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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

#311

Post by heavyset_go »

duxup wrote: post #182
vageli wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know this is the popular conclusion - but from a developer perspective, data such as what software your product is used with is INCREDIBLY valuable for project planning and prioritization. People hate web tracking, but knowing what browsers or devices are visiting your website can be enormously helpful. What happened to actually communicating with users to learn more about how they use the product?

Like a survey? I'm not sure the information would be all that accurate. If you want to put resources into "hey folks like to use this product with ours" you need accurate information.

Do what companies have always done: pay for user studies and focus groups.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#312

Post by jack1243star »

rhizome wrote: post #276
marta_morena wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the failure may be on your end, believing that "many people are sensitive to data collection" while in fact, most people don't give a dusty fuck about it and happily share everything for saving a few bucks a month. Hackernews is NOT the people. HN represents a TINY TINY fraction of users.

You're saying this group of "most people" knows what's being sent, that they're exercising informed consent? Surely you aren't hanging this argument on "common sense."

The sad thing is, they don't know, and they don't care. Like at all.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#313

Post by userbinator »

I wonder if the extremely affordable tablets from Monoprice also have this problem. I don't have a use for one but I know a few others who use them and claim they are fantastic in quality and not overpriced. If they don't phone home, perhaps that could be another marketing point: respects your privacy.

For years I've avoided the software packaged with hardware whenever possible, e.g. printer drivers (a few MB of actual driver at most, and a few hundred MB of useless bloatware all installed together); now I guess there's another reason to do that.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#314

Post by cl0ckt0wer »

opepp0 wrote: post #297
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.

Working on a Kubernetes based clone of Instagram. My plan is to deploy it and a VPN tunnel and give certain folks access to keep in touch. I’ll have instructions for self hosting and VPN key creation/sharing (Wireguard ftw) There’s absolutely no reason to bother with cloud services. They’re nothing but big corp coopting our problem solving. It always comes down to be gatekeeped but no one having the guts to gate keep…

My biggest challenge is communicating with non-technical family and friends. Teaching them Whatsapp was a challenge, but things like IG and FB are simple to install and log in to. I've never been able to quit them without suddenly being isolated.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#315

Post by bitL »

friendlybus wrote: post #306
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…

I wanted to add on the list of privacy invading examples. It's better I make the counter claim. The data collected has massive potential to improve medical research. Being able to validate database wide experiments on hundreds of millions of people at once is pretty incredible. There's likely to be a decade of insights to be found in this rapidly filling digital ocean of information. In several years the clamour to g…

You have a valid point, I did some Deep Learning-based medical research as well as analytics on top of FHIR and having more data is absolutely essential for e.g. finding correlations/covariate conditions/risk factors etc. However, there are massive privacy risks, economically-ruinous or literally life-threatening.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#316

Post by DenisM »

excerionsforte wrote: post #141
criddell wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they want to know your approximate location. It will probably help them target ads for the next iteration of the tablet.

Huh? I don't think you own or bought a Wacom Tablet nor do you do any digital art. It is safe to say this is a troll/no effort comment.

This sort of commentary is not welcome here. Please check the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[...] Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. [...]

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#317

Post by sillysaurusx »

burntwater wrote: post #250
sillysaurusx wrote: post #54

BURP SUITE! Burp suite is amazing and more people should use it. That is all.

On their website, they list their plans Enterprise through Community, left to right. That's the opposite of what's standard and immediately makes me wary. They might be great, I don't know. But if something as non-standard as that is done, what other weirdness behavior does their software have?

Heh. Brace yourself; Burp is very weird.

It's worth learning though. I haven't found a better intercepting proxy, and the community edition is pretty powerful.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#318

Post by mixmastamyk »

jack1243star wrote: post #312
rhizome wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying this group of "most people" knows what's being sent, that they're exercising informed consent? Surely you aren't hanging this argument on "common sense."

The sad thing is, they don't know, and they don't care. Like at all.

It's true, until you show them how much data is collected and who is buying and selling the information without their consent. Then a significant portion start to recognize the threat. There's a reason none of these companies mention it.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#319

Post by mixmastamyk »

GuiA wrote: post #267
II2II wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Wacom's driver an example of excessive monitoring? While the author presents the graphics tablet as a glorified mouse, tablets usually offer many more features. How those features interact with various applications is important, and they have to prioritize which applications they support. The data collection that the author describes may be viewed, internally, as part of that process. Now I am not claiming that Wa…

It’s 2020. We’re starting to develop a pretty solid framework around what is respectful to users and what isn’t, how to disclose things, ask for permission, etc. (All knowledge that has been acquired the hard way - through data breaches, users getting their personal data stolen because of a lazy software company, etc) Wacom is a $500M company. They don’t get the benefit of the doubt.

Starting? It's been known for many years, it's just that $$$ talks louder.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#320

Post by 8bitsrule »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #308
Buttons840 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A person with a private security army, a 40 acre compound and a personal helicopter has very little to fear from the general populace knowing things. They never have to worry about the price of insurance, or getting a job, or securing a loan vs being homeless. This does not solve the problem, not even close.

They might have to worry about the aspiring plans of that security army. It's always something.
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