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Show HN: Drive any macOS app in the background without stealing the cursor
31–40 of 50 posts
Re: Show HN: Drive any macOS app in the background without stealing the cursor
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with opt-in telemetry is that 95% of users are sick and tired of being spied on with every little thing they do.
Telemetry (if it’s truly telemetry) is nowhere close to “tracking”. People conflate the two all the time. One can provide useful, anonymous metrics (e.g. “user enabled feature X”) without doing anything but incrementing the counter for “feature X”. The “Firefox Problem” is that all the power users disable telemetry, so all the “cool” features that power users like (but never get used by “regular people”) get ignored…
The user doesn't conflate the two, the developers do, and that's why we turn off telemetry, because its damn close to tracking.
Knowing what (vulnerable) version of software a user is using transmitted in the clear was absolutely a part of the NSA monitoring error information from windows crash logs https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/08/nsa_collects_... - so forgive me if I do not trust the developer to know what makes me unsafe or not.
If you enable telemetry by default I will do my best to never use your product.
Re: Show HN: Drive any macOS app in the background without stealing the cursor
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with opt-in telemetry is that 95% of users are sick and tired of being spied on with every little thing they do.
If they really were they would turn it off. And stop using Gmail and Android. The overwhelming majority of people don't care about digital privacy because the cost is opaque to them. Also, telemetry when done right isn't "spying". Again, it is anonymized and used to see, for example, where the hot paths and paper cuts in applications are.
And how would I know if you did it right or not?
Re: Show HN: Drive any macOS app in the background without stealing the cursor
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with opt-in telemetry is that 95% of users are sick and tired of being spied on with every little thing they do.
If they really were they would turn it off. And stop using Gmail and Android. The overwhelming majority of people don't care about digital privacy because the cost is opaque to them. Also, telemetry when done right isn't "spying". Again, it is anonymized and used to see, for example, where the hot paths and paper cuts in applications are.
i think that in a free society, you should be able to sell the product you want to sell. but, you should give information of what you are selling to the customer.
if it has telemetry, then it is a tool the customer buys, that also has the function of listening and reporting to others, how it is being used.
you want to sell it - no problem. but tell the customer, "look, this is bugged, and it's going to tell me what you are doing. but it's a great product." anything with opt-out telemetry needs a big version of that warning on the top of the page.
personally i am not a buyer. but that's my preference.
Re: Show HN: Drive any macOS app in the background without stealing the cursor
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with opt-in telemetry is that 95% of users don't change defaults, and the 5% who do are your power users. They're not representative of the average user. And only a subset of them will turn it on Ironically enough the opposite happens with opt-out telemetry, for the same reason: a lot of power users will turn off telemetry, thus you will never see their usage patterns and will have to infer them. Dogfoodi…
If Charmin put sensors in toilet paper rolls to optimize the wiping experience, it would be dystopian. Why do we give software a pass? Privacy is a right not a telemetry problem and opt-out by default is non-consensual surveillance.
i think it's not so much non-consensual, it's misrepresentation.
it's bugged. the same as a mole in your company. or a sculpture with a listening device in it.
tell the user that your thing is bugged!
Re: Show HN: Drive any macOS app in the background without stealing the cursor
#36Incredible! I’m interested in doing something similar on windows, have you looked into that at all? Apparently codex computer use plans to support this on windows in the future. Were you able to see how codex was doing it, or the inspiration was just “they’ve shown it’s possible”?
I did something similar on Windows by creating a "virtual desktop," where I can give the app focus without stealing it from another one. The idea was to basically reimplement RemoteApp without needing a dedicated Windows server.
However, in that case, the app is not visible to the user unless you use "connect" to the virtual desktop; to do it, I implemented (WIP) a simple VNC server in C#.
Re: Show HN: Drive any macOS app in the background without stealing the cursor
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with opt-in telemetry is that 95% of users don't change defaults, and the 5% who do are your power users. They're not representative of the average user. And only a subset of them will turn it on Ironically enough the opposite happens with opt-out telemetry, for the same reason: a lot of power users will turn off telemetry, thus you will never see their usage patterns and will have to infer them. Dogfoodi…
If Charmin put sensors in toilet paper rolls to optimize the wiping experience, it would be dystopian. Why do we give software a pass? Privacy is a right not a telemetry problem and opt-out by default is non-consensual surveillance.
In fairness Charmin is probably backed by millions of dollars of market research on simple user questions like softness, tendency to crumble, size, etc., while free software faces more criticism for issues that are exponentially more difficult to express.
Re: Show HN: Drive any macOS app in the background without stealing the cursor
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Charmin put sensors in toilet paper rolls to optimize the wiping experience, it would be dystopian. Why do we give software a pass? Privacy is a right not a telemetry problem and opt-out by default is non-consensual surveillance.
In fairness Charmin is probably backed by millions of dollars of market research on simple user questions like softness, tendency to crumble, size, etc., while free software faces more criticism for issues that are exponentially more difficult to express.
Ok, replace Charmin with a toilet paper startup disrupting the industry. They wouldn’t be given a pass either. Still disgusting.
It should probably be noted that if there’s no agreement, collecting telemetry without opt-in probably violates several state and federal laws. Not that these are enforced, but it would be nice if they were.
Re: Show HN: Drive any macOS app in the background without stealing the cursor
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they really were they would turn it off. And stop using Gmail and Android. The overwhelming majority of people don't care about digital privacy because the cost is opaque to them. Also, telemetry when done right isn't "spying". Again, it is anonymized and used to see, for example, where the hot paths and paper cuts in applications are.
And how would I know if you did it right or not?
This is called trust.
Re: Show HN: Drive any macOS app in the background without stealing the cursor
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they really were they would turn it off. And stop using Gmail and Android. The overwhelming majority of people don't care about digital privacy because the cost is opaque to them. Also, telemetry when done right isn't "spying". Again, it is anonymized and used to see, for example, where the hot paths and paper cuts in applications are.
i think that in a free society, you should be able to sell the product you want to sell. but, you should give information of what you are selling to the customer. if it has telemetry, then it is a tool the customer buys, that also has the function of listening and reporting to others, how it is being used. you want to sell it - no problem. but tell the customer, "look, this is bugged, and it's going to tell me what y…
Again: telemetry isn't "spying" and it isn't "bugging" the application. It collects usage patterns: how often is which button being pressed by which type of user.
It is not collecting data on you personally nor is it collecting the actual data you enter.