[HN Gopher] Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every applic...
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Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application you open
(2020)
Author : dvrp
Score : 65 points
Date : 2025-05-17 19:51 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (robertheaton.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (robertheaton.com)
| terminalbraid wrote:
| 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.
| perching_aix wrote:
| 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.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| "What option do I have left after rejecting every other
| option?"
|
| I guess the answer, for you, is that you have no other
| option.
|
| For others, I'll say that I've had 3 Wacom tablets (I keep
| upgrading), including one with a screen and they have all
| worked well enough with open-source drivers. They're popular
| enough that you can do some research to know how they will
| work on Linux.
| perching_aix wrote:
| > I guess the answer for you, is that you have no other
| options.
|
| Yes, which is exactly what I was getting at. I'm not in the
| situation where if only I spent some time on introspection
| and "asked myself", I'd all of a sudden have this lightbulb
| moment that hey, what if I just switched to Linux or bought
| a Mac instead, despite what people like GP might like to
| think.
|
| This is a lot like when people try to - sometimes kindly,
| sometimes not - invite people's attention to the fact that
| e.g. they're fat. As if somehow this key piece of
| realization was the only thing keeping them from starting
| on a lifestyle change and taking ownership of their diet.
| It's juvenile there, and it's juvenile here too. Except in
| this case, I'd argue it goes even further: it's willfully
| dishonest. As if it was normal that the only way out were
| the options listed. As if all these options were playing on
| an equal field.
| baobun wrote:
| FreeBSD?
| perching_aix wrote:
| Let's also not forget NetBSD. /s
| Liftyee wrote:
| I'd say that in these cases, when there _really_ is no viable
| option (including just not using...) then the optimal course
| of action is to choose the "least worst". Compromises work
| where ultimatums fail.
| concerndc1tizen wrote:
| > 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?
| duskwuff wrote:
| > But many applications require "Accessibility" permission
| that similarly gives far too many privileges?
|
| I haven't run into too many applications requesting that
| permission, outside of desktop automation and window
| management tools (Hammerspoon, Magnet, etc) which need it to
| do their job.
| concerndc1tizen wrote:
| Yeah, but any application with that privilege can log all
| keystrokes and upload it to a third party. Obviously this
| privilege needs to be far more fine grained and have
| limitations, i.e. registering a hook on particular key
| combinations, rather than listening on all key events.
| NekkoDroid wrote:
| > IIUC, X11 had the same problem, but Wayland allows
| sandboxing to prevent this?
|
| Wayland to my knowledge is isolated by default, with non-
| isolation being opt-in by both compositor and application via
| FD shenanigans, but don't quote me on the specifics.
| jfim wrote:
| > 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.
|
| That's there because it's been in there forever in the win32
| API, and changing that would break applications.
|
| For example, a long time ago, I wrote a small application that
| would iterate through a list of executables, launch each one
| sequentially, and for as long as that executable ran, it would
| look at the window that had the current focus, enumerate every
| control, and then send a click message to any control that
| would contain the words yes, agree, continue, accept, install,
| ok. Made my life easier to automatically install software on
| computers unattended.
|
| There are plenty of other applications that require looking up
| other windows and sending them messages for all kinds of user
| workflows, things like autohotkey and so on. Changing that
| behavior would break all of them.
| poisonborz wrote:
| Why? Just disable for all by default and have a permission
| popup open for each, stating that disabling it may crash that
| app.
| 94b45eb4 wrote:
| If the user is prompted to give permission for the
| application to have access to this information then at least
| you know which ones are doing it and can avoid using them if
| you are worried about it.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| This suggestion is not exactly a walled garden, but it
| moves very suddenly in that direction. Not sure that's a
| great direction to head in.
| jfim wrote:
| In the case that was mentioned above, hardware frequently
| has drivers which can run as part of the kernel and can
| read the memory of other processes, among other things. A
| user of some hardware would be very likely to install a
| driver for it, without realizing that a malicious driver
| can basically do whatever it wants on their system.
|
| In practice, if the software one wants to use is not
| trustable, then it shouldn't be run, at least on current
| mainstream desktop operating systems.
| jaoane wrote:
| >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.
|
| No thank you, I want to keep my OS with apps that are powerful
| and that doesn't show me a useless permission prompt every five
| minutes.
| poisonborz wrote:
| Why useless? Permission prompts were the best inventions of
| mobile OSes, there should be much more of them actually.
|
| On desktop there could be ways added to sidestep them, eg.
| defined in bulk in a processname.permissions file somewhere
| protected.
| incangold wrote:
| You should be able to choose to switch off security as you
| wish. You should also be able to choose to leave it on.
| kristjansson wrote:
| Congratulations on being one the of the lucky 10000 today!
|
| But for the rest of the us, the answer to "...again?!" is firmly
| "No".
| landl0rd wrote:
| 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."
| GuestFAUniverse wrote:
| "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!
| Henchman21 wrote:
| 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!!
