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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

#131

Post by Kye »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #8

Start voting with your wallet. I think this is specific to Wacom tablets, but there are many vendors that provide Wacom hardware without their specific OS. I wonder if there is a good open source ROM for drawing tablets?

Wacom is the best, in general. Huion gets 90% there for half or less of the price. They favor a different pressure curve that likely works well enough for most people while, I'm sure, saving on nibs and/or whatever's in the pen. The digitizer itself is equally or more accurate in positioning.

While some people take an understandable but cynical view due to the close ties between most Chinese companies and the government, that's exactly why I don't worry. Any whiff of spying would be a diplomatic hazard.

Think of the ruckus when Bloomberg accused Supermicro of installing spy chips for the Chinese government.

https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/12/super-micro-spy-chip-story/

Now imagine actual, confirmable spying. This would be the end to a huge part of Huion's business in markets it's worked hard to build a good reputation in for access to people who likely don't deal much in the kind of information a government wants to steal.

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

#132

Post by marcodiego »

m4rtink wrote: post #113
marcodiego wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> >And this is where I stopped > > God I'm so sick of these holier than thou Richard Stallman level unrealistic dismissals. I understand your position, but they correctly support their device on linux, I'm sure they can do it on other OS's. > >You should pressure the vendor to correctly support their devices. > > Cool like by means of a blogpost that makes it to the top of hn that details how annoying the vendor's pr…

Is it actually Wacom maintaining the Linux Wacom drivers or is it community maintained ?

Copyright in https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/drivers/hid/w... include an e-mail with "@wacom.com". So, AFAIK, they pay developers to maintain the drivers.

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

#133

Post by akira2501 »

jodrellblank wrote: post #76
dahart wrote: post #21

> we can also come up with scenarios that involve real harms. […] I personally use Google Analytics to track visitors to my website. This was a well-written fun read, and I also both care about privacy a lot and have also used Google Analytics on a site too, but at the same time I’m a little bit floored how quickly his own use of GA was assumed benign while Wacom’s was assumed malicious. (Using GA is handing tracking…

> " it’s very, very valuable data if you care about the customer experience. [...] What can we do as developers to prevent customer experience from becoming adversarial? " Pay money for the very very valuable data, instead of taking it and trying to hide behind legalese and finger-pointing and distraction and affront. If studying how people use your thing adds value to your company, run a usability lab where you pay…

> Pay money for the very very valuable data

I would assume a primary internal use for this would be to test their driver against specific applications and to develop enhancements and improvements for them. The driver offers application specific mappings, so perhaps they want to know what applications are actually being used to better inform their efforts.

If the drivers are continuously updated with this information to provide an improved experience for the largest parts of their user base, then they are effectively paying back for the use of this data.

If that's as far as their use of this data goes, then what more do they directly owe you for the data?

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

#134

Post by marcodiego »

wtallis wrote: post #116
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the same logic: I'm sick of those that proselytize electric cars, since not everyone has the option. I'm sick of those that proselytize walking/biking to work, since not everyone has the option. I'm sick of those that proselytize recycling, since not everyone has the option. I'm sick of those that proselytize philanthropy, since not everyone has the option. I'm the first one who thinks these small sacrifices are p…

It is possible to promote better alternatives without being smug or taking a holier-than-thou attitude. But you're not going to convince anyone to switch with a comment that presumes your alternative is already the default and that everyone will know what you're talking about, rather than actually name and explain the alternative.

I want to make it clear that "taking a holier-than-thou attitude" was never my intention. I wanted to highlight the fact that the title is wrong, and it indeed is, and that users complacency with abuse from the vendors do not help.

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

#135

Post by 8note »

tsumnia wrote: post #73
jodrellblank wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " Why not openly ask the users those questions and show them what information would be sent to the vendor? " Why not pay money to people who spend time helping Wacom improve their products? Then lots of people would willingly help, fill in surveys, test configurations, write feedback, etc.

