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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

#141

Post by pacija »

haxiomic wrote: post #2

This was a wonderful read I think when I was younger I’d assumed the sheer number of technical users out there would mean it would be hard for companies to get away with things like this but these days I realize this sort of analysis and public exposition is actually rare and the number of skilled developers investing time in this is slim Perhaps collectively as a community we can create public bug and privacy bounti…

It is becoming harder and harder to troubleshoot which apps talk what to which servers because all off them, including OS, talk something all the time.

Back in the day if user told me they have a problem accessing some Internet content I would instruct them to close all the applications and start to dump their traffic on firewall and proxy. There wouldn't be any traffic from their IP address. Then, when they started the application I would see if traffic goes through proxy or directly through firewall, and make adjustments, like putting destination domain on an exclusion list in proxy or destination ip and port on an exclusion list in firewall.

Nowadays, Windows 10 without any applications started sends hundreds of requests per minute to dozens of IPs. Something respects global proxy settings, something not. I guess Android is even worse.

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

#142

Post by dr_kiszonka »

haxiomic wrote: post #2

This was a wonderful read I think when I was younger I’d assumed the sheer number of technical users out there would mean it would be hard for companies to get away with things like this but these days I realize this sort of analysis and public exposition is actually rare and the number of skilled developers investing time in this is slim Perhaps collectively as a community we can create public bug and privacy bounti…

I really like the bounty idea.

There are tons of highly skilled and wealthy folks in the HN community, who are upset about issues such as privacy in tech, poor security in public sector organizations (utilities, education), etc. With some good, informal, leadership, we could put the community's resources to good use and help solve these problems.

Folks who don't see meaning in their regular jobs could find contributing their skill or money to this and similar projects fulfilling and rewarding.

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

#144

Post by the_flinstoned »

The Wacom data collection program is OPTIONAL. Mr. Heaton buries this in his rant in the second to last paragraph.

Any professional digital artist (especially 3d) will tell you they use multiple pieces of software and that many benefits from having the tablet buttons assigned differently to facilitate efficiency as an artist. This is (probably) why Wacom products track the software you're using.

Finally, "Being a mostly-normal person I never usually read privacy policies." - Robert Heaton

Sure, blame Wacom for your impatience, Mr. Heaton.

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

#145

Post by LeifCarrotson »

userbinator wrote: post #137
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.

It was both; the Superfish malware was just the low end but later instances hit ThinkPads and Thinkcenters as well:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2984889/lenovo-collect...

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

#146

Post by 7thaccount »

breakingcups wrote: post #124
7thaccount wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. It only takes one mistake of that magnitude to lose me as a customer forever.

I take it you both also boycott Sony Music Group?

For the spyware/DRM on CDs in the early 2000's? It helps that I mostly just listen to music on YouTube. It's a little easier to remember to not buy something when you're buying a company product like "Lenovo" I guess than something nebulous like Sony Music.

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

#147

Post by KerryJones »

jaclaz wrote: post #58

Besides the specific Wacom related issue, I find this snippet fantastic: >The first is a principled fuck you. I don’t care whether anything materially bad will or won’t happen as a consequence of Wacom taking this data from me. I simply resent the fact that they’re doing it. I have rarely seen the concept expressed in such a clear, direct manner.

I came here to say the exact same thing.

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

#148

Post by asxd »

marcodiego wrote: post #48
zenexer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article was written more than a year ago and received significant attention at the time. I suspect Wacom may have made some changes since then—at least, I hope they did. I can’t be sure because the official drivers aren’t actually open source. This article’s analysis took place on macOS. The drivers to which you linked are for Linux. It’s not unreasonable to assume that official closed-source drivers, especially…

I'm sure macOS supports hid devices out-of-the-box. Users should pressure Wacom to correctly support it. They do it correctly on linux, it is a shame users from other OS's are not treated as first-class citizens.

To be fair, that is the exact intention of this article.

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

#149

Post by userbinator »

I strongly believe this sort of behaviour comes from companies who for some reason think they need their products to have some sort of "experience", usually the ideas of marketing people.

I remember many years ago buying an unbranded tablet from Alibaba -- direct from an OEM -- for a fraction of the cost of a Wacom, and it didn't even need drivers to start functioning. What drivers did come with it on the CD were minimal, unsigned (very common at the time, along with the instructions to click past the warning when installing) and surprisingly even had source code. The configuration utility wasn't a bloated abomination and didn't add itself to autorun on startup.

In other words, it felt like a humble servant ready to work for you, rather than attempting to coerce you into its "experience". It probably wasn't as responsive or featureful as a Wacom, but worked decently for the cost.

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

#150

Post by userbinator »

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.

Doing that locally is perfectly fine; it's the (surprising) act of sending it over the network which isn't acceptable.
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