| babuloseo wrote:
| oldie but goodie, also I think OSU players wrote their own
| drivers for this.
| stepupmakeup wrote:
| Ironically, osu! had it's own built-in spyware until 2016,
| automatically uploading window and process names as well as
| manual commands to take full monitor screenshots in the name of
| preventing cheaters (both software-wise e.g Cheat Engine.exe is
| running, and sharing/boosting accounts, by checking if someone
| is logged into the same Skype account).
| rushiiMachine wrote:
| Indeed, the osu! community wrote their own drivers for Wacom
| and many other drawing tablets:
| https://github.com/OpenTabletDriver/OpenTabletDriver
|
| They're much more configurable than Wacoms proprietary drivers
| and also telemetry-free. It's so widely used that they've even
| been directly integrated into the new osu! lazer client.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| 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.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Not the first time something like this is shown here. And it is
| very important to say that such a thing is a anti-feature of the
| driver and that something like this would probably never be
| acceptable on Linux, where such devices work beautifully just
| after plugging.
|
| The operating system where these things happen should also be
| blamed.
| userbinator wrote:
| (2020)
|
| I have an old unbranded Chinese tablet that came with a CD-ROM
| containing the driver, configuration utility, _their source code_
| , and even a datasheet for the MCU it used. A huge contrast
| between merely selling a product, and trying to control the whole
| "experience". IMHO we need more of the former, but corporate
| attitudes strongly encourage the latter.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I have an old Wacom tablet on the larger size that I got for
| free from a company getting rid of stuff. I can plug it in
| today to my Mac and it just works. No driver software needs to
| be installed. This blew me away that it was that easy to use. I
| thought for sure I'd have to surf some hellish landscape of
| sketchy websites offering software for long since deprecated
| hardware. Maybe I don't have _all_ the functionality of some of
| the buttons on the tablet, but I 've never found myself needing
| them. As long as the pen on the tablet moves the cursor, I'm
| happy. The fact that it even detects pressure was just icing on
| the cake. I find that to be better than having the source code
| available. Old source code can still be a nightmare to compile
| on modern systems.
| johnea wrote:
| In spite of the article being 5 years old, I still found it
| interesting and relevant.
|
| The details of how the data was captured was helpful.
|
| The things I found most interesting fall into 3 parts:
|
| Part 1) It's heartening to see people enjoying their kids:
|
| > I told my son to clear my schedule. He bashed two wooden blocks
| together in understanding, encouragement, and sheer admiration.
|
| Go Dad! Enjoy it while you can!
|
| If you have an experience like mine: as a 57yo at the time, and
| well aware of what was coming. When I went from daily interacting
| with my son, who was finally old enough to speak with as a adult,
| he suddenly moved away to college over a weekend and I almost
| never see him any more 8-(
|
| I never expected the fully anticipated experience of empty-nest
| to affect me so strongly 8-/
|
| Part 2)
|
| > I care about this for two reasons.
|
| > The first is a principled fuck you.
|
| I had to laugh 8-) This somehow reminded me of a line in one of
| my favorite movies: The Live Aquatic.
|
| Bill Murray's character is asked: This leopard shark is an
| endangered species. What would be the scientific purpose of
| killing it?
|
| To which he replies: Revenge...
|
| Part 3) The obligatory proprietary OS bashing:
|
| Several times, the author states: "A device that is essentially a
| mouse..."
|
| It should be pointed out, that a mouse is a USB class device.
| That is to say, it is a standard USB device that requires no
| proprietary driver (except for the purpose of exfiltrating data
| that the mouse maker has no functional need of, or other "value
| added" purposes)
|
| Pretty much any special feature of the device can be implemented
| as a user space library.
|
| The author is working on a Mac, the situation is even worse on
| windoze, where even a actual mouse will ask you to install a
| custom device driver.
|
| This is why linux, with a broad support of standard USB class
| devices, is now significantly superior to windows in USB device
| support. For almost any typical type device, when you plug it
| into a linux computer, it just works. No driver install or other
| configuration needed.
|
| Even if you need a driver to support your tablet on some version
| of an OS that doesn't provide support, there is a GPL waycom
| driver:
|
| https://github.com/linuxwacom/input-wacom
|
| tl;dr: linux good, windoze sux, mac getting worse...
|
| In the current world, every computer company in any way
| associated with h/w or s/w or online activity is now also in the
| data borker business.
|
| This is similar to the way the car dealership industry is now
| basically a subdivision of retail loan banking. Try buying a car
| with cash, versus a lease or loan. But, of course, it's not just
| milking the idiot herd for all it can, its "maximizing
| efficiency", for somebody...
|
| So much for the glowing future brought to you by unbridled
| capitalism...
|
| That's it. Try not to use Waycom, or at least not on Mac or
| windoze...
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2020)
|
| Related discussion and developments then:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247292
|
| And again later, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29056847
| amelius wrote:
| Doesn't a MacBook do the same thing?
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