Adobe is spying on you!

[Lone Deranger]

Read about it here.

And watch John Nack, senior Product Manager at Adobe, attempting to justify it without losing his job at this link.

Apologies if his has been posted already (I looked around, but didn't find anything).

 

[ezekielrage_99]

It doesn't really surprise me how the product activation of CS3 currently is...

It also reminds me of RootKit and that silly little Sony Laptop debarkle a few years ago, and I remember Sony saying "Most people don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" and after all why should consumers worry about being spied on?

 

[-hh]

Here's the Opt-Out URL

http://www.omniture.com/privacy/2o7#optout

 

[ezekielrage_99]

Here's the Opt-Out URL

http://www.omniture.com/privacy/2o7#optout

It's still kind of dodgey...

 

[phungy]

Use Little Snitch

 

[mcarnes]

Man this sucks. I refuse to install a program that phones home. I was just about to get CS3 too with a new MP. Stupid Adobe messes up everything.

 

[teleromeo]

I use little smitch and I can't see any rule for photoshop CS3.

 

[dcr]

How about posting a link with more recent information?

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/01/adobe_and_omnit.html

 

[Peace]

How about posting a link with more recent information?

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/01/adobe_and_omnit.html

I'm afraid that explanation is a bit dodgy also.

 

[iGav]

Can't say it bothers me to be honest.

 

[GSMiller]

Can't say I'm not surprised.

 

[Fearless Leader]

I care but only because I like privacy. If I were to say this is ok, where would the line be drawn to say whats acceptable and whats not.

 

[Blah64]

Man this sucks. I refuse to install a program that phones home. I was just about to get CS3 too with a new MP. Stupid Adobe messes up everything.

No kidding. I still use CS1, which I was more than happy to purchase. But I will never upgrade until they release a non "activation" version. If that doesn't happen and eventually it won't run on newer hardware or OS release then I will switch to other software.

This phone-home bullsh*t has to stop. If people wouldn't just bend over for them every time they release a new version this could have been nipped in the bud a couple years ago.

 

[Stampyhead]

Can't say it bothers me to be honest.

I wish it didn't bother Adobe to be honest! If they just came out and said what they were up to instead of trying to talk around it the whole thing wouldn't same so dodgy.

 

[tersono]

Yeah, fairly typical Adobe behaviour - they were one of the earliest publishers to 'phone home', so this was no surprise.

I own a legitimate CS3 license, but refuse to play this game - hence I have Little Snitch and use it to block ANY application, including CS3, that tries to phone home for no good reason...
Let 'em data mine their own asses, they're not gonna get any help from me....

 

[jettoblack]

Unfortunately, Little Snitch does not completely block the spyware in CS3. There's a big thread about it on the LS forums. Some people were accusing LS of cooperating with Adobe by not blocking this spyware, but it turns out to have a technical reason. Part of the spyware runs as a root process and thus has higher privileges than LS. In fact LS doesn't even SEE it communicating at all, but if you check your internet traffic on your router or use an ethernet sniffer, you can see what data this spyware is sending back and forth constantly. Very disturbing and disappointing of Adobe...

Edit: I should clarify that there is more than one spyware program installed by Adobe CS3. LS can block some parts of it (the CS3 phone home stuff), but doesn't even see other parts of it. I believe the root process that bypasses LS is called "FLEXnet Publisher" and can be found in /Library/Application Support if Adobe CS3 is installed.

 

[angelneo]

It sucks big time, I'm switching back to PS CS2.

Does it includes the acquired Macromedia products such as flash, as it's not possible to use the older version of flash now since there are major updates in CS3.

EDIT: I have mapped 2o7.net back to localhost in my HOST file, it seems like quite a few websites/app uses omniture to track users. This should block all attempts now. (but it feels like pugging your finger into a sinking ship with a woodpecker on board... )

 

[DigitizerIIXP]

just say no

here are two innovative solutions I found just by websearching the omniture hostname:

http://dev.netcetera.org/blog/2007/12/30/opting-out-of-omnitures-1921681122o7net-the-geeky-way/
http://himself.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/opting-out-of-omniture’s-1921681122o7net-the-lazy-way/