Wacom tablets track every app you open • Hacker News Board

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#401

Post by numpad0 » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #321

stefan_ wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, ma…

As for manually forcing a particular signed binary for a specific device, the “Have disk...” or “manually select from” route still works without that developer mode nonsense.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#402

Post by andybak » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

Joe-Z wrote: post #57

penagwin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tracking the currently open application software side is perfectly within scope for a drawing tablet - they often have buttons that can be bound to keyboard shortcuts, etc. It makes sense that it should know when you're focused on Photoshop vs Google Chrome. But why are they sending this data to a server? My best guess is that this helps them focus on what software people are using. This allows them access to the pop…

IMO the more simple explanation is they want this data to sell to data aggregators, who can in turn enrich the profile they have on you. There's a similar thing going on with smart TVs, right?

> IMO the more simple explanation

For me Occam's Razor points towards internal analytics.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#403

Post by lordleft » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how well-written this is? Super engaging and fun to read.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#404

Post by roelschroeven » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

Piskvorrr wrote: post #390

roelschroeven wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tiny bit more than that: popcon weekly reports which packages have been used that week based on their atime. atime, ctime and filename are reported (the times are truncated to a multiple of twelve hours). See https://popcon.debian.org/FAQ (thanks to toastal for the link).

Which is still a far cry from "opts you in by default (!!!), and collects every time (!) you open the program."

Oh yes I agree completely. When I said "a tiny bit more", I meant it literally: it's a bit more, but only a very tiny bit.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#405

Post by roelschroeven » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 2:26 PM UTC

account42 wrote: post #386

roelschroeven wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tiny bit more than that: popcon weekly reports which packages have been used that week based on their atime. atime, ctime and filename are reported (the times are truncated to a multiple of twelve hours). See https://popcon.debian.org/FAQ (thanks to toastal for the link).

Wait people still leave atime enabled?

I suppose many people use relatime, which is good enough for popcon I think.

Edit: Debian uses relatime by default. I don't know about other distributions.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#406

Post by andybak » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

dwild wrote: post #201

Joe-Z wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the more simple explanation is they want this data to sell to data aggregators, who can in turn enrich the profile they have on you. There's a similar thing going on with smart TVs, right?

Can you even export this information with PII on Google Analytics or only aggregate of that information?

Only aggregate

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#407

Post by snvzz » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

catalogia wrote: post #245

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. 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.

If this was true, the BSDs would have terrible drivers.

What happens instead is Linux drivers are mostly BSD ports. Go figure.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#408

Post by jameshart » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

Hold on. This is a hardware device we are talking about here. You put it on your desk, physically interact with it, and plug it into your computer. Do you realize all the ways the manufacturer could harm you if they were malicious, cut corners, were coerced by a state to compromise the device, or failed to comply with regulations?

And you’re worried about their data handling policy?

A short and very incomplete list of the things a purchaser of a Wacom tablet is trusting to be true:

- That the tablet is safe to use - it will not fail in a way that exposes the user to electric shock hazards, sharp edges, dangerous chemicals, etc. - that the EM emissions used to communicate between the pen and tablet don’t interfere with other systems in ways that could compromise safety - that the device complies with usb standards and won’t damage electronics you interface it to - that there are no hidden surveillance devices in the tablet or pen - that, as an input device with access to your usb bus it doesn’t have the ability to be remotely induced to control your computer

Then you’re installing a piece of driver software, giving it sufficient permissions that it can read what application is currently running, and you are worried about it exfiltrating that information, rather than - say - the fact that as an input driver, again, it has complete control over your computer; it can record input - what if you use your Wacom to sign a pdf? Now it knows your signature. Or you tap out your banking password using an on screen keyboard. Who knows what else it can do - acting at the user input level presumably it can do anything you the user can do.

So sure, be concerned about what happens to the data it sends to Wacom, but if you don’t trust Wacom, your problems started much sooner than when you accepted the data sharing agreement.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#409

Post by testuser66 » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 3:28 PM UTC

Razengan wrote: post #352

yoavm wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I shouldn’t have said “Pro” as the recent non-Pro iPads under $400 have Pencil support too.

I mean sure that's better, but now Apple is tracking you instead and you got ripped off $340 for it

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#410

Post by driverdan » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 3:30 PM UTC

moviuro wrote: post #229

philplckthun wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, some of these list don't currently include google-analytics.com since some sites would otherwise break as a result. So when using one of these hosts files it's often a good idea to double check whether they include Google's domains first. (Also sad to say that GA is so big that a lot of websites/app rely on it)

> some sites would otherwise break as a result Wow, that's weird. I don't remember ever seeing one site like that. Can you point one out? I mean, GA has been blocked at my places since 2015, and I don't remember anything ever was broken, on phone or desktop.

It happens. If they add older GA tracking code in other JS and don't try / catch it will throw an exception when GA is blocked.

When I find a site with this problem I go elsewhere.