24 ms·

PSA: Intel Graphics Drivers Now Collect Telemetry by Default

407 points by baal80spam 3y ago

inetknght 3y ago
tl;dr: > We are unilaterally altering the Terms & Conditions for the device you purchased. Pray we don't alter them further.
barbazoo 3y ago
> Intel CIP is functionally similar to the Telemetry component of the GeForce Software. NVIDIA's Telemetry is installed and enabled by default along with your GeForce graphics drivers, and you cannot opt out from it, as it does not even figure in the "custom" installer options. No idea what data Nvidia collects but this sounds even more shady.
- LoganDark 3y ago
  > No idea what data Nvidia connects but this sounds even more shady. It gets worse - if you're on Windows and your driver was not installed by an OEM (if it didn't come with the computer, or you reinstalled the OS or something), GeForce Experience wants you to connect to the internet and sign into an Nvidia account to access some features of the graphics card, like ShadowPlay.
  - haunter 3y ago
    But thankfully GeForce Experience experience is totally optional, you can just select not to install when you install the driver Honestly it doesn't even have any critical feature https://www.nvidia.com/en-eu/geforce/geforce-experience/ https://www.nvidia.com/en-eu/geforce/geforce-experience/
    - bestham 3y ago
      Then you will not be able to access some of the features that is advertised for the hardware you bought (like shadowplay).
      - Aerroon 3y ago
        While you can't use ShadowPlay you can use Nvidia's hardware encoding with software like OBS to do the same thing as ShadowPlay. Actually, it's even better because you can configure OBS to only do it in RAM.
        LoganDark 3y ago
        A good portion of the overhead that ShadowPlay addresses is actually video capture, not just encoding/compression - but IME it's true that even NVENC on its own can take a good load off the CPU.
      - horsawlarway 3y ago
        Doesn't this at least make some sense? ShadowPlay is literally for recording and sharing video. If you don't want Nvidia to record you... It sounds like you don't want shadowplay either.
        Qwertious 3y ago
        >Doesn't this at least make some sense? No, it doesn't make sense. Why do you need an internet connection in order for your graphics card to record video? Even if it's inherently networked, NASes exist and don't need Nvidia's servers.
        LoganDark 3y ago
        ShadowPlay is not just for uploading recordings to the cloud. ShadowPlay also allows you to capture the output of your GPU without having to insert an external capture card in between. It essentially uses NVENC to generate a video stream before it even leaves the graphics card, so the CPU doesn't have to do nearly as much work.
        ineedasername 3y ago
        You are equivocating with the use of “record” in two different senses if that word. A person may very reasonably accept one of them without the other.
      - 3y ago
    - LoganDark 3y ago
      Absolutely, I think I have it installed, but it's intentionally one major version behind (GeForce Experience 2 instead of 3) so it won't make me log in, and that works well enough when I certainly don't let it run in the background, I only boot it up for certain buttons it has. I don't remember which ones - I haven't touched it in months, so they must not be that important anyway. Edit: Apparently the GeForce Experience that showed up in my search was actually the one that came in the driver support package for my laptop (which I no longer use), I may have never even used it on this computer at all.
    - ohgodplsno 3y ago
      No Shadowplay, no Gamestream (so, if you bought an Nvidia Shield for that, you're screwed. No, Sunshine isn't currently at feature parity with Gamestream), no automatic driver updates (which, in this day and age, are quite important for newer games), no Ansel. Nothing critical no, but all things that, if you don't have and need, have no real alternative.
      - sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago
        I just wait til I run across a game that refuses to start due to old drivers before I bother to update them. Works pretty well as a notification system for me.
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    Surely you can just firewall off Nvidia's telemetry servers.
    - LoganDark 3y ago
      It's a bit hard to log into an Nvidia account without connecting to their servers. But I guess if you're not philosophically opposed to online logins, you could totally just log in and then block its internet access with a firewall rule (either Windows Defender Firewall, or another app like Portmaster). I do this anyway even though I don't have GFE installed because other components of the driver also try to connect to Nvidia's servers for some reason. Not on my watch. (Though I wonder if there is some registry key or something to make GFE believe you've logged in, even if it's never connected to the internet. Surely someone would've figured it out by now.)
      - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
        Why do you have to login to enable video recording functionality?
        LoganDark 3y ago
        I don't know. The app won't let you past a login screen, so you can't use any of the settings. Luckily the Nvidia Control Panel that comes with the driver is devoid of any obstacles whatsoever, but it seems that at least the ShadowPlay implementation happens to live with GeForce Experience.
        PrimeMcFly 3y ago
        Weird, seems like someone would have hacked a workaround as you say.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  Huh, I wonder if this applies to people with Linux Nvidia drivers.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Linux drivers don't come with GeForce experience
    - gpderetta 3y ago
      As a long time nvidia-on-linux user, that's an "experience" I'm willing to miss.
- wredue 3y ago
  Nvidia collects all the same data, and you cannot opt out of it if you run GeForce experience.
  - baal80spam 3y ago
    > if you run GeForce experience Exactly. It is a reason I never install it when updating Nvidia drivers (yes I know I'm missing out eg. on shadowplay but I don't use it anyway).
