Nvidia Adds Telemetry To Latest Drivers

Well, perhaps Linux and *BSD will have a little time before that happens. The article mostly talks about the Windows Version, but we all should have an eye on that. But that's a trend anyway when using MacOS or Windows, most components will send telemetry data, applications will follow, if they aren't doing so until now. Gaming portals like steam or origin are spying since they appeared.
Even Ubuntu sends search data to Amazon, so we really should be on the watch and hope we can avoid this at least in the open source field.
 
x-com said:
The article mostly talks about the Windows Version, but we all should have an eye on that.
Click to expand...
One of the reasons the NVidia drivers work so well on Linux and BSD is mainly because they're identical. The only differences are the hooks to the kernels and the OS, but the actual driver itself is mostly the same.

I'm not too worried about usage statistics or error reports but it would be nice if it was opt-in (heck, even opt-out would do) instead of being forced down everyone's throat.
 
SirDice said:
I'm not too worried about usage statistics or error reports but it would be nice if it was opt-in (heck, even opt-out would do) instead of being forced down everyone's throat.
Click to expand...

Well, you should be worried, since every piece of information is linked to all other information about you and your systems. Under Windows NVidia forces you to either have a google or nvidia account if you want to use their auto-update tool thats a good hint what they plan to do: Big Data!
Windows, MacOS and Android are spying you out, and so do most of the applications available for them, now even the drivers (or at least their supplemental software) start doing this. This gives nice profiling data.
By the way: This is a potential security problem, what if any of those telemetry non-sense has a bug!
Linux and BSD's were an relatively safe alternative to avoid all this, but Canonical with its desktop search being linked to Amazon or Steam comming to Linux/BSD is no good sign. So keep an watchfull eye on this if you want to keep your data.
 
I'm not worried if the information is just error reports, but the point is that you never know for sure what it sends to Nvidia (and of course the security issue). So I'm avoiding spyware as much as possible. The real "problem" here is that the driver is closed source, and Nvidia can put in whatever they like. It is after all their product.

Only way out would be an open source driver for Nvidia cards, or get another brand videocard. So does anyone know if the nv driver is ok on FreeBSD? And what is the best alternative for a graphics card?
 
MarcoB said:
Only way out would be an open source driver for Nvidia cards, or get another brand videocard. So does anyone know if the nv driver is ok on FreeBSD? And what is the best alternative for a graphics card?
Click to expand...

Depends on your graphics card, here you can read the supported models and drivers, most of the newer cards need nvidia
https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics

Concerning the error informations, do you know what Windows 10 is sending, when enabling full crash reports? Even the documents you were working on! Very trustfull :)
 
x-com said:
Concerning the error informations, do you know what Windows 10 is sending, when enabling full crash reports? Even the documents you were working on! Very trustfull :)
Click to expand...
I think this really is a bad development, but all corporations in Silicon Valley are into this these days, and it isn't going away. It all boils down to trust, but since all manufacturers are now getting into "big data" and telemetry, this trust is gone.

Imo only way to escape from it is to use oss all the way. The Nvidia binary blob has always been a bit of an achilles heel on BSD and Linux.
 
MarcoB said:
Imo only way to escape from it is to use oss all the way. The Nvidia binary blob has always been a bit of an achilles heel on BSD and Linux.
Click to expand...
That's right, but unfortunately even nouveau under linux is no real alternative at least when you need 3D support you have to use the binary driver.

drhowarddrfine said:
I just woke up so my thinking cap isn't on but how would a driver be able to collect personal information about you and your data?
Click to expand...
Most certainly not the driver itself, but I guess the original install script taken from NVIDIA will install an additional software for that. Under Windows this is located in the so called GForce Experience. At the moment this is not available for Linux/UNIX, that's why I said we should have an eye on that.
 
GeForce Experience is Nvidia online gaming venture, so if you don't use that all the telemetry stuff is probably irrelevant as the driver can't collect the personal, as drhowarddrfine alludes to.

I'm using GeForce Experience because it allows me to stream games from my PC to my Nvidia Shield.
The OP's link contains a link to a software that will easily allow you to disable the telemetry on Windows.

I would guess there would be valid reason for wanting telemetry data for online gaming (best servers to connect to, other online games in the same area...yadda)...I don't think there were nefarious reason behind Nvidia doing this. And giving what GeForce Experience is and does I don't think BSD will be worrying about this anytime soon. The Shield does run AndroidOS so maybe it will get to Linux sooner, but I'm not sure how close AndroidOS is to any Linux now.
 
If I was an engineer at NVidia the very first thing I would like to is know how well the drivers I'm working on perform and work on different pieces of NVidia hardware. The telemetry is exactly what I would insist on implementing on the drivers to collect the performance data over very large number of users.
 
kpa said:
If I was an engineer at NVidia the very first thing I would like to is know how well the drivers I'm working on perform and work on different pieces of NVidia hardware. The telemetry is exactly what I would insist on implementing on the drivers to collect the performance data over very large number of users.
Click to expand...

