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Wacom tablets track every app you open

robertheaton.com

341–350 of 469 posts

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#341
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.

Yeah, but a Wacom starts at $59 and an iPad Pro starts at $799, and comes without a pen.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#342
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> You are implying that capitalism is the problem?

Certain kinds of capitalism, yes. There's not just one kind, and the kind we have now isn't the best kind. Perhaps we should try to discover a better one?

> What does privacy look like in non-capitalist places ... like ... China ...?

China is very capitalist now, if you weren't aware.

In any case, the main problem in those countries (at least with regards to privacy) was authoritarianism, not non-capitalism.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#343
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I never jumped on the “using social media means I am connected” band wagon.

Still just using email. It’s web scale, and just needs UX love.

But really even that is overkill. Self hosting is too easy and cheap for me to justify cloud services privacy and just generally being in the habit of externalizing every aspect of utilitarian life.

I’m not talking webscale loads. And it could be a hub for IOT. My data streams are not Google scale. But don’t take your eye off them sticks & options. Ooo shiny

Share my data with my doctor directly over local area WiFi, by making it adhere to a specific format. No data middle men needed.

For a culture constantly climbing up its own ass about austerity in economics, we sure enjoy selling ridiculously uneconomical means of communication.

It’s almost as if it’s a purpose built emotional response but who could believe so many people would fall for an emotional mass delusion?

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#344

FWIW that isn’t a unique identifier for the author, it’s for Wacom’s GA account. I didn’t see any meaningful identifier being sent. Of course the set of most opened apps and your IP are probably enough to identify you. That said, yep, it seems lame they don’t disclose this tracking. I can understand why they’d want to know what apps their device pairs most often with, but tracking all app opens seems aggressive, but…

This tracking becomes a big issue when aggregated with other data. As someone who works for an analytics company, you should be well aware of this.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#345
post #224
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.

IDK, my go-to strategy for now is to support products that respect my privacy and recommend them to friends and family. My friends and family don't know this is going on or that alternatives exist, so I'm their reference for what is and isn't good.

I refuse to work for companies I don't agree with, which hurts me financially. I will never work at a FAANG company, for example, or most of the other heavy weights that are funny l functionally similar.

For things without a clearly superior alternative, I have a list of business opportunities. For example, smart devices are becoming popular, and they're horrendous for privacy. That means there's a market for devices that don't spy on you, and the open source options after inconvenient enough that a packaged deal is attractive, even if it could be DIY. For example, I think there's room for a Ring competitor that is E2E encrypted, provided the app is well designed and the device is unobtrusive. Privacy respecting services and devices are unlikely to take over the alternatives, but merely existing puts pressure on the major players to act better.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#346
post #157

Really great article. But I wonder, why the author did not cover if/what the driver publishes, If I do: - open "Wacom Desktop Center" - Top right (next to "Login") is "More" (click!) - "Data Privacy Settings" (click!) - "Participate In Wacom Experience Program" => on => off! My setting was "On" - and I swear: whenever a program/website/installer asks I go "No thankx". So it must be dark UI patterns with evil defaults…

When you install it, the first window they show you is a Terms of service agreement that has "Agree" "Disagree" buttons - except, it's not a Terms of Service agreement. It's an agreement to turn the program on. So you have to click "Disagree" and continue the install to have it on.

"to have it off", is what I meant to say there.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#347
post #81

I, for one, want to know Rick's story... How was the day he got famous internally in Wacom, just because some XML that no one was meant to see..

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickmpeterson/

> •Successfully activating insights to optimize value propositions, user experiences, and marketing

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#349

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.

Linux purposely makes proprietary drivers crap. The kernel offers no stable binary interface so drivers become broken every single time linux updates unless the drivers get compiled as part of the kernel. This forces manufacturers to either decide that they will open source the drivers, not have any at all or put in the work to keep them up to date every release. It seems like forcing the all or nothing choice made a…

>Linux purposely makes proprietary drivers crap.

No it doesn't, the devs refuse to provide stable in-kernel APIs because they want the flexibility to be able to modify them as they please when a better solution comes along. Also maintaining support for proprietary drivers is harder due to them being black boxes, not only in terms of debugging, but also in security and stability.

NVidia is basically the one major holdout these days, and its proprietary driver for Linux is very good, so it's not as if it's impossible to maintain a proprietary driver in the Linux ecosystem. The motivation here comes from Linux being huge in accelerated computing and 3d, not due to any particular love for Linux on Nvidia's part.

Indeed the lack of a stable interface has made it cumbersome to maintain a out-of-tree driver, which is GREAT since it means hardware vendors are more likely to open source their drivers or at least give enough documentation for them to be created by a third party. This ends up being a huge part of Linux's success, as it supports the widest range of hardware of any system 'out of the box', hardware support which is then functional on any platform on which Linux runs, which in turn is practically everything under the sun.

And if this wasn't enough, it is also a boon for alternative systems which will never see official proprietary drivers due to being niche, as they can port Linux drivers, or even add Linux driver compability layers.

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