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Wacom tablets track every app you open

robertheaton.com

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Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#201

Post by dwild »

Joe-Z wrote: post #57
penagwin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tracking the currently open application software side is perfectly within scope for a drawing tablet - they often have buttons that can be bound to keyboard shortcuts, etc. It makes sense that it should know when you're focused on Photoshop vs Google Chrome. But why are they sending this data to a server? My best guess is that this helps them focus on what software people are using. This allows them access to the pop…

IMO the more simple explanation is they want this data to sell to data aggregators, who can in turn enrich the profile they have on you. There's a similar thing going on with smart TVs, right?

Can you even export this information with PII on Google Analytics or only aggregate of that information?

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#202

Post by FireBeyond »

Joe-Z wrote: post #57
penagwin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tracking the currently open application software side is perfectly within scope for a drawing tablet - they often have buttons that can be bound to keyboard shortcuts, etc. It makes sense that it should know when you're focused on Photoshop vs Google Chrome. But why are they sending this data to a server? My best guess is that this helps them focus on what software people are using. This allows them access to the pop…

IMO the more simple explanation is they want this data to sell to data aggregators, who can in turn enrich the profile they have on you. There's a similar thing going on with smart TVs, right?

It would be "simpler" to say, but that doesn't invalidate the other reason.

My tablet behaves differently per application. If I typically have one app open only on one screen I can limit the tablets "workspace".

Context-specific buttons based on app.

And if you're doing that _and have build sufficient app infrastructure around it_ as Wacom has to support fairly custom per-app behavior, the more realistic conclusion is that they're trying to get more info on that - now you can argue about opt in on the "share experience data" privacy setting - and I would agree, absolutely.

But "more simple to say that they're just selling data for money" is a pretty reductionist argument that jumps solely to the most negative possible motivation. "What's the worst they could be doing with it? Selling it? That's probably what they're doing, not making their tool more useful."

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#203

Post by philplckthun »

lightswitch05 wrote: post #45

This is just one of many reasons to use StevenBlack's Hosts [1] list to block this type of behavior. While it doesn't currently block link.wacom.com, it would have prevented the subsequent requests google analytics. It works even better when paired with a PiHole [2] to protect all devices on the network. [1] https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts [2] https://pi-hole.net/

Sadly, some of these list don't currently include google-analytics.com since some sites would otherwise break as a result. So when using one of these hosts files it's often a good idea to double check whether they include Google's domains first.

(Also sad to say that GA is so big that a lot of websites/app rely on it)

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#204

Post by FireBeyond »

ryandrake wrote: post #140
diffeomorphism wrote: post #20

While this implementation obviously has privacy issues, the anonymized aggregate data would be quite interesting, e.g. how many people use photoshop, illustrator, etc. with their wacom tablets. The problem then seems to be more about the false positives. If you use "Half Life 3 Test Build" that is useless info for wacom because it (presumably) doesn't care about pen input. Q: If the data were filtered to just art/gra…

The collection of the data is almost never what’s problematic. What’s problematic is the lack of transparency about what is being collected (doing it to users in secret or burying it in a privacy policy somewhere), and the lack of a way for the user to consent or not consent to it via an opt-in or opt-out. If the company provided these, then this is kind of a non-story.

In this case, the author both found the information in the installer, and the apt has a "Opt out of Experience Sharing" privacy checkbox (which I would agree should be opt in, not out), so to me covers most of this.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#205

Post by FireBeyond »

leppr wrote: post #43
ipython wrote: post #21

The best part is where the author admits to using google analytics himself to track who visits his blog. At some point we all have to say enough is enough.

Except that visiting a website is a known, expected information leak to the website owner, and for 70% of web users also automatically to Google. On the other hand leaking the list of apps on your local computer, and to a third-party to top it off, is unexpected and thus more harmful.

I'd disagree with that.

Given that the Wacom utility is full of app-specific references and "customize your tablet, per app", I'd say that this is on par.

