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Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open

robertheaton.com

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Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open

#61

Post by jodrellblank »

ivanmontillam wrote: post #38
JKCalhoun wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. I shouldn't have said "walled garden" — a permissions system is a perfectly adequate solution.

We could go a bit further with MAC (Mandatory Access Control). Something like SELinux. Properly understood, SELinux can provide rock-solid security. Of course, it's not a replacement of other security software, but it can prevent most of sneaky leakages such as the we had just seen in this post. MacOS doesn't ship with SELinux, but I believe it has something similar.

Can it? (Genuine question). I understand SELinux can block processes from opening network sockets for example, but aren't drivers modules loaded into the kernel and not their own process, so you'd have to block the kernel from doing things or not? Or can SELinux go more granular than that?

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open

#62

Post by jacquesm »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #7

I never thought I would want a "walled garden" on my desktop, but these shit software stacks that companies are integrating into their products are forcing me to want to fight back to lock down my machine. I would love a simple utility that could not only neatly encapsulate and display the data being sent from my machine out on the network but also allow me to merely check a box to block that traffic. A smart initial…

https://www.qubes-os.org/

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open

#63

Post by jacquesm »

tubby12345 wrote: post #49
marcodiego wrote: post #44

Reading the article: Last week I set up my tablet on my new laptop. As part of installing its drivers I was asked to accept Wacom’s privacy policy. And this is where I stopped. You're doing it wrong. Drivers belong to the kernel. You should not have to manually install it. You should pressure the vendor to correctly support their devices. I have a Wacom device, tried it in different recent distros, different computer…

>And this is where I stopped God I'm so sick of these holier than thou Richard Stallman level unrealistic dismissals. This take isn't brilliant - we all, at all times, know that we have the option to not ____ if we so choose. Not unlike how people say things like "well I would just choose not to work at ____". That we often choose otherwise means we can't but. >You should pressure the vendor to correctly support thei…

If you're so sick of those comments then what are you doing here, with your 50 day old account telling people off that have been here for many years?

This community has been a bit sharper than most when it comes to the kind of side-effects that seem to be part and parcel of the tech world and if that's not to your liking it confuses me why you would join.

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open

#64

Post by littlecranky67 »

jacquesm wrote: post #60
krylon wrote: post #20

The sad thing about this is that there are perfectly valid reasons for Wacom to want certain information, like what hardware do their customers connect the drawing tablets to, what operating systems and applications do they use. This is useful information to have, in the sense that Wacom can choose where to put their resources, what applications to test for, etc. But the very fact they are so damned sneaky about it m…

I don't see any valid reason for Wacom to look at what application people use. And in a proper operating system that information should not be easily available (not without the users' consent).

Any examples for those proper OSes? I can only imagine those often critized for being walled gardens, namely iOS, Android, and proprietary hardware like gaming consoles. On any UNIX used as a desktop, you will not have trouble finding a list of running processes.

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open

#65

Post by Sindisil »

dylan604 wrote: post #42
krylon wrote: post #20

The sad thing about this is that there are perfectly valid reasons for Wacom to want certain information, like what hardware do their customers connect the drawing tablets to, what operating systems and applications do they use. This is useful information to have, in the sense that Wacom can choose where to put their resources, what applications to test for, etc. But the very fact they are so damned sneaky about it m…

macOS does this any time an application "quits unexpectedly". You can Ignore, View Report, Send Report from the dialog.

Most Linux distributions have a similar mechanism.

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open

#66

Post by Multicomp »

d3nj4l wrote: post #32
xoa wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would love a simple utility that could not only neatly encapsulate and display the data being sent from my machine out on the network but also allow me to merely check a box to block that traffic. Does Little Snitch not meet your needs there? I believe even with the challenges caused by Apple's unfortunate elimination of kernel extensions it's still powerful and effective. The GUI is solid and I've had solid succ…

OpenSnitch is a good equivalent for Linux users, btw. Don’t assume you’re not being mined for data because you’re on Linux!

> Don’t assume you’re not being mined for data because you’re on Linux!

You make a good point that I'd not really considered. When I'm on Linux, I have a tendency to think I'm less likely to be tracked for stuff since mostly I just use the open source drivers.

I have a wacom tablet connected to my machine running Fedora and didn't install wacom drivers, it 'just worked' using whoever's amazing open source graphics tablet driver contributions.

But if I didn't know that or I had to install Wacom's sneaky drivers anyways? If I had to use Little / Open Snitch either way to use a particular piece of hardware, the thought occurs to me (this may be OT) that it I may just wander back to what I'm used to from the past: Windows.

Gravity pulls me to Windows because I'm familiar with its UX, I have lots of software I run on it, and it's less fragmented than desktop Linux.

But I am using Fedora here because it has a superior privacy stance, is not going to force me to update, is not going to violate my express preferences by willfully ignoring or un-setting my settings, and because there's less third party drivers required (provided I do the special Linux-friendly hardware dance).

I guess I'm trying to say one's personal computing choices are a constantly changing balance and your statement caused me to re-evaluate my balance there, so thank you for the thought provoking comment.

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open

#67

Post by jacquesm »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #64
jacquesm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any valid reason for Wacom to look at what application people use. And in a proper operating system that information should not be easily available (not without the users' consent).

Any examples for those proper OSes? I can only imagine those often critized for being walled gardens, namely iOS, Android, and proprietary hardware like gaming consoles. On any UNIX used as a desktop, you will not have trouble finding a list of running processes.

Qubes. It's essentially VMs around every application, browser instance or service.

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open

#68

Post by littlecranky67 »

jasonlotito wrote: post #45
GuB-42 wrote: post #18

> Why does a device that is essentially a mouse need a privacy policy? There are mice that require you to create an account nowadays...

… which is perfectly acceptable because there are customer facing features enabled with this account. Which is shared in the marketing for said mice. And then there are mice which don’t require accounts. And technically, the mice do NOT require you to create an account.

it is only acceptable as an opt-in. Companies right and left try to collect as much data as possible, to a large extend not feature driven but marketing/sales driven, because having the users Email account, country, language etc. opens a sales channel. Oculus' Fb Account requiremet the most prominent example, but I remember also buying a GoPro Hero Black ~2016 that would require the companion App to create a GoPro account, just so you can change the settings of the camera (which some items were not changeable through the on-camera buttons).

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open

#69

Post by kapp_in_life »

jacquesm wrote: post #60
krylon wrote: post #20

The sad thing about this is that there are perfectly valid reasons for Wacom to want certain information, like what hardware do their customers connect the drawing tablets to, what operating systems and applications do they use. This is useful information to have, in the sense that Wacom can choose where to put their resources, what applications to test for, etc. But the very fact they are so damned sneaky about it m…

I don't see any valid reason for Wacom to look at what application people use. And in a proper operating system that information should not be easily available (not without the users' consent).

The need to know what art applications to test their product against and what hardware configurations they might need to write drivers for. For example, is 99% of their customer base using GiMP or are they using Photoshop? Its important to know how to allocate their testing resources.

They could ask permission first but this sort of telemetry is a nothingburger in my opinion, as unpopular as that might be on this forum.

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