    - LoganDark 3y ago
      I think GFE's implementation of ShadowPlay is replicable by third-party/open-source applications as well. It just uses some sorta-undocumented Nvidia APIs to capture the screen without the software overhead: https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/msi-afterburner-3-0-0-beta-16-2013-10-25.382760/page-4#post-4687310 https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/msi-afterburner-3-0-0-beta... Not sure if anything like OBS implements this or not.
    - wredue 3y ago
      FYI, I was wrong here. Telemetry on window information, focus times, click spots et al is collected with just the driver. GeForce experience additionally collects personal information.
- codedokode 3y ago
  Ridiculous, Nvidia cards are expensive and on top of that they collect the data for free.
  - RajT88 3y ago
    High end TV's are filled with all the crapware and telemetry shenanigans of the low end TV's as well. Why would companies not double dip?
- buro9 3y ago
  DNS block: events.gfe.nvidia.com lightstep.kaizen.nvidia.com
ginko 3y ago
How can engineers working on this even look at themselves without being ashamed? For the record: I'm a graphics driver engineer myself.
- Contusion3532 3y ago
  They'll rationalize their behavior, just like most of us do. "All the other companies are already doing it", "No one cares about privacy", "It's not my decision", "We need this data to help the customers".
  - nottorp 3y ago
    Well let's ask HN: How many of us click accept on those annoying cookie dialogs or have an extension do it for them? And how many take the time to find the reject button and/or install appropriate extensions that will do the rejection? I'm in the second category but I'm sure the first one is the majority, mostly because they just don't care.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      Since I browse without Javascript enabled by default, I almost never see those cookie dialogs. I don't allow persistent cookies regardless.
    - screamingninja 3y ago
      Those pesky popups keep reappearing on each visit until you hit accept. Once you accept, they never bother you again. Not sure there is a way around besides aggressive anti-tracking extensions / DNS servers etc.
      - 93po 3y ago
        Use the annoyances block lists on ublock origin, gets rid of them on most any bigger site. Annoyances isn't on by default bc mainstream users would get too frustrated with the occasional breakage it may cause.
    - 3y ago
the_lego 3y ago
Intel wants to provide the best computing experiences. To accomplish this, we would like your permission to collect, use, and combine information to understand: The categories of websites you visit, but not the URL itself Software usage: for example, frequency and duration of application usage such as Intel® Driver & Support Assistant, but not the application content itself such as specific actions or keyboard input. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/topics/idsa-cip.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/topics/idsa-...
- BonoboIO 3y ago
  Wow ... that sounds a lot like Spyware.
  - x86x87 3y ago
    This is not surprising. Intel did things like ME in the past. The days where you bought the hardware and had full control over it are long gone imho
    - SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago
      They're still doing ME are they not?
      - x86x87 3y ago
        Did they ever stop?
        SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago
        That was my question exactly.
  - sneak 3y ago
    Philosophically and ethically and technically speaking, telemetry that happens automatically without first obtaining informed consent from the user being surveilled (i.e. so-called "opt-out telemetry") is equivalent to spyware.
Crontab 3y ago
Telemetry by default should be illegal. They should be required to obtain owner permission.
- antoineMoPa 3y ago
  That would make any site using mixpanel/google analytics/sentry/etc. illegal. Not so easy to enforce.
  - Aerroon 3y ago
    But these are two very different scenarios though. When I use a website I'm actively interacting with that website. I want something from their web servers. When I'm using an Nvidia graphics card I'm not actively looking to use their web services. I want the graphics card that I bought to work and that's it. The graphics card doesn't improve as a device by connecting to the internet.
    - antoineMoPa 3y ago
      But metrics could help nvidia fix issues and add features in the next driver update? I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here, what I truly think is that all monitoring and analytics should require user approval a bit like cookies. E.g.: you visit a website and it would ask for permission to send monitoring data to listed sites.
  - unethical_ban 3y ago
    Perhaps they meant locally installed software. And EU has tried making sites classify and ask for permission for cookie storage. And maybe mixpanel and Google and cross site tracking should be opt-in for users.
  - danaris 3y ago
    And wouldn't that be a terrible shame.
- TheRoque 3y ago
  True. I'm surprised this doesn't go against GDPR.
fulafel 3y ago
Which platforms does this apply on? The article doesn't mention eg Windows or Linux.
- trelane 3y ago
  I would be surprised if the Linux kernel or Mesa would approve such a pull request. Slipping it into already secret code (proprietary drivers), though, would be a cinch. So, it's Windows.
- Qwertious 3y ago
  Looks like Windows - it mentions a setup/installation wizard, which isn't a thing on Linux for GPU drivers. And Intel has separate GPU drivers for Windows and Linux (the drivers for the latter being open-source), so it's likely just Windows. Especially since I doubt Mesa would accept a patch for a telemetry feature.
  - fulafel 3y ago
    Intel themselves do seem to offer downloads, eg https://dgpu-docs.intel.com/driver/installation.html https://dgpu-docs.intel.com/driver/installation.html & https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/oneapi/installation-guide-linux/2023-1/install-with-gui.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/oneapi/installa... - it's not outside the realm of possibility to have some kind of installer app there.
