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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

#461

Post by sizzle »

c0restraint wrote: post #287
vsareto wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing short of inquisition-style inspections of company servers, code, and networks is going to fix it on that front. We'll have to do some really radical invasions of company privacy before it results in more than fines-as-a-business-expense.

Not really, you just need to incentivise the behaviour. Pass a law to make it illegal to show ads based on tracking, with executive imprisonment for violations. Executives will then demand their teams to put controls in place to ensure that no one is using tracking to show ads. Violations of HIPAA have some serious fines, and I've watched executives at all levels take it VERY seriously

Awesome idea, HIPAA for protection against the advertising industry and their digital intrusion/violation/surveillance of our privacy.

Something like APPAA - Advertising Privacy Protection and Accountability Act

What would you guys call it? what language is necessary to cover all the edge cases for the deceptive and dirty-playing advertising industry?

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#462

Post by sizzle »

beatgammit wrote: post #345
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.

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 a…

Thanks for taking a stand against FAANG, I know my wallet is hurting for doing the same.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#463

Post by sizzle »

opepp0 wrote: post #297
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.

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…

This is an awesome project, please post this to HN if you open source it (please do!)

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#464

Post by leppr »

risyachka wrote: post #393
leppr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In theory yes. In reality no one cares what apps you use. They will do some big data analysis and thats it.

That's wishful thinking, not reality. In reality, many different actors can benefit from info about the used software on a particular users' PC. And now they know who to bribe to get it.

> Has this investor got a beta build from that new startup everyone's talking about? Their bets are always winning, I better frontrun them if that's the case.

> What apps could I exploit to get into this guy's computer?

> Wait why is my employee suddenly running tor browser after I involved her into this new secret deal? Better be careful with her, she might be talking to someone.

> Damn, our competitor's engineers are all running our app. Let's correlate the timestamps with our own backend to discover their accounts and push a special update to them.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#465

Post by MaxBarraclough »

dTal wrote: post #379
the8472 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks for mentioning the elephant in the room.

Is there a reason the Linux folks don't do something about this? If I were them I wouldn't be happy seeing my licensing terms treated like a joke.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#466

Post by shrimp_emoji »

babypuncher wrote: post #238
shrimp_emoji wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Proprietary drivers on Linux are often crap, if they even exist at all. Not so with Nvidia GPUs. The open drivers are awful; the proprietary drivers are good. (But IS the case with AMD GPUs, to the point where the proprietary driver seems to perform worse[0] and everyone pretends it doesn't even exist, which is upside down unintuitive coming from A.) Windows and B.) Nvidia.) 0: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page…

I would argue that Nouveau is bad purely because of poor performance, and the proprietary drivers are tolerable but perform well once you have them working. One thing I can say for Nouveau over the proprietary drivers is that they actually work without any real fuss. I've run into numerous instances where the proprietary drivers would prevent the system from booting. And I've yet to get them to work at all with any r…

>I would argue that Nouveau is bad purely because of poor performance

That and, if you have a G-SYNC monitor (which, in retrospect, you shouldn't, but I and several friends of mine do), it won't work at all with the Nouveau driver. :D

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#467

Post by daemin »

diegof79 wrote: post #455
daemin wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one technical reason I see for doing this is to help in dealing with customer bugs and complaints. So strictly in a diagnostic capacity.

For those cases the app can collect the exceptions only (as many apps and OS do). I worked on a desktop product with this type of data collection. Usually what happens is that after a new release you may see new errors coming up, and then they start to repeat. The data collection becomes a burden, new reports of the same error type doesn’t give you more information. It’s a good opportunity for a good UX, e.g point th…

That's actually a good piece of advice, thanks for posting it.

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#468

Post by laughinghan »

jpttsn wrote: post #381
laughinghan wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? Informed consent is also "a real challenge" for some medical studies, does that mean we should let doctors carry out unethical studies? I'm actually pretty sympathetic to Wacom in this instance, more sympathetic than the blogpost author at least. But unethical actions are unethical regardless of whether acting ethically is "a real challenge" for some companies.

The deep problems of “informed consent” are apparent in medical studies/treatment. Few patients are equipped to be informed because they don’t have a med school degree. Since users ”can’t be informed” about tracking, it doesn’t make sense to discuss whether they “should be informed”.

Doubtless there are deep problems with "informed consent", but saying they "can't be informed" is nonsense. Is your plan to not bother to inform people because they "can't be informed", and decide what's best for them without their knowledge or consent?

Re: Wacom tablets track every app you open

#469

Post by jpttsn »

laughinghan wrote: post #468
jpttsn wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deep problems of “informed consent” are apparent in medical studies/treatment. Few patients are equipped to be informed because they don’t have a med school degree. Since users ”can’t be informed” about tracking, it doesn’t make sense to discuss whether they “should be informed”.

Doubtless there are deep problems with "informed consent", but saying they "can't be informed" is nonsense. Is your plan to not bother to inform people because they "can't be informed", and decide what's best for them without their knowledge or consent?

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