Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wacom tablets track every app you open

robertheaton.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 469 posts

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#321

Post by userbinator »

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…

Not too long ago I had to do some INF editing to get a driver installed on Win10, and the editing did invalidate the signature so it (silently!) refused to install, but booting with the "disable driver signature enforcement" option made it install, and it continued to load and work normally even after I booted back into normal mode. This was only a few months ago so unless something drastic has changed since then, maybe it's not that hard to install drivers with bad (or missing, but that's really the same if you just have an arbitrary signature) signatures. I thought I'd be out of luck and have to resort to something deeper and less reliable like kernel patching (tools exist to do that, but they get marked as malware, and you have to do it after every update...) but that was an unexpected surprising positive.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#322

Post by mixmastamyk »

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…

Seems like folks should get to choose what experiments they participate in? Medical ethics 101.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#323

Post by bArray »

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…

There was a time before now where advertising was effective and didnt track you - it was the advent of targeted advertisement which really killed things off.

Can we go back to the days where an advert was was just an image and a hyperlink? Where advertisement paid by the pixel and location on the website? Where JavaScript was unused unless in some rare and warranted cases?

I still believe the web can be a free and open market place of ideas.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#324

Post by dragonsh »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #307
c0restraint wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Rich executives and therefore the media tend to push back on such limits. And they tend to be more equal than the rest of us.

Wouldn't this executive and Media companies will run afoul of the GDPR act. At least in EU they can be fined and may be prosecuted if they are repeat offenders.

It will be nice if all the EU residents in one go send a request to remove their information from all the US based media and technology giants who under the guise of changing the world are indeed working to sale more to consumers and make themselves rich.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#325

Post by anonu »

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…

This is just a non starter and a pipe dream. It goes against the principles of capitalism and free enterprise.

You need to think about incentives. You have two tablets, identical in functionality and performance. But the one without the ads and surveillance features costs twenty percent more. Which one do you buy? Actually Kindle did this for a while (maybe they still do...). I ended up buying the cheaper one with the ads.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#326

Post by cma »

Razengan wrote: post #213
Moru wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could vote with your wallet and buy a Huion instead. They are just as good, if not better. And about half the price. It's all made in China any way.

An iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil is actually a great alternative to traditional drawing tablets, even if you use Windows.

Windows art apps often need hover support since they assume a Wacom, and the general windows interface definitely does. I guess you can simulate hover by holding a hot key or something while touching though.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#327

Post by ardy42 »

dontblink wrote: post #296
geophile wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Making it illegal won't solve much. E.g. FB doesn't sell private information, they sell the ability to target demographics. However I understand the underlying principle which you are espousing. The genie is out of the bottle at this point. IMHO the only method forward is how do we as a society responsibly allow for coexistence such that all parties are satisfied.

>> 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.

> Making it illegal won't solve much. E.g. FB doesn't sell private information, they sell the ability to target demographics.

You just need to appropriately specify what's being made illegal. You're right that FB could weasel out of a law that outlawed selling private information. They couldn't weasel out of a law that outlawed monetizing personal data without user consent.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#328

Post by CamperBob2 »

stefan_ wrote: post #200
swiley wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s trivially easy to get around by installing you’re own CA cert when you install the driver. This is arguably worse security wise but it makes the driver install process identical to the way it used to be as far as the average consumer can tell. This is why (IMO) free software is so important, to the point where I’ve begun to agree with the radicals and think it should be mandatory.

No, that's exactly not how it works. You can not change the set of root certificates.

How does Zadig work, then?

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#329

Post by L-four »

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…

Ads enabling free online content is a bit of a glazier's fallacy. Yes, when ads are an option most content producers will be funded by ads. it's simple to implement and does not require end user consent but as soon as the degenerate strategy is removed new strategies become viable such as micro-payments.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#330

Post by ddalex »

taneq wrote: post #272
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…

On the bright side, as biotech advances eventually you’re gonna get rich powerful immortal bosses.

hello Altered Carbon
Post reply on HN