- dhx 3y ago
  This is 650MB[1] Windows bloatware (now spyware) that gets installed alongside the driver. For 99.999% of users, it provides absolutely no benefit[2]. For Linux users, all that is required is a periodic update to the open source kernel, as well as proprietary firmware blobs, and open source Mesa software, and that's it. If you really feel it necessary to see statistics for your Intel GPU, there is a sysfs interface for doing so, and open source tools readily available to make it easy to view and use these statistics[3]. [1] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/726609/intel-arc-iris-xe-graphics-whql-windows.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/726609/inte... [1] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/discrete-gpus/arc/software/arc-control.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/discre... [2] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/igt-gpu-tools/-/blob/master/tools/intel_gpu_top.c https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/igt-gpu-tools/-/blob/mast...
personalityson 3y ago
After having realized that I don't know and can't put into exact words what harm telemetry represents for me personally, I stopped caring and I always opt in to share as much of my telemetry info as possible
- gsuuon 3y ago
  I get not being bothered enough to opt out.. but actively opting in? What's the motivation there?
- momirlan 3y ago
  the model citizen
inktype 3y ago
Windows and its ecosystem have already become a telemetry monster; if you're fine with everything else, you ought to be fine with this. The linked Intel support page shows the simple instructions for opting out of the telemetry. Having said that, 2022 was already the year of the Linux desktop. Everything works. KDE gets better every week. Be the owner of your technology. Join us!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- wood-porch 3y ago
  Not in my experience. I was using a Dell work laptop recently and decided to use Linux instead of windows. Once I got things working mostly to my liking, I updated the GPU drivers and got a kernel panic. I’m lucky to be tech savvy so I can recuperate from that, but after that I asked for a MacBook and now have a solid daily driver that I can rely on, without having to spend hours looking for workarounds, crashes and kernel panics
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  Is it confirmed that Intel's drivers on Linux aren't doing this too?
  - anthk 3y ago
    On libre drivers? No.
    - Aardwolf 3y ago
      I do use the full fledged nvidia drivers on linux (I don't know if with the mentioned libre drivers the steam games, LLM's and image generation I use would work?), so I would also like to know if this telemetry is also present in the linux drivers
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    Intel drivers are part of the kernel, and I imagine Intel's attempt to put telemetry in them would be shut down fairly quickly by Linus Torvalds.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
marcodiego 3y ago
Not on linux. One more reason why drivers should be open source and live inside the kernel. I remember months (years?) ago when it was discovered wacom tablet drivers did the same on MacOS; well, not on linux.
nologic01 3y ago
You can count on the tech industry to provide you with a daily dose of outrage. This is very corrosive. Not only does it poison the well people want to use towards positive goals, but with tech being effectively unavoidable by anybody but extreme hermits, it creates a sense of complete and irreversible moral decay that permeates all of society.
- momirlan 3y ago
  > it creates a sense of complete and irreversible moral decay or, it is just another reflection of the "complete and irreversible moral decay that permeates all of society". the decay of any civilization is predictable and irreversible, and not a pretty sight...
  - apocalypstyx 3y ago
    Maybe we should stop re-positing the specific developments of contemporary capitalism with some generic notion of civilization. A civilization is not some 'national body' that grows, matures, and dies exactly analogous to a biological organism.
    - momirlan 3y ago
      definitely not "national". but a civilization rises and then falls. it's a universal cycle, entropy at play.
      - apocalypstyx 3y ago
        A word replaced with one more vague one does not a robust argument make. Such a notion of universality lacks the concept of frames of reference and relies on an impoverished understanding of the concept of entropy. The argument for a cyclical imperative to history is at best tautological and fundamentally anti-empirical.
        momirlan 3y ago
nickpeterson 3y ago
What is the Mac OS side of telemetry looking like? It feels like Apple having commercials about how their computers don’t record everything you do would be a great knock against chrome os and windows, but I honestly don’t know if that’s true.
- krono 3y ago
  MacOS sends out a whole lot more than the zero things I have granted it permission for. It regularly sends out diagnostic reports covering day-to-day usage without anything exciting through the SubmitDiagInfo tool, even though the Device Analytics & Privacy doc explicitly mentions this won't happen when Sharing Mac Analytics is off. The vast majority of third party applications are also sending everything they can access and then some, often far exceeding in scope and nowhere even close to meeting the privacy and security standards as is claimed in the relevant policies. Telemetry endpoints are increasingly being CNAME masked or called through anynymous proxies. Betraying the customer/user trust this way is absolutely despicable. Shipping normal release channel apps with a Sentry SDK configured to run in debug mode seems to be the new meta for some reason (nothing good, probably). And then there's Mozilla... Not only are many of their recommended extensions secretly sending telemetry and doing all sorts of other things that violate their extension policies multiple times over (strict verification and thorough code auditing process my arse), but Firefox itself includes UTM and other tracking parameters in its outgoing links to third parties (including all preinstalled search providers) even when "Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data" is unmistakably set not to allow it. Things would be different if this software were to have actually improved over time, but in most cases the opposite is true. Thinking about it, the more telemetry an app collects, the faster it seems to deteriorate across the board. An example of two opposites on this spectrum would be VIM vs Spotify.
