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Comment by Espionage724 | Hacker News Reader

Great!

I want Intel to improve the driver stack I use on my hardware, and if information how I use their graphics stack is useful for that, cool. I continue on my usual usage, and Intel gets data on how to improve the experience for free.

How does anyone expect software to improve if nobody gives feedback? Ya'll know those website surveys, bug report apps in GPU control panels? If people used those, maybe secret telemetry wouldn't be required. It's easier to complain vaguely online in random communities.

Data collection isn't going away. Nor is it inherently harmful, unless you feed into the idea you're intentionally using hostile hardware and software for some reason.

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> If people used those, maybe secret telemetry wouldn't be required.

That argument is simple extortion. Secret telemetry is never required, period.

If people are unwilling to volunteer such data, then the devs simply have to do without. If that means that software won't improve[1], too bad.

[1] Which isn't what that means. Software has always been improving even back when spying on people wasn't a feasible thing to do at scale, so spying is clearly not necessary. It's just cheaper than the old ways.

It's not spying. Spying implies being observed without consent, and that the adversary is gaining information to use against you. The average person who is using Windows and likely the only ones to see this do not fall under this.

People were unwilling to volunteer the data exactly because of this fear-mongering. Ya'll act like Intel is sitting in a back room watching flowing logcats of your activity and cherry-picking ones to target you personally, as if some of ya'll are that important lmao :p

> Spying implies being observed without consent

It doesn't imply it, that's what it means. If data is being collected about me, my machine, or my use of my machine without my consent, it's spying.

> and that the adversary is gaining information to use against you.

I disagree that this is required in order for it to be spying. The reason it's collected is irrelevant. If I didn't give consent, it's spying.

> Ya'll act like Intel is sitting in a back room watching flowing logcats of your activity and cherry-picking ones to target you personally

I don't think that's what's happening at all, and certainly aren't meaning to imply it. What I think is happening is that data is being collected without consent. What makes it worse is that some of that data is clearly being collected for marketing purposes.

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