Wacom tablet drivers track apps you open

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/02/07/wacom-tablet-drivers-track-app.html

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How long before the first “oh, sorry, there was a bug and that didn’t do anything”?

Yeahhh. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on. That would be the responsibility of the OS vendor or AV vendor, not a drawing tablet.

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We need another way to punish companies that actually works because voting with your wallet doesn’t seem to do much.

For that matter how do companies even realize they are losing business when someone chooses not to buy something in the first place because of their bullshit?

I am beyond tired of shit like this. It just gets more invasive and more invasive everyday. I feel like I have a digital periscope up my ass and everybody but me has a view, there’s no way to opt out or even find out that it’s up my ass to begin with.

And if I find out that there is a periscope up my ass, against my wishes there is no way to even fight back

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That “explanation” makes zero sense - adding wacom.com to my blacklist for now as it seems if it can’t reach that XML file there it will fail. I don’t trust that they’ll honour their opt-out settings all that much.

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Related:

Every local Windows 10 search bar request now goes through Microsoft’s servers.

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Oh fuck me, This is exactly what I was talking about.

When is this shit just going to end? When can I knock out a CEO in public for pulling shit like this?

Everything digital has just become abuse, raw abuse

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I never did agree to any EULA for my Wacom drivers, and I’ve looked at the source code and there’s nothing in there that goes near the apps I’m running.

Maybe someone is using the wrong drivers?

Done ! (it’s well hidden, I didn’t found it by myself)

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My guess is if you are using the open source drivers on linux, you’re fine.

Complaining about data being mined while running Windows makes me scratch my head. Isn’t that all it does?

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I am, and that may be a bit cynical. Not wrong, mind, but cynical.

Maybe, but we don’t have to be happy about it. Not everyone has the option of using a different OS.

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I wouldn’t be happy either. In fact I’d be screaming mad.

I made the conscious decision to use Linux to take back a bit of my freedom, knowing full well that it sometimes means going without all the slick conveniences that float on the oily surface of all that data slurping. Overall though, it’s less of a pain than Windows ever was. There’s also a ton of great software out there free of ads/spyware/data slurping that I never would’ve known existed if I hadn’t switched.

I get that not everybody has a choice, but more do than are willing to make a change. Apparently people are willing to put up with a lot of crap before they’ll change their behavior.

Edit: I don’t like the way that last paragraph sounded. I don’t think the biggest problem is people refusing to change; the biggest problem is people not knowing they have an option. Most people don’t know wtf linux even is, which isn’t surprising given that it doesn’t have billions of dollars of marketing and extortion behind it like Windows does.

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And, for many professions, it is honestly of small worth.

A while ago, there was some news posted about malware distributed via usb devices.

I can’t remember specifics, I think I asked about keyboards or mice, and the possibility that something similar could be transmitted via an input device. I really don’t remember the outcome, but the conclusion seemed to be that risk was unlikely.

I understand this isn’t exactly the same situation, but it does begin to feel like there’s no amount of paranoia that isn’t … justified.

I’ll just disagree with you here. There’s extremely little that can be done with windows that can’t be done with Linux.

…and I might add, there’s a lot that Linux can do that Windows can’t even dream of.

Maybe Linux advocates should learn more about how and what people actually use computers for sometime, because I believe your disagreement indicates you may not know much about how others use their computers, or how many might need a different OS.

When I typed “of small worth,” that was from experience.

Maybe you should get out more. I have plenty of experience with how people use computers. Perhaps your experience has limited you. I see great potential, and the companies I know that run primarily, or even partially on Linux have very few limitations, the biggest of which is dealing with brain dead companies that can’t handle anything except Windows. Contrast that with the constant BS of Windows: dealing with forced updates that brick machines, ads in your face, dropping support for MS’s latest ‘new thing’ unexpectedly, ridiculous pricing and deliberately obfuscated licensing, and Linux is a breath of fresh air that I’ve seen set companies free. Most users can adapt to it easily, typically about as easily as adapting to a new version of Windows. All of that is before you even get into the spying ‘telemetry’ and other bullshit MS throws at their customers.

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Yah. HP wouldn’t sell printers anymore.

Really nobody would, not under $100.

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Lissen. In Windows-world documentation and software engineering standards are inconsistent. But many places, they range from good-enough to pretty-good.

Outside of Windows-world, it’s a bigger spread. I am including Apple in that. Just my 2 cents.

No, it’s not fair to compare Javadocs with .Net docs. But from a coder perspective, to a certain extent, it doesn’t matter.

I just had a new HP laptop blow up on me.

Cheap printers are the biggest e joke ever created