hardware2win 3y ago
People hating telemetry just because it is telemetry are tiring as hell. Blame telemetry for collection of unreasonable stuff, not for collecting data that is valuable for software improvement and doesnt violate privacy.
- pdntspa 3y ago
  > doesnt violate privacy. And who is making that determination? You? Because all data going out of my system without my explicit and freely-given consent is a violation of my privacy.
- gavinhoward 3y ago
  Collecting website categorization is not "valuable for software improvement" and certainly does "violate privacy."
  - hardware2win 3y ago
    I didnt say it is. Just arguing against hate for all telemetry
    - gavinhoward 3y ago
      Show me one example where telemetry made software better.
      - hardware2win 3y ago
        Why would I have to? Concept is solid and stays on its own.
        gavinhoward 3y ago
        If the concept has had no benefits, then it is not solid and does not stay on its own. Especially if you cannot think of a single example.
LeoPanthera 3y ago
What is the Windows equivalent of Little Snitch?
- microflash 3y ago
  Safing Portmaster: https://safing.io/ https://safing.io/ It's open source version supports system wide firewall and blocklists. Pretty easy on battery as well.
  - dhaavi 3y ago
    Thanks for the mention. If anything is missing on the filter lists to block this stuff, let me know, I'll add it asap.
sph 3y ago
We need a new rule for tech, that says "Any major tech conglomerate grows until their main source of revenue is tracking and telemetry." Why the fuck does Intel need to know "the category of websites I visit, but not the URL themselves"? Who defines the categories? We all know that metadata is at this point as important as data. Stallman was right.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  And how do they know the category if they aren't "collecting and using" the URL?
- freedude 3y ago
  Now wait and see what AI does with all of that data...
  - tomrod 3y ago
    As a practitioner in the AI space: absolutely nothing useful.
    - etiam 3y ago
      For sufficiently high standards that may be true, but even if so, it won't prevent numerous organizations from profiling based on it anyway and targeting accordingly. Also, in favor of freedude's position, we may have just not waited long enough to see yet, because unless they're forced to there's no way they'll ever be deleting the data.
- anotherhue 3y ago
  > We need a new rule for tech, that says "Any major tech conglomerate grows until their main source of revenue is tracking and telemetry." The "Don't be evil" rule.
  - joshspankit 3y ago
    You mean because that was stricken from Google’s corporate values once they were big enough that two of their main sources of revenue were tracking and telemetry?
purpleblue 3y ago
How do I shut off Nvidia telemetry? Can I block IP addresses or DNS names?
JohnFen 3y ago
Yet another repulsive software move. Our collective deterioration continues unabated.
j_san 3y ago
Can some EU citizen please make a complaint to a DPA (Data Protection Authority)? It's gathering so much stuff, I don't think that this would hold up to scrutiny.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
"You have been blocked from accessing this website. We're now blocking all traffic coming out of Hetzner networks." Thank you, AI!
xbruteforce 3y ago
These people never stop, do they. Move to Linux. Take a look at NixOS.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Sadly, we're seeing an uptick in opt-out telemetry in Linux/OSS software as well. Even they can't limit themselves to making it opt-in.
stainablesteel 3y ago
nvidia doesn't collect anything from linux drivers, i wonder if intel does the same?
easeout 3y ago
Does any OS use capability-based security or other means to categorically lock graphics drivers out of network access, and why does Windows not?
BonoboIO 3y ago
Send them your GDPR Requests! Give them fire.
kens 3y ago
Am I the only person who thinks that this sort of telemetry is a good thing? It helps the user if telemetry provides reports of bugs and performance issues that help improve the product. It is a benefit to me that if a program keeps crashing, the responsible team will see this and be motivated to fix the bug. (I also like the thought that teams that write bad code will get embarrassed in meetings by bad telemetry numbers.) Obviously telemetry can be used for evil, which is bad.
- cypress66 3y ago
  Just make it opt in or have the user manually click yes/no during the install.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Telemetry can indeed be very useful in a way that benefits everyone. But that doesn't make it right if it's done without the user's informed consent.
- Tryk 3y ago
  Nothing wrong with this in principle. The burning questions is what they use the data for. In particular, do they sell it to 3rd parties? How long do they keep the data?
- callalex 3y ago
  How does tracking what websites I visit reduce bugs in my graphics driver?
BonoboIO 3y ago
„The categories of websites you visit, but not the URL itself, Includes universal plug and play devices and devices that broadcast information to your computer on a local area network: for example, smart TV model and vendor information, and video streaming devices.“ This sounds like a really bad idea to let it run on your pc. This is basically Spyware, that Scans your (corporate) network too.

