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Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

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Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#201

Post by blub »

Karunamon wrote: post #127
blub wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google analytics. Anonymous. Couldn't possibly be used to track them. You've either missed the last decade of privacy-related discussions or you're playing for team spyware yourself. Companies like Google have billions, lawyers lobbyists, sociologists and every bloody specialist working for them to suck all information out of everybody and there's always some clueless person jumping to their defense with some pointle…

Or, I don't agree with this absurd definition of privacy that the tech sector has gotten itself enamored with, but okay, we'll go with the accusations of being a shill.

It doesn't matter if you are a shill or are doing it because you believe you're right. At the end of the day you and other people that agree with such abuses for some subtle reason are all part of the problem. Hence playing for the opposite team.

You don't seem to understand that being reasonable, impartial and giving companies the benefit of doubt doesn't work when you are a mere flea opposing gigantic conglomerates.

Privacy is very simple. The person's data should be controlled by that person: they should know what data is stored on them, should be able to correct it if wrong or ask for it to be deleted. Any kind of data transmission should be opt-in.

Anything else is bullshit and goes against the interests of the customer. If not at the beginning, when they inevitably decide to monetize that data.

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#202

Post by blub »

dogma1138 wrote: post #146
blub wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google analytics. Anonymous. Couldn't possibly be used to track them. You've either missed the last decade of privacy-related discussions or you're playing for team spyware yourself. Companies like Google have billions, lawyers lobbyists, sociologists and every bloody specialist working for them to suck all information out of everybody and there's always some clueless person jumping to their defense with some pointle…

It's not about missing the privacy discussion it's about the public at large not giving a flying duck about it, regardless of what you think. Pick a random person on the street and ask them, you need to understand that by enlarge simply by knowing about this site you are already part of a tiny subculture of of the general population, and most likely living in a walled garden as far as your social connections goes. Pe…

People can't be expected to understand all the subtle aspects of privacy, medicine, drugs, automobiles and many other things.

That's why there are laws which by default protect those people from the maliciousness, greed or incompetence of companies. And why the US needs strong privacy laws.

The fact that the masses don't understand something is irrelevant.

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#203

Post by [deleted] »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #93

First, let me say that I think what they did was wrong and it should only be opt-in and clearly stated. That said, having managed fleets of machines that were nominally running the "same" software, getting updates from all of them is a really powerful debugging tool. Once you get above about 1,000 machines logs comparison of all the machines immediately surfaces software issues (happens on all machines), connectivity…

[deleted]

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#204

Post by white-flame »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #93

First, let me say that I think what they did was wrong and it should only be opt-in and clearly stated. That said, having managed fleets of machines that were nominally running the "same" software, getting updates from all of them is a really powerful debugging tool. Once you get above about 1,000 machines logs comparison of all the machines immediately surfaces software issues (happens on all machines), connectivity…

This isn't about just technical issue monitoring. Their privacy policies and such include sharing your personally identifying information (email, full name, etc) with 3rd parties & advertisers, and associating your random web browsing with your video card's account.

Remember that it's not just games, but your web browser, media players and anything that might use hardware acceleration runs through these drivers, which then reports back to nVidia. Plus, all telemetry data is unencrypted during transmission.

On the plus side, it looks like this is only transmitted back to the mothership if you're running GeForce Experience, which I don't think is even available on Linux.

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#205

Post by deviate_X »

What we actually need is good _independant_ firewall vendors.

It is not enough to focus on the telemetry giant corporations like NVIDIA or Microsoft while forgetting about all the P2P software being installed by game's vendors and "telemetry" of software smaller vendors.

On big computers/pcs the default mode makes the user give up too much control _forever_ once the software its has been installed. Most software only need to be doing anything when your actually using it.

What we need is not opt-in checkboxes from vendors, what we need is the operating-system level software to be better -> where our explicit permission is needed to "allow" some kind of activity like transmitting over the network or detecting my location.