Well as user I would respond that it's simply none of your business how I use the card, if you want that data go and perform your tests in your labs not on my pc. That's an old discussion but since advanced tools for data analysis exists and are used to interpret even the most rediculus data I consider even this "telemetry" data as a risk. When I see how many applications now gather telemetry, hell even Firefox will do if you don't opt out, this creates a massive amount of data which alltogether form a meaningful profile of your computer usage. That's what one should avoid at all costs.
 
Exactly, who the hell would just allow random updates to run at random times? For people who aren't mad, there exists http://download.wsusoffline.net/

Also, if anyone is worried about how Windows and software running on Windows is simply not suitable for the internet due to leaking data, just disable the network entirely. Then to access the internet, just run a disposable VM (since it is disposable, it might as well be running windows too) which does connect to the network.

Microsoft even provide disposable images for this reason: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/

Think of it not as a Virtual Machine but as a heavily sandboxed web browser. Then think of your host Windows not as an OS, but as a proprietary compatibility layer bios extension.
 
Actually, until I started using the Geforce Experience to stream stuff to my TV I kept my network adapter disabled at all times in Windows. I never use my Windows home machine for anything on the internet.

Now I need to just look into not allow my Windows install internet access...I'm sure my router can handle that.
 
Just tell an average user how to set up a wsus. They got them by the balls and everybody is riding that train. These things need to be undone and users need to be more aware of this!
 
Average user don't care about this stuff. They just want to click click and it all magically happens and they can post every detail of their life on social media. It is the about average user that argues about this stuff.
 
Regarding NVIDIA, I am not directly affected, however, NVIDIA's so called Telemetry is not a single case, but only another manifestation of the business culture 4.0 - turn your customers into commodity, while precautionarily don't ask them, because they may say "no".

Clearly the decision makers of said BC4, don't have mother and father, who could have told them "Do not open/read letters (messages, informations, ...) that are not intended to reach you!" My mother told us children, and even when her directive at that time was limited to letters only, of course, in the 21st century this still holds for any kind of successors of regular letters and other informations on paper/tape.

The drawback of the internet is, that everybody of us is faced to countless ill-bred individuals and their organizations, and the NVIDIA case raises once again the main question, how to stop being lumbered with all these useless loans from all this rude plebs.

Since the internet comes also with benefits, the radical answer, simply not to use it with your favorite device, but do everything out of your personal jail, is quite understandably not to everybody's liking.

I am more in favor of filtering DNS requests. One quite common approach is by the way of hosts(5) files, like http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/, http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/, http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm, http://www.hosts-file.net/. These may be deployed on a single machine or also on a gateway. Actually, I do this already on my FreeBSD Home Server and on my FreeBSD on AWS-EC2 VPN-gateway by feeding unbound.conf(5) with ~20000 void-zones, which were compiled form said hosts listings. I easily could add another void-zone like "tm.nvidia.com", however, I am still looking for more sophistication.

Does somebody know specialised hosts compilations of domains used by software/devices for calling home?

Are there any better suggestions for properly maintained hosts listings? I am still looking for listings of ad, tracking, and other malware domains in Brazil.

Are there any suggestions for more sophistication, or perhaps more effective approaches?
 
obsigna I totally agree with with your view on "business culture 4.0", this is the major cause of telemetry in applications. I been preaching this for years about Facebook, Google Et al. but most people don't listen because these things are just too convenient.

I'm using http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm for my hosts file and manually adding things myself. I don't know of any specific sites with domains that call home, but I will post if I find one.
 
Another way would be to collect network data via sockstat to figure out which port the telemetry is going out on, then block the ports in PF and your gateway router.
 
Does anyone of you see any chance that these telemetry non-sense or "business culture 4.0" will vanish in the foreseable future or how you could the average user make more aware of it?
 
obsigna said:
I am more in favor of filtering DNS requests. One quite common approach is by the way of hosts(5) files, like http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/, http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/, http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm, http://www.hosts-file.net/. These may be deployed on a single machine or also on a gateway. Actually, I do this already on my FreeBSD Home Server and on my FreeBSD on AWS-EC2 VPN-gateway by feeding unbound.conf(5) with ~20000 void-zones, which were compiled form said hosts listings. I easily could add another void-zone like "tm.nvidia.com", however, I am still looking for more sophistication.
Click to expand...

At the moment I'm using adblock to block all ads and trackers. Does the hosts file method has any advantages over that?
 
MarcoB said:
At the moment I'm using adblock to block all ads and trackers. Does the hosts file method has any advantages over that?
Click to expand...

Well, just read the faq of the first link (yoyo): Addblock does only work with certain browsers. The host file method affects the whole operating system (in short terms)
 
x-com said:
Does anyone of you see any chance that these telemetry non-sense or "business culture 4.0" will vanish in the foreseeable future or how you could the average user make more aware of it?
Click to expand...

Personally, I definitely do not see the business culture changing anytime soon. Everything is about the data. There is too much money in it. Even things that seemingly would not need data are using it.

I just sat through a keynote at software conference and they gave an example about how a middle school principal used a database to figure out he should call a students parents and then was able to coordinate consulting for the child. Now, back in the day a school principal would not need to consult a database to figure this out...let alone be so proud of his inability to deal with children in a social setting that he endorses some software that helped him figure what he should do.

I don't think you can make average people care about something that could possibly cause them inconvenience.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top