407 points by baal80spam 3y ago

tl;dr: > We are unilaterally altering the Terms & Conditions for the device you purchased. Pray we don't alter them further.

barbazoo 3y ago

> Intel CIP is functionally similar to the Telemetry component of the GeForce Software. NVIDIA's Telemetry is installed and enabled by default along with your GeForce graphics drivers, and you cannot opt out from it, as it does not even figure in the "custom" installer options. No idea what data Nvidia collects but this sounds even more shady.

LoganDark 3y ago
> No idea what data Nvidia connects but this sounds even more shady. It gets worse - if you're on Windows and your driver was not installed by an OEM (if it didn't come with the computer, or you reinstalled the OS or something), GeForce Experience wants you to connect to the internet and sign into an Nvidia account to access some features of the graphics card, like ShadowPlay.
- haunter 3y ago
  But thankfully GeForce Experience experience is totally optional, you can just select not to install when you install the driver Honestly it doesn't even have any critical feature https://www.nvidia.com/en-eu/geforce/geforce-experience/ https://www.nvidia.com/en-eu/geforce/geforce-experience/
  - bestham 3y ago
    Then you will not be able to access some of the features that is advertised for the hardware you bought (like shadowplay).
    - Aerroon 3y ago
      While you can't use ShadowPlay you can use Nvidia's hardware encoding with software like OBS to do the same thing as ShadowPlay. Actually, it's even better because you can configure OBS to only do it in RAM.
      - LoganDark 3y ago
        A good portion of the overhead that ShadowPlay addresses is actually video capture, not just encoding/compression - but IME it's true that even NVENC on its own can take a good load off the CPU.
    - horsawlarway 3y ago
      Doesn't this at least make some sense? ShadowPlay is literally for recording and sharing video. If you don't want Nvidia to record you... It sounds like you don't want shadowplay either.
      - Qwertious 3y ago
        >Doesn't this at least make some sense? No, it doesn't make sense. Why do you need an internet connection in order for your graphics card to record video? Even if it's inherently networked, NASes exist and don't need Nvidia's servers.
      - LoganDark 3y ago
        ShadowPlay is not just for uploading recordings to the cloud. ShadowPlay also allows you to capture the output of your GPU without having to insert an external capture card in between. It essentially uses NVENC to generate a video stream before it even leaves the graphics card, so the CPU doesn't have to do nearly as much work.
      - ineedasername 3y ago
        You are equivocating with the use of “record” in two different senses if that word. A person may very reasonably accept one of them without the other.
    - 3y ago
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    Absolutely, I think I have it installed, but it's intentionally one major version behind (GeForce Experience 2 instead of 3) so it won't make me log in, and that works well enough when I certainly don't let it run in the background, I only boot it up for certain buttons it has. I don't remember which ones - I haven't touched it in months, so they must not be that important anyway. Edit: Apparently the GeForce Experience that showed up in my search was actually the one that came in the driver support package for my laptop (which I no longer use), I may have never even used it on this computer at all.
  - ohgodplsno 3y ago
    No Shadowplay, no Gamestream (so, if you bought an Nvidia Shield for that, you're screwed. No, Sunshine isn't currently at feature parity with Gamestream), no automatic driver updates (which, in this day and age, are quite important for newer games), no Ansel. Nothing critical no, but all things that, if you don't have and need, have no real alternative.
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago
      I just wait til I run across a game that refuses to start due to old drivers before I bother to update them. Works pretty well as a notification system for me.
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  Surely you can just firewall off Nvidia's telemetry servers.
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    It's a bit hard to log into an Nvidia account without connecting to their servers. But I guess if you're not philosophically opposed to online logins, you could totally just log in and then block its internet access with a firewall rule (either Windows Defender Firewall, or another app like Portmaster). I do this anyway even though I don't have GFE installed because other components of the driver also try to connect to Nvidia's servers for some reason. Not on my watch. (Though I wonder if there is some registry key or something to make GFE believe you've logged in, even if it's never connected to the internet. Surely someone would've figured it out by now.)
    - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
      Why do you have to login to enable video recording functionality?
      - LoganDark 3y ago
        I don't know. The app won't let you past a login screen, so you can't use any of the settings. Luckily the Nvidia Control Panel that comes with the driver is devoid of any obstacles whatsoever, but it seems that at least the ShadowPlay implementation happens to live with GeForce Experience.
        PrimeMcFly 3y ago
        Weird, seems like someone would have hacked a workaround as you say.
hospitalJail 3y ago
Huh, I wonder if this applies to people with Linux Nvidia drivers.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Linux drivers don't come with GeForce experience
  - gpderetta 3y ago
    As a long time nvidia-on-linux user, that's an "experience" I'm willing to miss.
wredue 3y ago
Nvidia collects all the same data, and you cannot opt out of it if you run GeForce experience.
- baal80spam 3y ago
  > if you run GeForce experience Exactly. It is a reason I never install it when updating Nvidia drivers (yes I know I'm missing out eg. on shadowplay but I don't use it anyway).
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    I think GFE's implementation of ShadowPlay is replicable by third-party/open-source applications as well. It just uses some sorta-undocumented Nvidia APIs to capture the screen without the software overhead: https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/msi-afterburner-3-0-0-beta-16-2013-10-25.382760/page-4#post-4687310 https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/msi-afterburner-3-0-0-beta... Not sure if anything like OBS implements this or not.
  - wredue 3y ago
    FYI, I was wrong here. Telemetry on window information, focus times, click spots et al is collected with just the driver. GeForce experience additionally collects personal information.
codedokode 3y ago
Ridiculous, Nvidia cards are expensive and on top of that they collect the data for free.
- RajT88 3y ago
  High end TV's are filled with all the crapware and telemetry shenanigans of the low end TV's as well. Why would companies not double dip?
buro9 3y ago
DNS block: events.gfe.nvidia.com lightstep.kaizen.nvidia.com

