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Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application you open (2020)

robertheaton.com

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Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application you open (2020)

#2
Please note this heinous and inexcusable overreach is over five years old and was addressed shortly after being caught:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200307082846/https://community...

Wacom now has an opt-in for data collection.

What should be the real continuing inexcusable outrage is that Windows, even today, grants all applications full access to read the titles of all windows with no way to disable it.

If you run Windows, ask yourself what information that leaks and if you trust everything running on your machine not to exfiltrate that.

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application you open (2020)

#4
I am not surprised. We've known for a while old OS design can't fix this. Not in a comprehensive way. We can patch over specific cases but the basic design is wrong. Capability-based OSes like mobile ones tend to work better here.

We can't keep assuming code run on-device is trustworthy. Not just in the "not malware" sense. In that of "does what the user wants and nothing more, nothing less."

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application you open (2020)

#5
"We apologize for any confusion regarding data collection being done by the Wacom software driver and the unclarity about the actual information collected."

Again and again: any PR containing "confusion" seems BS to me.

Stop gaslighting! Take responsibility!

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application you open (2020)

#6

"We apologize for any confusion regarding data collection being done by the Wacom software driver and the unclarity about the actual information collected." Again and again: any PR containing "confusion" seems BS to me. Stop gaslighting! Take responsibility!

I agree, but realize we’re in a moment in time where accountability and responsibility have gone out of fashion. What a time to be alive!!

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application you open (2020)

#7

Please note this heinous and inexcusable overreach is over five years old and was addressed shortly after being caught: https://web.archive.org/web/20200307082846/https://community... Wacom now has an opt-in for data collection. What should be the real continuing inexcusable outrage is that Windows, even today, grants all applications full access to read the titles of all windows with no way to disable it . If you ru…

I asked myself and the answer is no. Now what? I have dealbreaker problems with Linux and Mac. I'm also not going to pull a Terry Davis and make my own OS, and I'm not willing to participate in the circus that is open source either.

With these in mind, what am I supposed to do, move to the mountains and live the life of a hermit? Once again, not happening. It'd appear that I'm between a rock and a hard place - exactly as designed. This is what an ecosystem grip is like.

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application you open (2020)

#9

Please note this heinous and inexcusable overreach is over five years old and was addressed shortly after being caught: https://web.archive.org/web/20200307082846/https://community... Wacom now has an opt-in for data collection. What should be the real continuing inexcusable outrage is that Windows, even today, grants all applications full access to read the titles of all windows with no way to disable it . If you ru…

> the real continuing inexcusable outrage is that Windows, even today, grants all applications full access to read the titles of all windows with no way to disable it.

IIUC, X11 had the same problem, but Wayland allows sandboxing to prevent this?

And MacOS has some degree of sandboxing? But many applications require "Accessibility" permission that similarly gives far too many privileges?

Re: Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application you open (2020)

#10
Just like all other drawing tablet manufacturers like Huion, for that matter. Block it in your firewall unless you want it to siphon your data.

I feel like this post is from a couple decades old time capsule. 99% of corporate software is just data exfiltration endpoints now, especially the kind of software that hardware manufacturers tend to make for Windows, which is bloated panels with a couple toggles that are only here to collect your data. The privacy policy is simply a cover-up in most cases. It's not like you have a choice either, because other manufacturers are the same. This stuff needs active countermeasures that treat it as hostile, but since it's hardware it often has low-level access.

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