Why on earth would the "category of web sites" be of possible use other than selling the data?
Telemetry is now an attack vector for privacy in general because no one can be trusted with the data.
Telemetry is now an attack vector for privacy in general because no one can be trusted with the data.
If people are using more streaming services, that means Intel should focus more on their Integrated Graphics platforms. If people are downloading significantly more data than ever before, they should probably make sure their networking drivers receive more support.
Knowing how people use their PC's, even by category, can help Intel manage its driver development.
Knowing how people use your products helps allocate new development features. This problem isn't unique to intel.
They might find that a market segment doesn't do a lot of playing 3D games, but does spend a lot of time watching Youtube on battery, and so make the decision to drop integrated GPU shader cores and dedicate more die area to video decoding, to make energy efficiency better when watching video.
> I'd hope this could be measured without collecting a ton of personal data.
Intel's claim is that they don't: "we would like your permission to collect [...] The categories of websites you visit, but not the URL itself" also the privacy safeguarding statement at the top of the page.
The whole purpose of CIP is to gather data on actual users' computing needs. For many computer users, the web is most of their computing experience -- it seems appropriate therefore to include usage of the web in the program.
Much like any customer experience study, privacy is an issue. Intel do at least claim to be mitigating the impact to privacy.
And intel want it for free
> what data is collected and how is it used?
> The categories of websites you visit, but not the URL itself
> If I participate in the program, is there any personal information in the data collected?
> Will not include the URL (web address) for specific sites visited
edit: also the knee-jerk reaction most people are going to have to this, is concern about certain categories of websites.
From a technical perspective, how does this work? I can only think of two ways:
(1) Intel downloads a big "map" file containing a huge list of pre-defined domains and categories. This means either the categories are pretty slim or you have a GB's big file
(2) Each URL is sent to Intel (aka "collected"). Maybe they don't "store" it ("We promise") but as soon as it leaves your system you have no control on this
There is probably some flaw with this method... curious if others think there's a "safe enough" way to do something like this...
And besides, FPGAs are used for web scale applications, many of them applicable to small computers.
Like the Computing Improvement Program, hosted on an obscure web page and systray menu?
> Q: How do I participate in the Intel® Computing Improvement Program?
> A: When you download and install the Intel® Computing Improvement Program, click Accept on the invitation to join.
The legitimate way to acquire this information would be to purchase it from partners who have a legitimate reason to collect it. If you want to know how popular 4K streaming is, for instance, Netflix, Twitch (etc) can provide that information.
My uninformed guess is that the information would be far less costly and of far better quality than using some large-scale spyware deployment instead. Unless there's something more that can make it worth Intel's while.
Just because they process the data doesn't mean they need to record it. I feel like a good analogy here is the ISP is your secretary. Sure they must have access to your documents to do their job, but if they're reading through your stuff for "gossip" or snapping photos of your documents, that'd still be an invasion of privacy.
(And even as we trust Cloudflare of 2019 doesn't do it, who's to say Cloudflare of 2021 will still live by this code? Can you guarantee that? I often find myself wishing for an established way for a company to make legally enforceable vows about its behavior. Maybe there is something like this already?)
I do not think most webmasters or web surfers know this.
see "Among other things, that resulted in us cooperating around monitoring potential hate sites on our network and notifying law enforcement when there was content" - and more, via: https://blog.cloudflare.com/terminating-service-for-8chan/
But realistically it's just for advertising.
I recall that being a big challenge when I worked on browsers - it’s very difficult to see what users actually encounter beyond “top X website” lists, which are of questionable value.