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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

#441

Post by mdhardeman »

II2II wrote: post #265
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…

Is Wacom's driver an example of excessive monitoring? While the author presents the graphics tablet as a glorified mouse, tablets usually offer many more features. How those features interact with various applications is important, and they have to prioritize which applications they support. The data collection that the author describes may be viewed, internally, as part of that process. Now I am not claiming that Wa…

I have been a Wacom customer for years.

I'm not a graphic artist, but I hate mouse cords and hate having to recharge mice or deal with batteries.

So a series of Wacom "puck" mice on one (over the years, several) of their digitizer tablets has been my mouse substitute at my desktop. I bought the high end ones. On an average of every 3 to 4 years.

They stopped making the puck several years ago. Mine was starting to wear out, so I finally made the leap to Logitech's G703 and the Logitech G PowerPlay inductive mat. So same benefit -- the mouse is just magically always charged.

If I hadn't already switched, I would have anyway after the Wacom selling data thing...

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#442

Post by mdhardeman »

Mizza wrote: post #337
marta_morena wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the failure may be on your end, believing that "many people are sensitive to data collection" while in fact, most people don't give a dusty fuck about it and happily share everything for saving a few bucks a month. Hackernews is NOT the people. HN represents a TINY TINY fraction of users.

That's why we should give a fuck on their behalf. In a techno-capital society, it's too much to expect normal people to have to know the technical details of all of these things. I don't know anything about water treatment or nuclear power, but I still expect the people working in those industries to be held to extremely high standards of competence, virtue and accountability. We should have the same standards. We do…

Civilized societies don't tolerate "vampires" and cannibals walking among them (or lording from on high). They eliminate them. Eventually the people will wake up.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#443

Post by mdhardeman »

jack1243star wrote: post #312
rhizome wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying this group of "most people" knows what's being sent, that they're exercising informed consent? Surely you aren't hanging this argument on "common sense."

The sad thing is, they don't know, and they don't care. Like at all.

They don't care. Until you can show them you know how often they're on Grindr and where their tricks live.

Or that they got a prescription filled. For Valtrex.

What would be helpful -- but that I am adamantly against -- would be tons of data drops, in communities across the nation, of local church leaders and local community leaders.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#444

Post by mdhardeman »

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.

The way to criminalize it properly is to create a presumption of criminal activity when an advertiser benefits from ad targeting. Literally anything more than the advertiser choosing what sites to appear on should be made criminal. No other criteria allowed.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#445

Post by mdhardeman »

ardy42 wrote: post #327
dontblink wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 priv…

Precisely. And then extend it further. Make advertisers responsible for the behavior of the ad marketplaces, ad tech, ad venues they're paying.

Make their only defense be cooperation in prosecuting the offending party.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#446

Post by mdhardeman »

bsanr2 wrote: post #234
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.

Quickest thing you can do is quit your jobs en masse. At some index level of number of people * avg skill of people quitting, the industry becomes nonviable. Then you state your terms. Sounds like a union? Also sounds like Galt's Gulch. Weird dovetail, there. The kicker is that tech workers are in a FAR better position than the other groups that are pushing or considering a general strike. I suppose that makes the pr…

This is a non-starter for achieving the end result.

There's enough of a delta in both the money paid for online advertising of a target nature and in the better results that yields for the advertisers for them to fund a very rapid turn-over.

There's enough money in it that if they must, they'll be able and willing to buy their way past any unionization issues.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#447

Post by mdhardeman »

Buttons840 wrote: post #290
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.

Here's a radical idea. Embrace that technology will bring everything to light and essentially destroy privacy. Instead, let's ensure the powerful people in our society also have no privacy. Let's ensure we can watch the watchers with more eyes than they watch us with.

Doesn't help at all.

Privacy of varying levels is and has been a functional requirement for smooth working of free society.

Economic disparities make the impact of lower levels of overall societal privacy have a disproportionate negative impact to those on the lower end of the scale.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#448

Post by mdhardeman »

bigiain wrote: post #254
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.

> "just to make somebody with a limited lifespan feel powerful and rich." > How can be reverse course and throw a wrench in the system? We start by taking the guillotines down to Sand Hill Road.

It's not their fault they're exploiting a system that allows what they are doing.

They're not good people, but if it weren't this set of people, another would take their place. The world is rife with opportunity for people of low morals.

It is society's fault that we have not explicitly codified what will not be allowed and constructed the right laws and enforcement to ensure that violators are ruinously punished.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#449

Post by mdhardeman »

horsawlarway wrote: post #289
basicplus2 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general public are too disinterested to make it possible to convince the majority to change the way they make decisions about software and hardware. Legislation is the only effective course.

I'm not sure how you can propose legislation without the majority approval. A functioning democracy legislates according to the will of the people. That means you HAVE to convince the majority first. In a broken democracy, you still need to convince the powerful (although this might actually be easier). But you still have to convince them to apply the same standard to those without power, which is likely a hard sell.

I'm convinced the parents of the US, and in turn broad bipartisan support, could get behind some sane legislation on this stuff if a massive dump like the New York Times one were deanonymized and focused on kids.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#450

Post by mdhardeman »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #318
jack1243star wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is, they don't know, and they don't care. Like at all.

It's true, until you show them how much data is collected and who is buying and selling the information without their consent. Then a significant portion start to recognize the threat. There's a reason none of these companies mention it.

One thing I've noticed about far too many people in tech is that they all seem to believe that those not in tech are stupid.

Many of them are not stupid. On average, half of them are above average. They're just uninformed and busy with their own lives.

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