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#206

Post by dogma1138 »

Kubuxu wrote: post #200
dogma1138 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If NVIDIA can't be asked to fully support their hardware on Linux, the least they can do is release some documentation so the Nouveau devs don't need to grope in the dark. I don't disagree in principle, but they've killed it, releasing information to make it work might be a problem for them, and since this thing is no longer supported adding compatibility for older devices isn't a high priority for them. It worked p…

Prime and Bumblebee are totally different from Nvidia Optimus. They have to render to render to Nvidia's GFX framebuffer and then copy it to Intel's GFX display framebuffer. This is much more expensive than hardware implementation of Nvidia Optimus.

No they aren't, PRIME and BB only now support synchronisation which is how it also works on Windows.

It's more expensive on Linux because the DRM on Linux is broken, there is no longer "Optimus" since NVIDIA no longer uses a dedicated chip, you share a frame buffer with the IGP.

PRIME also supports the older Optimus chip laptops, but again this doesn't work that well, but then again these don't work well with Windows 10 either due to the changes to WDDM.

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#207

Post by EasyTiger_ »

alkonaut wrote: post #194
nitrogen wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem is that several seemingly innocuous pieces of data can be combined to create a unique ID. See the Panopticlick for an example.

Yeah, if someone e.g. gets my complete hw fingerprint, I'm identifiable. But it's no worse than I'm already uniquely id'd by visiting pretty much any website today. I don't like it, but I also don't see a point in being outraged when my music player does it but not when my favorite website does it.

You seem very willing to just dish your data over to everyone - can I install some software on your computer, too?

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#208

Post by [deleted] »

existencebox wrote: post #14
LinuxBender wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blocked their telemetry and not I can't even update my drivers. Not through windows update, nor through their installer. It hangs trying to talk back to them. No harm, no foul, probably time to give AMD cards a chance. Variety is the spice of life and the spice must flow.

As much as I welcome the capitalistic response, I'm worried it won't be enough. As much as I'd love true competition in the GPU/CPU space, it doesn't exist. AMD's cards simply cannot compete with Nvidia for GPGPU type scenarios, and even in its basic capacity, often have known heat/perf issues. Now that may be worth it for now to make a statement against the telemetry, but what if (less if and more when IMO) AMD then…

[deleted]

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#209

Post by vasquez »

existencebox wrote: post #14
LinuxBender wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blocked their telemetry and not I can't even update my drivers. Not through windows update, nor through their installer. It hangs trying to talk back to them. No harm, no foul, probably time to give AMD cards a chance. Variety is the spice of life and the spice must flow.

As much as I welcome the capitalistic response, I'm worried it won't be enough. As much as I'd love true competition in the GPU/CPU space, it doesn't exist. AMD's cards simply cannot compete with Nvidia for GPGPU type scenarios, and even in its basic capacity, often have known heat/perf issues. Now that may be worth it for now to make a statement against the telemetry, but what if (less if and more when IMO) AMD then…

Actually, AMD's latest design, the RX 4x0 series, measures up really well to NVidia's mid and low end cards, especially for Vulkan/DX12 apps. They're not a contender in the enthusiast market, but will be releasing high-end cards using a refined design in the first half of 2017.

As for drivers, AMD has pledged to open source their Vulkan and OpenCL implementations. While that release has been pending "legal review" forever now, alternative open source drivers are making great progress thanks to Vulkan's simpler driver model. While NVidia's generally had the "better" driver, both from adhering less strictly to the spec and having the manpower to routinely fix application bugs in their driver, that's all changed with Vulkan/DX12 being significantly closer to the hardware.

I'd say things are looking up for market balance.

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#210

Post by hydragit »

doubt_me wrote: post #177
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. As long as consumers have no way of knowing whether or not their information is being transmitted, what information it is, and how it will be used, corporations will continue to do it at will. We need strong user data protection laws here in the United States that make it extremely clear what rights you are signing away any time you allow a service to collect personal data about you.

Its bigger than that. We are at a point where I would pay a monthly premium in order to keep my privacy and would rather have a bunch of free tiered alternatives that are all explicitly non-private. Because lets be honest with ourselves nobody but us really gives a shit about their privacy. And it is a billion dollar industry. Let people who do not care keep the free shit at an up front cost rather than all this runn…

Actually, even if you're paying, the service operator may be mining your data. This is the case for example with cell phone operators: you pay a monthly fee, and yet they use your geolocation to send you custom advertising, sell market studies, etc.
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