<![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products - Valleywag Comments]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products - Valleywag Comments]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> The way I see it is : If the user data we supply through this service is so all-important that they need to spy on us, that's saving Adobe TONS of cash in Q&A, development AND testing.
Personally, I think we should be seeing the benefit of helping them make more money from their product by passing the saving onto the people that buy the products.
Until this kind of intrusiveness becomes a two way street, they will kindly see me, my friends, colleagues, and every single machine in my office opting out.

Sudden Device

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> Harmless intentions with unlimited power will grow a Monster.

sparky2

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> This is just the beginning of abuse.

1. They did not ask your permission to extract your property.
2. They acted clandestinely to do it.
3. The "agreement" wording is so general they can extract what ever they want, when ever they want. (definition of 'is')
4. No matter how nicely they claim it is benign, to make improvements, and with non personal data, there is NO LIMIT to what they can extract if they want to!!
5. Even if they did something that "was against the law" you have to find it and proove it - they have scarier lawyers than you.
6. Microsoft Office applications also report back to the mother ship, every time I do a copy and paste.
7. Many other programs are beginning this trend, and there is nothing stopping it.
8. They have no obligations to honor any OP OUT placation.
9. It may be a small harmless point now, but if there is NO LIMIT to what they can do with your computer, what do you think your computer will look like in 5 years?
10. If you think wearing tin foil, and exposing the creeping loss of eventually ALL of your rights will stop them, you are wrong. Sony is still installing (different) root-kits.

I agree with SIMONSGHOST. We need to organize to charge them for our property, and install spyware in their computers to verify compliance (and improve fair exchange of information) !!

sparky2

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> Check John Nack's Blog entry:

CS3 doesn't install spyware
[blogs.adobe.com]

He has recieved a ton of grief for this... is it worth all this? Is transparency such a lofty goal? I love Photoshop, but don't need the hassle of CS3... uninstalled it and reverted to CS2. That will be my last upgrade unless Adobe becomes transparent with all this and offers an opt-out option. ...waiting in vain for a CS3 option update... :(

InterestedBystander

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> here's a slightly expanded version of the comment I left on the authors site:

It's just the welcome page, which has embedded flash, which, as another commenter on the story explained, uses 2o7 for flash usage statistics just like every flash app. Prove it to yourself, just check the "don't show again" on the welcome screen, quit, and restart. Boom, no Little Snitch alert for 2o7.

Much like the iPhone IMEI non-story put forward by this same site, uneasysilence, this story has been written with little research and with a trollish title so as to generate maximum digg and techmeme hits. I hope the Yahoo ads revenue is worth it for them. Personally I've lost a lot of respect for them, it used to be a better site before they started going for total diggbait.

twid

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> @Bobly: They probably did stipulate it in the EULA that you accepted when you installed the application. If you don't read the EULA and click agree, then you are subject to whatever the software provider wants to do to your machine that you agreed to. I will say that it is a bit shady, but the same thing happened with the iPhone and third party applications, people didn't read then whined and complained.

Vroomtrap

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> The big issue is lack of consent. The end user is unaware of this back door spy. Some cracker or other might learn the back door's weakness and grab your data. Wonder if Adobe's PDF reader is doing the same thing.

quail

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> I will let them opt out of the $1,000 per use charge I am now billing them for each time they collect my info without my explicit permission. (they just have to call me, the on hold wait time is guaranteed not to exceed 45 minutes. And, of course, they must first agree to my EULA which they can find on my website. It is a simple EULA which gives me certain rights including but not limited to the right to fully analyze their computer systems to ensure compliance and the right to install a small validating program on their main computer which will send only non personal data to my system to ensure they have not installed any programs that may try to subvert the intentions of the EULA.)

SimonsGhost

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> I am really fed up with Adobe. Over the years, they have bought and killed or messed up the interfaces many of my favorite programs, and then don't offer any discount off of their extremely overpriced and often difficult to use software to orphaned owners. They don't fix serious bugs that have been reported for years. Newsflash for Adobe: I didn't upgrade to CS3 this time...I ditched Photoshop and Illustrator and went to GIMP and Inkscape (Sourceforge), which are now mature and stable...and serious competition...and they mind their own freakin' business!

Keter

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> 192.168.112.207.net eh?

192.168.112.207 is in a subnet that is the most common RFC1918 private range. For most people it is likely to be an inside the firewall IP from your local subnet.

Except for that .net on the end means it is a DNS fully qualified domain name. Which resolves to 216.52.17.136/207, which is a public internet IP owned by Omniture, and definitely NOT in your local, firewalled network.

If this is a legitimate thing to do, why are Adobe and Omniture trying to trick users into thinking the server being contacted is local?

llamawang

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> Uh? Doesn't Adobe phone home since eons and check for updates in the standard setting anyway?

More important, does Google track that I have Adobe CS3 installed, all while NOT buying it from a Beacon partner?

This is 2008 almost, who cares about privacy anyway. I imagine soon Germany might commit suicide.

franky

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> It's bad enough that CS3 Apps phone home to verify that you're a legitimate customer - I understand Adobe needs to protect its intellectual property - but aggregate data collection without informed consent leads to user backlash.

While I agree that people unwittingly post information about themselves on facebook, that is irrelevant to this discussion. Does Adobe use a 3rd party to collect data about users of its software? People might be willing to allow Adobe access to their behavioural information, but are they willing to give it to Omniture?

This is important because your information is being shared with two parties (one of whom with which you haven't chosen to do business) and when there are two parties involved, the chances for a privacy breach increase.

My evidence for the last point is anecdotal - consider this: you buy a car from a dealer and a replacement part from a local garage. The next time there's an issue with the car in the neighbourhood of that part, who do you call? Each party will likely point the finger at the other party.

Here you can see that Adobe will let you "opt-out" of the behavioural data aggregation by following Omniture's rules - which may or may not suit you. Shouldn't Adobe provide a way for you to opt-out of dealing with Omniture? It is Adobe, after all, which has involved this 3rd party, not you, the customer.

Either way I'm going to leave it enabled because the last thing I need is a crash in one of my CS3 apps due to an "incompatibility with the App and a disabled 3rd party plug-in" blah blah blah...

JimmyMTL

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> I agree w/ BOBLY - if this is harmless, and serves only to help in future development, why not make your case to your customers, and let them agree to it. If this was being done to ALL of our phone conversations - to help better phone service or cell networks - would you see it in a different light (aggregate or otherwise)?

But ValleyGrrl does make a good point about people's putting photos etc out in the public arena, yet carrying on about security. But at least in those cases it is their own bad judgements that put them in that compromised place. etc.

invid

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> @ValleyGrrl:

I think you're missing the point. It's not so much the fact that it's monitoring how you use the software, it's the way it does so without first asking you for your direct consent in a clear and cut out way. When you're using Facebook you're actively doing so, this monitoring is passive and automatically enabled as a background process.

Best regards,
Bobly

Bobly

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> I don't see what the big deal is. These services only track user behavior in aggregate, and they really do help companies make the software better. People are always complaining that software doesn't meet their needs, why freak out when someone actually does something right? Having Omniture track your behavior in software in aggregate is a LOT less of a privacy invasion then using facebook.

Valleygrrl

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> "To opt-out of aggregation and analysis of data by the Omniture ... products about your visit to this site, it is necessary to install a cookie on your browser.

If you delete the opt-out cookie, or if you change computers or Web browsers, you will need to opt-out again."

Because they only track your preferences, not indulge them.

MercuryPDX

]]> <![CDATA[Wear tinfoil hats when using Adobe products]]> Little Snitch lets you opt out too :).

Vroomtrap

]]>