Ask random person, "Hey, do you know that when you visit John's blog, he sends your information to Google, too, not just himself?" and I guarantee you the answer is probably closer to 7% than 70%.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#206

Post by shrimp_emoji »

babypuncher wrote: post #129
danShumway wrote: post #24

On Linux you'd be using the community-maintained drivers[0], so I assume this wouldn't be a problem (correct me if I'm wrong). But as far as I can tell, there's not equivalent Open Wacom drivers for Windows. People with more Windows knowledge than me: any thoughts on why? Is it just that someone using Windows probably doesn't care about Open drivers, so the demand isn't there? Or is there something about Windows that…

Open source drivers are rare on Windows because manufacturers almost always ship proprietary drivers that are good enough, and Windows users clearly have no issues running closed-source software. Proprietary drivers on Linux are often crap, if they even exist at all.

>Proprietary drivers on Linux are often crap, if they even exist at all.

Not so with Nvidia GPUs. The open drivers are awful; the proprietary drivers are good.

(But IS the case with AMD GPUs, to the point where the proprietary driver seems to perform worse[0] and everyone pretends it doesn't even exist, which is upside down unintuitive coming from A.) Windows and B.) Nvidia.)

0: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-a...

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#207

Post by bitwize »

gruez wrote: post #186
bitwize wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Constitution schmonstitution. Just say the magic words -- "national security" -- and that problem goes away. The NSA is already selecting people with "Linux" and "Tor" in their search histories for added scrutiny.

>The NSA is already selecting people with "Linux" [...] in their search histories for added scrutiny. Source for this? If it's true it would be both sad and hilarious.

https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extre...

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#208

Post by OvermindDL1 »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #206
babypuncher wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source drivers are rare on Windows because manufacturers almost always ship proprietary drivers that are good enough, and Windows users clearly have no issues running closed-source software. Proprietary drivers on Linux are often crap, if they even exist at all.

>Proprietary drivers on Linux are often crap, if they even exist at all. Not so with Nvidia GPUs. The open drivers are awful; the proprietary drivers are good. (But IS the case with AMD GPUs, to the point where the proprietary driver seems to perform worse[0] and everyone pretends it doesn't even exist, which is upside down unintuitive coming from A.) Windows and B.) Nvidia.) 0: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page…

As a developer however, nvidia's closed source drivers are buggy as hell. The amount of issues and times they break the spec is astounding and a constant annoyance. AMD and Intel via the open Mesa drivers are blissful in comparison, plus the amazing debuggability.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#209

Post by jimmaswell »

stefan_ wrote: post #188
babypuncher wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source drivers are rare on Windows because manufacturers almost always ship proprietary drivers that are good enough, and Windows users clearly have no issues running closed-source software. Proprietary drivers on Linux are often crap, if they even exist at all.

There is also the little matter of Windows (since 7 I think?) requiring kernel drivers to be code signed, unless you want to run your system with a permanent "Development mode" text overlay, not to mention the arcane procedure required to activate that in the first place. (You can't add another cert to the trusted set, either.) So that puts a little damper on the whole "open source" thing. Of course it is also not ef…

The process to get a driver signed doesn't seem too hard for an open source project to do. Biggest hurdle is the certificate costing around $300/year as far as I can tell, so it would need to be a project with a reliable stream of donations or an author/s willing to pay it.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/in...

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#210

Post by chapium »

jrockway wrote: post #170

I wonder what the comfortable medium between privacy and letting developers get feedback about how well their code works is. It seems to me like Wacom just wants to know if their drivers work, so they can focus engineering efforts around fixing the issues that are affecting their users. "Oh hey, the new beta of Photoshop breaks our drivers!" They don't make a "cloud product" and they have an obligation to make their…

To me the comfortable medium is 100% privacy. 0% feedback. There is no middle ground because feedback and privacy should not be conflated. Users already own the device and owe no data to their vendor.
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