This is why I reject the counter arguments "Your data is why X service is free" or "If you're not paying for it, you are the product". Even when we are paying for something, we're still getting spied on.

It's capitalism. Every potential revenue stream will be exploited to its fullest potential.

To show similar growth to their shareholders, they'd have to charge you more, so you're data is still paying for X

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

#136

Post by jacquesm »

robert_tweed wrote: post #95
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).

There is a valid reason, which is custom configuration for each application. How you want a tablet to act in Blender is likely not the same as you would want in Photoshop. A lot of mice do the same thing. Once the user has agreed to that valid use-case, there's not a lot the OS can do to stop the data being logged permanently.

That can be handled quite well by local customization.

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

#137

Post by userbinator »

jodrellblank wrote: post #50

Discussed before, and brought up in comments: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247292 (this article, earlier thread) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22803484 (comment by the author of the article) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22512696 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27963867 One of those links was me mentioning it, and this got so under my skin it took Wacom's brand from "premium, resp…

Did they actually do that to ThinkPads, or was it the much cheaper "consumer" IdeaPad line that had it? I seem to remember it was the latter.

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

#138

Post by 14 »

kibwen wrote: post #100
jodrellblank wrote: post #50

Discussed before, and brought up in comments: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247292 (this article, earlier thread) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22803484 (comment by the author of the article) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22512696 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27963867 One of those links was me mentioning it, and this got so under my skin it took Wacom's brand from "premium, resp…

> Like Lenovo's "let's ship spyware with Thinkpads" did. One hopes that companies would value their brand and reputation over some short-term profit (and yet nobody here is holding their breath). To this day I refuse to buy any Lenovo product, and as the tech guy in my family I warn everyone who asks from considering them at all.

Sadly I bought my son a Lenovo couple Christmas ago forgetting all about their crappy behaviour. Forget the spyware their build quality is just garbage. The hinges broke a few weeks after warranty so had to fix it myself. They look nice and shiny but once you use it for a bit can feel the cheapness. And this was an expensive gaming laptop. I am turned off of their products from that experience.

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

#139

Post by wtallis »

marcodiego wrote: post #134
wtallis wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible to promote better alternatives without being smug or taking a holier-than-thou attitude. But you're not going to convince anyone to switch with a comment that presumes your alternative is already the default and that everyone will know what you're talking about, rather than actually name and explain the alternative.

I want to make it clear that "taking a holier-than-thou attitude" was never my intention. I wanted to highlight the fact that the title is wrong, and it indeed is, and that users complacency with abuse from the vendors do not help.

You really weren't trying to communicate clearly. Repeatedly referring to "a different driver" or "a specific driver" when you meant "the driver for a different operating system", and writing comments that presume (but only implicitly) a Linux context when the original blog post is analyzing the macOS driver is less than helpful. You also seemed to be going out of your way to avoid mentioning other operating systems by name.

Everything you've said in this thread could have been more clearly and helpfully condensed to "the Linux driver doesn't include this behavior, and probably never could because it's open-source and upstreamed to the kernel".

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

#140

Post by Jiro »

akira2501 wrote: post #133
jodrellblank wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " it’s very, very valuable data if you care about the customer experience. [...] What can we do as developers to prevent customer experience from becoming adversarial? " Pay money for the very very valuable data, instead of taking it and trying to hide behind legalese and finger-pointing and distraction and affront. If studying how people use your thing adds value to your company, run a usability lab where you pay…

> Pay money for the very very valuable data I would assume a primary internal use for this would be to test their driver against specific applications and to develop enhancements and improvements for them. The driver offers application specific mappings, so perhaps they want to know what applications are actually being used to better inform their efforts. If the drivers are continuously updated with this information…

"Pay money to get the data from the user" doesn't mean "pay money whether the user wants it or not, and take the data whether the user wants to or not". It means that the user has to engage in a voluntary transaction where he can decide whether the price he's paying is worth it or not. No price is "worth it" if the decision that the price is worth it is a one-sided decision that comes from the company.
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