ginko 3y ago

How can engineers working on this even look at themselves without being ashamed? For the record: I'm a graphics driver engineer myself.

Contusion3532 3y ago
They'll rationalize their behavior, just like most of us do. "All the other companies are already doing it", "No one cares about privacy", "It's not my decision", "We need this data to help the customers".
- nottorp 3y ago
  Well let's ask HN: How many of us click accept on those annoying cookie dialogs or have an extension do it for them? And how many take the time to find the reject button and/or install appropriate extensions that will do the rejection? I'm in the second category but I'm sure the first one is the majority, mostly because they just don't care.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Since I browse without Javascript enabled by default, I almost never see those cookie dialogs. I don't allow persistent cookies regardless.
  - screamingninja 3y ago
    Those pesky popups keep reappearing on each visit until you hit accept. Once you accept, they never bother you again. Not sure there is a way around besides aggressive anti-tracking extensions / DNS servers etc.
    - 93po 3y ago
      Use the annoyances block lists on ublock origin, gets rid of them on most any bigger site. Annoyances isn't on by default bc mainstream users would get too frustrated with the occasional breakage it may cause.
  - 3y ago

the_lego 3y ago

Intel wants to provide the best computing experiences. To accomplish this, we would like your permission to collect, use, and combine information to understand: The categories of websites you visit, but not the URL itself Software usage: for example, frequency and duration of application usage such as Intel® Driver & Support Assistant, but not the application content itself such as specific actions or keyboard input. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/topics/idsa-cip.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/topics/idsa-...

BonoboIO 3y ago
Wow ... that sounds a lot like Spyware.
- x86x87 3y ago
  This is not surprising. Intel did things like ME in the past. The days where you bought the hardware and had full control over it are long gone imho
  - SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago
    They're still doing ME are they not?
    - x86x87 3y ago
      Did they ever stop?
      - SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago
        That was my question exactly.
- sneak 3y ago
  Philosophically and ethically and technically speaking, telemetry that happens automatically without first obtaining informed consent from the user being surveilled (i.e. so-called "opt-out telemetry") is equivalent to spyware.

Crontab 3y ago

Telemetry by default should be illegal. They should be required to obtain owner permission.

antoineMoPa 3y ago
That would make any site using mixpanel/google analytics/sentry/etc. illegal. Not so easy to enforce.
- Aerroon 3y ago
  But these are two very different scenarios though. When I use a website I'm actively interacting with that website. I want something from their web servers. When I'm using an Nvidia graphics card I'm not actively looking to use their web services. I want the graphics card that I bought to work and that's it. The graphics card doesn't improve as a device by connecting to the internet.
  - antoineMoPa 3y ago
    But metrics could help nvidia fix issues and add features in the next driver update? I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here, what I truly think is that all monitoring and analytics should require user approval a bit like cookies. E.g.: you visit a website and it would ask for permission to send monitoring data to listed sites.
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  Perhaps they meant locally installed software. And EU has tried making sites classify and ask for permission for cookie storage. And maybe mixpanel and Google and cross site tracking should be opt-in for users.
- danaris 3y ago
  And wouldn't that be a terrible shame.
TheRoque 3y ago
True. I'm surprised this doesn't go against GDPR.

fulafel 3y ago

Which platforms does this apply on? The article doesn't mention eg Windows or Linux.

