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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

#281

Post by m463 »

jimmaswell wrote: post #209
stefan_ wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> The process to get a driver signed doesn't seem too hard for an open source project to do.

These hurdles are a bigger impediment than they appear.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#282

Post by vsareto »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #260
sizzle wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"just to make somebody with a limited lifespan feel powerful and rich." Wow that last sentence really puts things into perspective. How can be reverse course and throw a wrench in the system? We are the makers, we should be able to wrestle back control and do it democratically and get politicians on our side to legislate this ad industry into the ground.

First step would be to kill advertising-based models. Get them banned. Because it's the advertising industry's race to the bottom that poisons everything, and fuels the creation of surveillance infrastructure. With ad-related snooping gone, it will be much easier to rein in the remaining few players who misuse data in pursuit of optimizing their business models. (And yes, I know ads enable a lot of free content on-li…

Nothing short of inquisition-style inspections of company servers, code, and networks is going to fix it on that front. We'll have to do some really radical invasions of company privacy before it results in more than fines-as-a-business-expense.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#283

Post by geophile »

dontblink wrote: post #263
TeMPOraL wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First step would be to kill advertising-based models. Get them banned. Because it's the advertising industry's race to the bottom that poisons everything, and fuels the creation of surveillance infrastructure. With ad-related snooping gone, it will be much easier to rein in the remaining few players who misuse data in pursuit of optimizing their business models. (And yes, I know ads enable a lot of free content on-li…

So go back to the 90s? Microsoft being the reigning king? Not sure if this time period was honestly better. Or alternatively, give users ownership of their data like the EU has taken steps to do. Advertising is here to stay and provides its own use. But there could be something that forces transparency.

How about no free stuff on the web? Charge for services and make it illegal to sell private information without the subject’s consent and remuneration.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#284

Post by TomGullen »

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/

Microsoft has started resetting hosts files which is really annoying with Defender, can't seem to disable it either. Annoying when deving on a local server!

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#285

Post by irq11 »

JohnFen wrote: post #195
irq11 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing that I know happens, from personal experience: you can put a giant modal alert, and write in blinking, all caps, 60pt bright-red font that you will do something unless the user presses a button, then draw a bright red arrow to the button. Users will still complain that they weren’t informed. Users are lazy and dumb, and the most ideological users are often the laziest and/or the dumbest, because they have an ag…

If your goal is to eliminate user complaints about this, justified or not, then just stop intrusive data collection entirely. Then you don't need to bother with obtaining consent.

Like I said, ideologues tend to be the ones who will complain no mater what you do.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#286

Post by briandear »

sizzle wrote: post #224
bitL wrote: post #223

It looks like everything in tech got poisoned, smart TVs taking screenshots, web apps tracking and matching user clicks, smartphones tracking locations realtime and who knows what else, desktop apps monitoring other apps and peripherals, creepy companies building profiles on everyone, health institutions selling data of their users... I want out, I didn't get into this field, keeping myself up-to-date and super capab…

"just to make somebody with a limited lifespan feel powerful and rich." Wow that last sentence really puts things into perspective. How can be reverse course and throw a wrench in the system? We are the makers, we should be able to wrestle back control and do it democratically and get politicians on our side to legislate this ad industry into the ground.

Why legislate it? Why not make a thing that doesn’t need advertising and charge people money for it. The way to “end” the industry you don’t like is democratically — using dollars as votes.

The idea of using government to crush an industry is a bit totalitarian — it “the people” agree with you, they should be happy to pay you for your product. If they don’t agree, then there isn’t anything democratic about using a government to shut down an industry you don’t like — that’s not democracy, that’s fascism.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#287

Post by c0restraint »

vsareto wrote: post #282
TeMPOraL wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First step would be to kill advertising-based models. Get them banned. Because it's the advertising industry's race to the bottom that poisons everything, and fuels the creation of surveillance infrastructure. With ad-related snooping gone, it will be much easier to rein in the remaining few players who misuse data in pursuit of optimizing their business models. (And yes, I know ads enable a lot of free content on-li…

Nothing short of inquisition-style inspections of company servers, code, and networks is going to fix it on that front. We'll have to do some really radical invasions of company privacy before it results in more than fines-as-a-business-expense.

Not really, you just need to incentivise the behaviour. Pass a law to make it illegal to show ads based on tracking, with executive imprisonment for violations. Executives will then demand their teams to put controls in place to ensure that no one is using tracking to show ads. Violations of HIPAA have some serious fines, and I've watched executives at all levels take it VERY seriously

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#288

Post by briandear »

bigiain wrote: post #254
sizzle wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"just to make somebody with a limited lifespan feel powerful and rich." Wow that last sentence really puts things into perspective. How can be reverse course and throw a wrench in the system? We are the makers, we should be able to wrestle back control and do it democratically and get politicians on our side to legislate this ad industry into the ground.

> "just to make somebody with a limited lifespan feel powerful and rich." > How can be reverse course and throw a wrench in the system? We start by taking the guillotines down to Sand Hill Road.

Good grief. Many of the people in privileged positions to complain about this stuff got to those positions through Sand Hill road.

Telling some poor person that they have to pay $10 per month to use Google or send Facebook messages isn’t democracy. Don’t want surveillance? Don’t use the products the employ it, but some people, especially those that don’t have means, might be perfectly fine to trade privacy for a “free” service. Destroying the ad industry is elitism and tone deaf — ads are imperfect, but they have enabled people to do things that would have been impossible or unaffordable 20 years ago.

This pitchforks and guillotines talk is ridiculous. Build something better if you don’t like the way things are.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#289

Post by horsawlarway »

basicplus2 wrote: post #277
HomeDeLaPot wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we have to quit our day jobs to change the world. What we need to do is (1) change the expectations of the public via conversations, activism, migrating away from FB/Google/Microsoft products, etc. and (2) make it easier for people to prioritize privacy by building open-source apps and hardware. Inspiring examples that I use daily include Linux, git, and Bitwarden.

The general public are too disinterested to make it possible to convince the majority to change the way they make decisions about software and hardware. Legislation is the only effective course.

I'm not sure how you can propose legislation without the majority approval.

A functioning democracy legislates according to the will of the people. That means you HAVE to convince the majority first.

In a broken democracy, you still need to convince the powerful (although this might actually be easier). But you still have to convince them to apply the same standard to those without power, which is likely a hard sell.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#290

Post by Buttons840 »

sizzle wrote: post #224
bitL wrote: post #223

It looks like everything in tech got poisoned, smart TVs taking screenshots, web apps tracking and matching user clicks, smartphones tracking locations realtime and who knows what else, desktop apps monitoring other apps and peripherals, creepy companies building profiles on everyone, health institutions selling data of their users... I want out, I didn't get into this field, keeping myself up-to-date and super capab…

"just to make somebody with a limited lifespan feel powerful and rich." Wow that last sentence really puts things into perspective. How can be reverse course and throw a wrench in the system? We are the makers, we should be able to wrestle back control and do it democratically and get politicians on our side to legislate this ad industry into the ground.

Here's a radical idea. Embrace that technology will bring everything to light and essentially destroy privacy. Instead, let's ensure the powerful people in our society also have no privacy. Let's ensure we can watch the watchers with more eyes than they watch us with.
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