an item shipped without this ID. But for a return, they now need it. I’m not saying this ask isn’t multipurpose, but it also links your data together and is probably being dumped into data centers with everything else.
My point is, it’s not just Microsoft’s choices.
Because if a company gives up profits to be nice, another company will swoop in and get inherently rewarded by doing the profitable thing instead
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It’s not a security flaw, it’s by design. Microsoft has been building this surveillance apparatus for years, and the purchase of government access to your computer and data using your tax dollars is a lucrative alignment of state and corporate power. Their recent design choices point to a rabid desperation to turn your PC into an Apple-style walled-garden.
It goes like this:
-
Require online Microsoft account creation.
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Require TPM compliance to run Windows.
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Forcibly encrypt the user’s data under the guise of “security”, even without permission or even user action. (Encryption is good! Right?)
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Link your identity, payment information, data, online activity, and encryption keys to your hardware ID.
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Record everything you do and use that data to train an AI model with onboard tensor hardware.
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Exfiltrate the entire model, or just query it remotely for “online services.” Or, in this case, just have MS give you the fucking recovery keys. lol
All done “securely” with tamper resistance and mathematical verifiability that whatever is on your device is yours, and that you took that action with limited plausible deniability.
If you think you’ve got nothing to hide, think again about the current activities of ICE, law enforcement investigations based on reproductive health data, the pornography suppression movement, age verification, and the data harvesting of dissenting speech. What’s legal today can quickly become “illegal” tomorrow. The constitution is just a piece of paper in a fancy climate controlled box.
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Exposing? Microsoft has made it very clear for a while that your Bitlocker keys are synced to your Microsoft account.
Hell, they even have a support page for it. Most of their support pages are nearly useless, but this one is even readable by a normal person.
And before someone mentions the part about Microsoft Support not having access to keys (because some smart ass always does for this stuff)... Just think for a second. Of course customer support doesn't have access to the keys. What Support can do is not a limit for legal disclosure. A legal warrant (like used here) means they'll give any info they have in a heartbeat.
This is not directly on Microsoft as you have to be either ignorant or special kind of stupid to upload your encryption keys to US cloud. The government can request access to any data and a company can't do anything.
The only way to resist this is to not store anything unencrypted from your customers which is quite doable but clearly microsoft has no interest in this.
Just not use Microslop. It's easier.
Finally some users with a level and rational brain...
I was heavily downvoted in another instance (eyeroll).
It's a bit directly on Microsoft, unless you go out of your way, bitlocker will upload the keys to Microsoft. They assume you want them to help recover your data if your tpm becomes unavailable.
Interesting fun fact, when I tried to swype type bitlocker it really wanted to put bootlicker instead.
In most situations, your BitLocker recovery key is automatically backed up when BitLocker is first activated:
Unless your base argument is "Microsoft users are all stupid", then I remind you that this is not only default behavior, but is mandatory if your account is associated with an EmtraID account (i.e. any business or school)
Yes, my point stands.
Windows no longer allows local accounts.
It does.
- A user in the EU
Edit:
MS KB entry in Germany: https://support.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/verwalten-von-benutzerkonten-in-windows-104dc19f-6430-4b49-6a2b-e4dbd1dcdf32
- section: "Erstellen eines Benutzerkontos"
Third step, option C
Wenn Sie die Option Ich habe keine Anmeldeinformationen für diese Person auswählen, können Sie sich für eine neue E-Mail-Adresse registrieren und ein neues Microsoft-Konto erstellen. Wenn Sie ein lokales Konto erstellen möchten, wählen Sie die Option Benutzer ohne Microsoft-Konto hinzufügen aus.
Is it made easy for the average user?
Absolutely not.
Is it impossible?
No.
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Apple is more secure than microsoft.
Apple markets security well, but this isn't about apple vs microsoft vs google. All of them work with governments and collect data. "more secure" depends on threat model, configuration and transparency; not the brand.
We are not talking about privacy, right.. They are making the world safe for us within no privacy.. very well :)
The initial setup of macOS offers disk encryption by default, but also prompts the user to upload the FileVault recovery keys to iCloud. It’s more transparent than Windows, which, if I recall correctly, just silently encrypts the disk and uploads the key to Microsoft servers.
iCloud’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature, which enables E2E encryption, does protect these recovery keys, but I would worry about them being copied elsewhere or retained in unprotected backups after ADP is enabled.
One would probably want to regenerate the FileVault encryption keys after enabling ADP and potentially fully disable uploading the recovery keys to iCloud.
Similarly, it is possible to disable uploading of the BitLocker decryption key in Windows with the Pro and Enterprise versions.
Personally, I doubt most users would use disk encryption if they had to keep track of the disk recovery keys on their own, so this provides meaningful protection against exfiltration of sensitive information if an adversary were to have brief physical access to the device or were to steal it, but it does no good at all for protecting against Microsoft, someone with deep access to Microsoft’s systems, or legal requests to Microsoft.
The same goes for Apple users who don’t have ADP enabled for their iCloud accounts or who have enabled ADP without later regenerating their FileVault keys. (I don’t think one can be reasonably sure that there will be no traces of the cleartext FileVault recovery key on Apple’s servers after ADP is enabled for iCloud.)
Ultimately, so many users should better engage a culture of privacy and security, think seriously about their threat models, and think about what would happen if one where to get access to their sensitive information.
Because you think they didnt do the same ?
who would use that for illegal stuff? prison is full of them.
2026 linux
Oh no, who could have possibly seen this coming when Microsoft decided to back up your full-disk encryption key automatically to OneDrive.
Smart of them to deploy automatic full disk encryption just as open source projects like Trucrypt and Veracrypt were starting to become mainstream, capturing their market share (Netscape Navigator-style). Very incompetent of them to include many glaring backdoors that completely defeats the encryption that they offer.
In addition to being vulnerable to law enforcement through subpoenas on the stored key. Anytime you run a Windows update and the system has to reboot, it writes a 'clear key' to the hard drive which can be easily retrieved if the disk is stolen and also they bypass TPM Validation.
You know, the thing that is so important to have that you were forced to buy an entirely new computer... it is not active during a system update and anybody who had access to your hard drive can write arbitrary code into your system files.
Well, you would think that this isn't very useful, after all they would have to have pretty good timing to catch you updating your computer to remove the hard drive, right?
Nope, if they steal your whole computer and plug it into power and a network connection, the next time a Windows update hits the system will automatically apply the update (absent a very specific Group Policy) and write the full-disk encryption key to the hard drive before shutting down.
I'm no expert computerologist, but I think that any system that requires anybody but you to have your key is insecure. If this is the kind of poor design choices that they make in regards to disk encryption then I would personally have no confidence that their proprietary code is not equally porous.
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On Linux, selecting LUKS when you install encrypts the disk without the potential for this problem. So far it's proven to be very reliable at stopping state level actors, just don't use a password that you use elsewhere
But don't forget to upload a recovery key to your favorite pastebin site. It is easy to loose access otherwise!
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