trelane 3y ago
I would be surprised if the Linux kernel or Mesa would approve such a pull request. Slipping it into already secret code (proprietary drivers), though, would be a cinch. So, it's Windows.
Qwertious 3y ago
Looks like Windows - it mentions a setup/installation wizard, which isn't a thing on Linux for GPU drivers. And Intel has separate GPU drivers for Windows and Linux (the drivers for the latter being open-source), so it's likely just Windows. Especially since I doubt Mesa would accept a patch for a telemetry feature.
- fulafel 3y ago
  Intel themselves do seem to offer downloads, eg https://dgpu-docs.intel.com/driver/installation.html https://dgpu-docs.intel.com/driver/installation.html & https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/oneapi/installation-guide-linux/2023-1/install-with-gui.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/oneapi/installa... - it's not outside the realm of possibility to have some kind of installer app there.
dhx 3y ago
This is 650MB[1] Windows bloatware (now spyware) that gets installed alongside the driver. For 99.999% of users, it provides absolutely no benefit[2]. For Linux users, all that is required is a periodic update to the open source kernel, as well as proprietary firmware blobs, and open source Mesa software, and that's it. If you really feel it necessary to see statistics for your Intel GPU, there is a sysfs interface for doing so, and open source tools readily available to make it easy to view and use these statistics[3]. [1] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/726609/intel-arc-iris-xe-graphics-whql-windows.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/726609/inte... [1] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/discrete-gpus/arc/software/arc-control.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/discre... [2] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/igt-gpu-tools/-/blob/master/tools/intel_gpu_top.c https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/igt-gpu-tools/-/blob/mast...

personalityson 3y ago

After having realized that I don't know and can't put into exact words what harm telemetry represents for me personally, I stopped caring and I always opt in to share as much of my telemetry info as possible

gsuuon 3y ago
I get not being bothered enough to opt out.. but actively opting in? What's the motivation there?
momirlan 3y ago
the model citizen

inktype 3y ago

Windows and its ecosystem have already become a telemetry monster; if you're fine with everything else, you ought to be fine with this. The linked Intel support page shows the simple instructions for opting out of the telemetry. Having said that, 2022 was already the year of the Linux desktop. Everything works. KDE gets better every week. Be the owner of your technology. Join us!

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wood-porch 3y ago
Not in my experience. I was using a Dell work laptop recently and decided to use Linux instead of windows. Once I got things working mostly to my liking, I updated the GPU drivers and got a kernel panic. I’m lucky to be tech savvy so I can recuperate from that, but after that I asked for a MacBook and now have a solid daily driver that I can rely on, without having to spend hours looking for workarounds, crashes and kernel panics
mcpackieh 3y ago
Is it confirmed that Intel's drivers on Linux aren't doing this too?
- anthk 3y ago
  On libre drivers? No.
  - Aardwolf 3y ago
    I do use the full fledged nvidia drivers on linux (I don't know if with the mentioned libre drivers the steam games, LLM's and image generation I use would work?), so I would also like to know if this telemetry is also present in the linux drivers
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  Intel drivers are part of the kernel, and I imagine Intel's attempt to put telemetry in them would be shut down fairly quickly by Linus Torvalds.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

marcodiego 3y ago

Not on linux. One more reason why drivers should be open source and live inside the kernel. I remember months (years?) ago when it was discovered wacom tablet drivers did the same on MacOS; well, not on linux.

nologic01 3y ago

You can count on the tech industry to provide you with a daily dose of outrage. This is very corrosive. Not only does it poison the well people want to use towards positive goals, but with tech being effectively unavoidable by anybody but extreme hermits, it creates a sense of complete and irreversible moral decay that permeates all of society.

momirlan 3y ago
> it creates a sense of complete and irreversible moral decay or, it is just another reflection of the "complete and irreversible moral decay that permeates all of society". the decay of any civilization is predictable and irreversible, and not a pretty sight...
- apocalypstyx 3y ago
  Maybe we should stop re-positing the specific developments of contemporary capitalism with some generic notion of civilization. A civilization is not some 'national body' that grows, matures, and dies exactly analogous to a biological organism.
  - momirlan 3y ago
    definitely not "national". but a civilization rises and then falls. it's a universal cycle, entropy at play.
    - apocalypstyx 3y ago
      A word replaced with one more vague one does not a robust argument make. Such a notion of universality lacks the concept of frames of reference and relies on an impoverished understanding of the concept of entropy. The argument for a cyclical imperative to history is at best tautological and fundamentally anti-empirical.
      - momirlan 3y ago

nickpeterson 3y ago

What is the Mac OS side of telemetry looking like? It feels like Apple having commercials about how their computers don’t record everything you do would be a great knock against chrome os and windows, but I honestly don’t know if that’s true.

krono 3y ago
MacOS sends out a whole lot more than the zero things I have granted it permission for. It regularly sends out diagnostic reports covering day-to-day usage without anything exciting through the SubmitDiagInfo tool, even though the Device Analytics & Privacy doc explicitly mentions this won't happen when Sharing Mac Analytics is off. The vast majority of third party applications are also sending everything they can access and then some, often far exceeding in scope and nowhere even close to meeting the privacy and security standards as is claimed in the relevant policies. Telemetry endpoints are increasingly being CNAME masked or called through anynymous proxies. Betraying the customer/user trust this way is absolutely despicable. Shipping normal release channel apps with a Sentry SDK configured to run in debug mode seems to be the new meta for some reason (nothing good, probably). And then there's Mozilla... Not only are many of their recommended extensions secretly sending telemetry and doing all sorts of other things that violate their extension policies multiple times over (strict verification and thorough code auditing process my arse), but Firefox itself includes UTM and other tracking parameters in its outgoing links to third parties (including all preinstalled search providers) even when "Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data" is unmistakably set not to allow it. Things would be different if this software were to have actually improved over time, but in most cases the opposite is true. Thinking about it, the more telemetry an app collects, the faster it seems to deteriorate across the board. An example of two opposites on this spectrum would be VIM vs Spotify.

