[HN Gopher] IOGraphica
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       IOGraphica
        
       Author : bookofjoe
       Score  : 42 points
       Date   : 2024-08-26 17:06 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (iographica.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (iographica.com)
        
       | rashkov wrote:
       | This is cool but also it makes me think about the security
       | implications of giving away your mouse movement data. Seems like
       | creating realistic mouse movements can be valuable for defeating
       | anti-scraping systems. Some security software even claims to
       | uniquely identify a user based on their mouse movement.
        
         | fsiefken wrote:
         | Perhaps they can add an obfuscating randomizer to the movement
         | pattern so the original mouse movement is distorted. Same
         | security issue goes for hackernews comments, there is a user
         | identifiable pattern in the way you write sentences and
         | paragraphs, although the fingerprint less certain then a mouse
         | movement. With hacker news you could obfuscate it with pre-
         | parsing a comment through an llm with some instructions.
        
         | lofaszvanitt wrote:
         | Use a firewall.
        
           | MrLeap wrote:
           | What's a good firewall on windows these days
        
         | hermitcrab wrote:
         | Downloadable software can be doing all sorts of things that you
         | might not be aware of. Recording mouse movements is probably
         | the least of your worries. So be a bit wary about what you
         | download, especially free software from unknown sources.
        
           | amelius wrote:
           | From the article:
           | 
           | > We guarantee that IOGraph is safe. Softpedia can confirm
           | it!
        
             | hermitcrab wrote:
             | LOL. I've made a living selling downloadable software for
             | the last 19 years. I wouldn't put any stock in anything a
             | download sites says. I'm not sure anything has improved
             | since this little experiment I did in 2007:
             | https://successfulsoftware.net/2007/08/16/the-software-
             | award...
        
               | hermitcrab wrote:
               | BTW I've got no reason to believe that this particular
               | piece of software (IOGraphica) is doing anything bad.
        
               | caseyy wrote:
               | When I was a kid, I built a simple messenger one
               | afternoon. It would send messages to any IP address with
               | the software running on the other end. To show it off at
               | school, I uploaded it to Sourceforge.
               | 
               | Today, this messenger is all over the internet and has
               | won many awards, with rave reviews in several languages.
               | 
               | Regretfully, Softpedia has given it mere 3/5 stars.
               | 
               | Perhaps they had to knock a few stars off considering
               | it's probably now just an exe not meant to run on Windows
               | of this century, Matryoska doll-ed in malware and
               | installers that random software download sites added to
               | it over decades.
        
             | caseyy wrote:
             | I love it when banks just add a PNG to their pages with a
             | lock and the word "Secure".
             | 
             | It's PNG-secured.
        
       | kome wrote:
       | this is silly and fun :)
        
       | knowaveragejoe wrote:
       | I love emergent art like this. Would love to know of other
       | projects that are similar - for example the generated videos
       | showing the evolution of a git repository over time.
       | 
       | Does anyone remember a program from the mid-2000s that cataloged
       | mouse movement, keys typed, time spent in applications, etc and
       | charted these in a leaderboard-like system? I remember it
       | calculating, for example, how many miles your mouse had moved. I
       | can't for the life of me remember the name of it.
        
         | rbetts wrote:
         | > how many miles your mouse had moved...
         | 
         | I remember those! Perhaps something like "mouse pedometer?"
        
       | MisterTea wrote:
       | > Can I use the IOGraph produced image for commercial purposes?
       | 
       | > A: Only with our written/e-mail permission. Get in touch with
       | us and we'll sort that out.
       | 
       | So my plotted mouse movements aren't mine? What exactly is the
       | legal claim here and how does it differ from say a CAD program?
        
         | Bjartr wrote:
         | Just like the CAD program, it comes down to the license. CAD
         | software that, for example, has a student edition often has a
         | license restriction forbidding using the software output for
         | commercial purposes. It's up to the licensor to decide the
         | terms they offer, and AFAIK, restricting commercial use is not
         | a controversial license term from a legal perspective.
        
           | caseyy wrote:
           | It gets a bit more controversial when the software adds
           | exceedingly little to the creative process.
           | 
           | Can a pencil company dictate licensing terms of the artworks
           | made with it? You know, legally -- possibly. But ethically
           | and morally -- not even close.
           | 
           | CAD software adds a bit more to the engineering and design
           | processes it is used in. There is a lot of IP, labor and
           | money involved in building the software and its outputs.
           | 
           | Returning to the software at hand which records mouse
           | movements into a raster image -- that is trivial to code. It
           | is an interesting idea, but singular, not a robust system of
           | ideas necessary for anything like CAD. And has a lot of
           | capital been invested to make this software possible? No.
           | 
           | It's about what you give and what you take. It is a bit
           | greedy to give very little and demand a lot.
        
       | huhtenberg wrote:
       | Unless I'm missing something ... an full-size example or two
       | would've been nice.
        
       | nyrulez wrote:
       | Weird lack of examples. I was curious but I am not going to
       | download before I have some idea of what I am getting into.
        
         | hermitcrab wrote:
         | My feelings exactly. Surely a gallery of examples wouldn't be
         | hard to add?
        
         | caseyy wrote:
         | Examples: https://anatolyzenkov.com/iographica
        
       | marcodiego wrote:
       | For anyone fearing downloading and running a binary from an
       | unknown source: it looks like the source is available:
       | https://github.com/anatolyzenkov/IOGraph
        
       | 0x69420 wrote:
       | damn, nostalgia hit. i installed this as a kid when it was called
       | mousepath, and the sight of the result was definitely part
       | responsible for my amateur interest in graphics.
       | 
       | on the topic of graphic design, everything about the landing page
       | (all images in a spritesheet btw), the press listing from gizmodo
       | back when that meant something, what a class act. they really
       | just don't make sites like this anymore. btw only just now
       | clicked for me that one of the devs went on to pull that recent
       | button stealer stunt; clearly his sense of technical fun hasn't
       | dulled a bit over the years
        
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       (page generated 2024-08-26 23:00 UTC)