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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

#371

Post by leppr »

Barrin92 wrote: post #247
Seenso wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

you're getting downvoted just for pointing out why the problem exists. The discussions around these issues always follow the same pattern that reminds me of a dialogue I recently saw posted somewhere, where an Amish person and a non-Amish person talked about technology and the amish person asked the other one, "do you think having the television on is good for you and your family?" and the other person responded "no,…

> everyone's unhappy, and we do .... nothing. Because of 'innovation' or some other conjured up fantasy term.

The only reason "we" do nothing, is that "we" have no agency. Other reasons are just rationalization to cope with our powerlessness: we pretend ideological debates among the people decide the faith of the country. The only vote "we" have is voting with our wallet, which only works in a truly free market.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#372

Post by system2 »

tnorthcutt wrote: post #80

Bravo for a really well written article. I'm interested in this kind of thing but not familiar with techniques & tools used, so it was really nice that the author included lots of detail, reasons for doing things, etc.

Burp Suite and Wireshark come default in Kali. Give it a try:

https://www.kali.org/downloads/

(Also make sure to check out Maltego, Metasploit Framework and Armitage.)

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#373

Post by d2p »

mike_d wrote: post #358
TomGullen wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Operator of lots of DNS stuff here. Hosts files are literally the devil. They break so much shit. Hostnames sometimes change behavior (like an ad server that starts hosting a redirect script for legitimate clicks), kids who are "good with computers" set them up on relatives computers over the holidays unmaintained, malware that uses them to block antivirus updates, etc. If you want to block ads, fine. Use a content a…

> browser extension

Using browser extensions to block ads is much higher risk than doing DNS blocking. Most ad blockers have full access to all web pages, which essentially means they could trivially scrape your usernames/passwords for your email/banks/etc or perform actions on your behalf.

There's room for this to go bad (AdBlocker dev turns bad, or sells extension to a bad guy for a wad of cash, or extension has security vulnerabilities, or keys for publishing extension are not propery secured) so while DNS-level blocking might not work as well, it's definitely not an obviously-worse solution.

(though FIWI PiHole in the past had some really agressive default lists which stopped my from using it - though I set it up again recently and it's been much better - I haven't had any broken websites besides Amazon's own sponsored product links at the top of their own search results pages).

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#374

Post by leppr »

briandear wrote: post #294
Seenso wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

It's important to also acknowledge the crucial role culture plays in this problem, regardless of the political system it cradles.

The public is simply ignorant about surveillance technology issues. Not that long ago we used to tolerate sawdust in our bread[1], and that's food, something humans should be pretty knowledgeable about. People would revolt if this happened now, whether they live under a capitalist or communist system. A free market might accelerate the transition, but education about the issue is still the underlying factor of change.

[1]: http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2011/03/sawdust-bread.html

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#375

Post by TeMPOraL »

hnick wrote: post #233
JohnFen wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder what the comfortable medium between privacy and letting developers get feedback about how well their code works is. I consider the nut of the problem to be informed consent. If you have user's informed consent to get the feedback, then there is no problem. If you don't, then the whole operation is unacceptable. And no, mentioning it in the privacy policy or terms of use don't count as "informed consent".

This would be a real challenge for some companies. Having a clear privacy policy creates a hard dependency between it and the code. And developers are notorious for not even being able to keep comments updated along with their code changes. It's not impossible at all, just in the current state of the industry there's a good reason we have vague agreements (also including good old-fashioned laziness, of course). It'd…

> Having a clear privacy policy creates a hard dependency between it and the code. And developers are notorious for not even being able to keep comments updated along with their code changes.

That's just a small extra step in the QA pipeline.

Also: analytics and telemetry code doesn't just appear out of the blue. Someone makes an explicit decision to scoop error logs from users, or track clicks, or spy on system configuration. That someone is usually higher up the management or technical chain, and should know enough to recognize that sending anything collected on user's machine that is not crucial (in the most strict, technical sense) to performing the action user activated has privacy implications.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#376

Post by HelloNurse »

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…

Poisoned tech anecdote: I recently noticed that in one of my favorite bars the coffee grinder has a screensaver.

Considering what should and shouldn't be done is much less popular than finding ways to do it.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#377

Post by 2rsf »

Moru wrote: post #168
DerWOK wrote: 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…

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.

But do they spy on you ? not knowing something does not mean it does not exist

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#378

Post by 2rsf »

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.

Not for professional drawing purposes

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#379

Post by dTal »

the8472 wrote: post #261
catalogia wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linux purposely makes proprietary drivers crap. As the situation on windows shows us, the alternative is drivers that are crap for other reasons. If Linux offered a stable binary interface for drivers, we'd have proprietary drivers that "worked" but were nevertheless still crap insofar as they were essentially malware, as is the case with this wacom driver.

And yet google is pushing hard to keep ABI stable in the name of extending android support because manufacturers just won't release their SoC drivers.

Rather cheeky to urge the Linux developers to change their ways so that Google can continue to profit off GPL violations.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#380

Post by GrayShade »

Pacers31Colts18 wrote: post #242

My Pixel 2 does the same. I assume all Android phones do. I can see everything ive opened in my Google profile

There used to be a "device activity" setting under https://myaccount.google.com/dashboard. Does anyone know why it was removed?

> Activity controls no longer include the Device Information setting

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