hardware2win 3y ago

People hating telemetry just because it is telemetry are tiring as hell. Blame telemetry for collection of unreasonable stuff, not for collecting data that is valuable for software improvement and doesnt violate privacy.

pdntspa 3y ago
> doesnt violate privacy. And who is making that determination? You? Because all data going out of my system without my explicit and freely-given consent is a violation of my privacy.
gavinhoward 3y ago
Collecting website categorization is not "valuable for software improvement" and certainly does "violate privacy."
- hardware2win 3y ago
  I didnt say it is. Just arguing against hate for all telemetry
  - gavinhoward 3y ago
    Show me one example where telemetry made software better.
    - hardware2win 3y ago
      Why would I have to? Concept is solid and stays on its own.
      - gavinhoward 3y ago
        If the concept has had no benefits, then it is not solid and does not stay on its own. Especially if you cannot think of a single example.

LeoPanthera 3y ago

What is the Windows equivalent of Little Snitch?

microflash 3y ago
Safing Portmaster: https://safing.io/ https://safing.io/ It's open source version supports system wide firewall and blocklists. Pretty easy on battery as well.
- dhaavi 3y ago
  Thanks for the mention. If anything is missing on the filter lists to block this stuff, let me know, I'll add it asap.

sph 3y ago

We need a new rule for tech, that says "Any major tech conglomerate grows until their main source of revenue is tracking and telemetry." Why the fuck does Intel need to know "the category of websites I visit, but not the URL themselves"? Who defines the categories? We all know that metadata is at this point as important as data. Stallman was right.

JohnFen 3y ago
And how do they know the category if they aren't "collecting and using" the URL?
freedude 3y ago
Now wait and see what AI does with all of that data...
- tomrod 3y ago
  As a practitioner in the AI space: absolutely nothing useful.
  - etiam 3y ago
    For sufficiently high standards that may be true, but even if so, it won't prevent numerous organizations from profiling based on it anyway and targeting accordingly. Also, in favor of freedude's position, we may have just not waited long enough to see yet, because unless they're forced to there's no way they'll ever be deleting the data.
anotherhue 3y ago
> We need a new rule for tech, that says "Any major tech conglomerate grows until their main source of revenue is tracking and telemetry." The "Don't be evil" rule.
- joshspankit 3y ago
  You mean because that was stricken from Google’s corporate values once they were big enough that two of their main sources of revenue were tracking and telemetry?

purpleblue 3y ago

How do I shut off Nvidia telemetry? Can I block IP addresses or DNS names?

JohnFen 3y ago

Yet another repulsive software move. Our collective deterioration continues unabated.

j_san 3y ago

Can some EU citizen please make a complaint to a DPA (Data Protection Authority)? It's gathering so much stuff, I don't think that this would hold up to scrutiny.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago

"You have been blocked from accessing this website. We're now blocking all traffic coming out of Hetzner networks." Thank you, AI!

xbruteforce 3y ago

These people never stop, do they. Move to Linux. Take a look at NixOS.

JohnFen 3y ago
Sadly, we're seeing an uptick in opt-out telemetry in Linux/OSS software as well. Even they can't limit themselves to making it opt-in.

stainablesteel 3y ago

nvidia doesn't collect anything from linux drivers, i wonder if intel does the same?

easeout 3y ago

Does any OS use capability-based security or other means to categorically lock graphics drivers out of network access, and why does Windows not?

BonoboIO 3y ago

Send them your GDPR Requests! Give them fire.

kens 3y ago

Am I the only person who thinks that this sort of telemetry is a good thing? It helps the user if telemetry provides reports of bugs and performance issues that help improve the product. It is a benefit to me that if a program keeps crashing, the responsible team will see this and be motivated to fix the bug. (I also like the thought that teams that write bad code will get embarrassed in meetings by bad telemetry numbers.) Obviously telemetry can be used for evil, which is bad.

cypress66 3y ago
Just make it opt in or have the user manually click yes/no during the install.
JohnFen 3y ago
Telemetry can indeed be very useful in a way that benefits everyone. But that doesn't make it right if it's done without the user's informed consent.
Tryk 3y ago
Nothing wrong with this in principle. The burning questions is what they use the data for. In particular, do they sell it to 3rd parties? How long do they keep the data?
callalex 3y ago
How does tracking what websites I visit reduce bugs in my graphics driver?

BonoboIO 3y ago

„The categories of websites you visit, but not the URL itself, Includes universal plug and play devices and devices that broadcast information to your computer on a local area network: for example, smart TV model and vendor information, and video streaming devices.“ This sounds like a really bad idea to let it run on your pc. This is basically Spyware, that Scans your (corporate) network too.