Wacom tablets track every app you open • Hacker News Board

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#41

Post by move-on-by » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

buddylw wrote: post #30

Wacom has application specific settings for compatibility. You can't have that feature without tracking individual processes and that data would be important for any sort of troubleshooting. It should be anonymized and they should be clear about what they are collecting, but the data does have a legitimate and benign use at least.

> You can't have that feature without tracking individual processes and that data would be important for any sort of troubleshooting.

There is a pretty big between crash/error reporting vs constantly throwing data into Google Analytics.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#42

Post by egypturnash » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #31

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’m confusing it too. I searched “Wacom tablet” and it seems to be a... tablet.

Wacom produces multiple devices, the simplest are basically a pen based touchpad. No display and no real computing power, needs to be plugged into a computer to function in any way. The more high end ones are a pen touchpad+display but still requires a computer (ie: they're a monitor). There are also standalone tablets that use Wacom technology although I'm not sure offhand if Wacom makes any directly.

You can buy tablet computers from Wacom, I have a “Wacom Mobile Studio” gathering dust that I really should get rid of someday. Just didn’t fit into my art workflow better than a laptop and an old Wacom Intuos 4 stuffed into the bag next to it.

They do mostly make external pen input devices, with or without screens. Which people have been calling “drawing tablets” since loooong before “tablet computer” was a phrase anyone used outside of maybe science fiction.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#43

Post by leppr » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

ipython wrote: post #21

The best part is where the author admits to using google analytics himself to track who visits his blog. At some point we all have to say enough is enough.

Except that visiting a website is a known, expected information leak to the website owner, and for 70% of web users also automatically to Google.

On the other hand leaking the list of apps on your local computer, and to a third-party to top it off, is unexpected and thus more harmful.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#44

Post by 13hunteo » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

ipython wrote: post #21

The best part is where the author admits to using google analytics himself to track who visits his blog. At some point we all have to say enough is enough.

I've read a lot of comments recently about how Google Analytics is bad, but no one explain why. Can I ask why this is not something people want? Is it not anonymised?

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#45

Post by lightswitch05 » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

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/

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#46

Post by pbhjpbhj » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #35

wrkronmiller wrote: post #3

> as far as I can tell anyone with the presence of mind to decline it could do so with no adverse consequences Makes me think one should try declining these kinds of agreements to see what happens, before accepting. As someone who also has an "anti-privacy-policy-policy," I wonder how many of these kinds of things I've agreed to when it was unnecessary.

As far as I can tell the only consequence of declining it is that it pops up the “hey please let us have all this info” dialogue whenever you reboot. I’ve been doing this on my own machine for most of a year. Might be different with the latest update, I haven’t bothered with that.

Is there an accessible way to prevent an application drawing a specific window to the screen?

I can see an app like autohotkey could click the "no" button and automatically remove it, but could you (assuming it's not modal; which it probably is) tell Windows not to show it?

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#47

Post by aylons » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #9

oarsinsync wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An operating system needs to be aware of every application running on it. (It doesn't need to be reporting that back to the mothership, though) I'm not sure what that has to do with a third party peripheral. You may be confusing a Wacom tablet for something like an iPad or Nexus 7? EDIT: For others who may be confused, a Wacom tablet is used to provide a pen/stylus interface to a computer. It's an additional peripher…

Maybe I’m confusing it too. I searched “Wacom tablet” and it seems to be a... tablet.

A Wacom tablet is what used to be called a digitizer tablet, ie, a HID that uses a pen and a surface to allow for easier and better drawing. Essentially an odd-shaped mouse with some extra pressure sensitivity.

GP must have confused with the currently better known use of tablet, which is a full-blown computer with touch screen and no keyboard.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#48

Post by dvtrn » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #27

efdee wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's downvoted mostly because bringing up iOS and Android in a discussion about Wacom tablets seems pretty off-topic and whataboutist.

I didn’t understand what a Wacom tablet is. Now I do!

I learned something in this thread as well from the question asked, wish a few commenters would drop the "whattaboutism" attitude, some of us are actually trying to learn something here.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#49

Post by leppr » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 4:19 PM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #24

On Linux you'd be using the community-maintained drivers[0], so I assume this wouldn't be a problem (correct me if I'm wrong). But as far as I can tell, there's not equivalent Open Wacom drivers for Windows. People with more Windows knowledge than me: any thoughts on why? Is it just that someone using Windows probably doesn't care about Open drivers, so the demand isn't there? Or is there something about Windows that…

Clearly this isn't a trivial or very fun job (last time I used them, the Linux drivers were buggy as hell). Who would have the motivation to do it on Windows, where you have a driver that works and users have little expectation of privacy to begin with?

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#50

Post by _jal » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

diffeomorphism wrote: post #20

While this implementation obviously has privacy issues, the anonymized aggregate data would be quite interesting, e.g. how many people use photoshop, illustrator, etc. with their wacom tablets. The problem then seems to be more about the false positives. If you use "Half Life 3 Test Build" that is useless info for wacom because it (presumably) doesn't care about pen input. Q: If the data were filtered to just art/gra…

> would that still be problematic?

Yes. When thinking about data, you need to think about orthogonal uses. Can you imagine reasons why someone might subpoena data to determine whether Photoshop was being used on my home desktop machines at a particular time? They might not care that it was Photoshop at all.