About Wacom pens and them sending data out.

[Redrobes]

So this has popped up on the tech news sites:

https://robertheaton.com/2020/02/05/...tion-you-open/

It appears that Wacom tablets are sending lots of data out to google analytics. I have a Wacom tablet but it spends 99% of its time in the box since I am not so actively making maps these days. But it still concerns me. In any case I have the DNS for that sent to a black hole so it wont be able to on my network anyway.

But what do you guys think of this ? And have any of you noticed that it is making these connections ?

[waldronate]

I blackholed Google analytics (and a lot of ad sites) many years ago when I noticed that it turned up in about every single site that I visited, including the Guild here. The fact that it tracks what's opened and what's the app that's receiving input is, in fact, very useful for their ability to write drivers that suck less. Observing that an application tends to start but never finish (or consistently gets a pattern "app start, driver start, OS crash message" or "switch to app, driver does stuff, OS crash message") is very helpful because it says that certain applications aren't dealing with certain features correctly and the driver can be rigged to use the last-known-good configuration for that setup when it happens.

It's generally true that most browsers can uniquely fingerprint a machine by observing what's installed (the constellation of fonts installed, for example, is pretty good as a fingerprint), so one vendor sending some data doesn't bother me all that much. And, certainly, a lot of folks do stupid things like use Chrome, visit Facebook, install as-supported game apps, and keep a Google account logged in, which results in a whole lot more personal stuff than the applications in use being sent to a lot less pleasant agencies than Google analytics.

The folks who care about privacy only use software that they (or the five guys who live in the cave with them) write themselves. Anything (or anyone) that interprets and displays HTML, that uses DNS, that uses device drivers, or has OS components whose code that you haven't personally examined and understood is always suspect. All of the Intel folks out there running MINIX in their processors as the OS for their TPM (or what weird Arm thing that AMD does) should be far more concerned about privacy for those reasons (bizarre code installed on your processor that handles encryption) than because a device driver vendor is sending relatively innocuous usage data to support their development efforts.

[Baron]

I love it when people make excuses for corporate shenanigans. If I don't actively opt-in to provide any kind of data at all, you are deliberately spying on me and it should be outlawed. My hammer isn't reporting on me. My socks aren't reporting on me. My toothbrush isn't reporting on me. And nothing should. Period. It's not altruistic. It's not some big-hearted method of improving service. The fact that we have to play whack-a-mole on a case-by-case basis when this sort of behavior comes to the attention of enough people to generate a groundswell of outrage only goes to show that we need to get draconian laws into place to prevent anything like it.

[waldronate]

I wasn't making excuses. Your physical devices most likely carry advertising embedded in the physical structure of the device and would report tracking information if they were able. I do my best to block everything with "Google" in the URL everywhere I can, avoid using Chrome whenever I can, and don't use social media as much as possible (to the point of not having accounts) because I would prefer to support as few predatory corporations as I can. As long as there is money to be made by selling your data to aggregators and by selling your attention to advertisers, the politicians will stay bought. The tiny righteous outrage is fun and all, but money talks and the outrage you generate just gets you a higher engagement score on social media.

[Falconius]

Never noticed. Mostly I'm concerned on whether or not it works. And I'll still use it because I need to use something, but now I'll resent the company for spying on me like as though I'm in a communist police state. Just like I resent every other company that does the same. I shouldn't have to run a bunch of telemetry blocking programs just to turn on a machine and draw.

[Redrobes]

I agree with much of whats been said. I dont think its acceptable but then I live in a cave and program my own stuff kind of guy. Totally agree that the Intel Minix one is the worst and I have not bought an intel cpu since I heard about that and so I dont think I have a post 2005 intel cpu in any computer I own now. I am mostly ARM so its been rough to hear that nVidia wants to buy them too. Its hardly surprising that Apple made the M1 but I dont trust Apple either. When Sony put those root kits on the audio CDs that was the end of Sony for me as well and I dont buy HP any more after all the ink shenanigans either. Samsung have gone to the dogs and their "Smart" stuff is well creepy and the idea of having a home assistant or anything of the sort makes me seriously wonder about the people who buy them. Rather obviously amazon devices and occulus headsets are dead to me. So yeah its endemic but I still have a zero tolerance of it all and ill be damned if ill roll over and accept it.

But I think we all rather liked Wacom around here and their products are rather good and work really well. This move stinks and ill be throwing them on the ever growing heap of ex-companies that I buy from. I cannot fathom what kind of boardroom meeting decisions are being taken that lead to this. For a TV where the masses buy them I can understand them not caring about the 0.1% of people with a beef about this but for specialist stuff like pen tablets the users of them probably have a higher than average tech IQ.

[waldronate]

I have a suspicion that the telemetry decision never made it very high in the corporate hierarchy. Probably about to middle-manager level to allow it to get into the EULA past lawyers.
Finding what seems to be sudden betrayal by what you had assumed was a trusted agent does make it feel worse. Reading the article mentioned in the first post of this thread, though, makes it pretty clear that the writer is trying really hard to generate outrage, presumably to get clicks (the use of google meta tags and analytics features on that page suggests that he's happy with it when it benefits him).
Yes, "everyone else does it" doesn't make it right. But it should make it expected. Sudden outrage farming at the discovery of yet more instances of surveillance in what is really a ubiquitous surveillance environment at this point just feels a little silly to me. Probably because I'm old and have given up most hope for the future.

[Redrobes]

I agree that the telemetry does indeed feel like its not been all the way through the company decision tree given the "Rick" comment in the XML. Does google analytics dish out a pay off to the companies who send it data like a cut on advertising or is it purely for analysis of web stats ?

Considering root kits on CDs, internet based adverts on a TV that you have paid full price on, ink jet scanners that wont scan when the ink runs out, should we expect it ? Perhaps expect, certainly guard against the possibility of, but I don't think accept. Its like your friends stealing your stuff as they leave your party. So expect it ? Depends on what kind of friends you keep I guess but if they get ghosted as a result and I become friendless then I see that as preferable to having those friends who steal from me hanging around.

I am sure there is a level at which everyone puts the line where they feel comfortable vs betrayed or outraged and maybe mine is very shallow on the scale. I don't think it is a given that everything that has a battery or power supply should be stealing from its owner. I think the reason why companies do this is that they see it as pure extra revenue and do not count the cost that some of their users will abandon their products in light of it. The Sony thing went big at the time possibly because it was one of the earlier examples of it where people were not quite so exposed to it.

So its about the cost of trust and maybe in these modern times trust isn't worth much any more. At this point I don't see much hope for the future either, especially regarding the internet, but the future is coming whether we have hope for it or not. So I post about the Wacom thing just so that people can make their own mind up. I reckon more than half of us here on this site have one so I think its relevant to know which tools we can trust.

If anyone uses a Wacom and can see it sending data out then it would be very cool to hear. This could have been an unauthorized thing or very temporary in response to an uptick in reported failures.