NVIDIA Adds Telemetry to Latest Drivers; Here's How to Disable It

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It's been brought to our attention that nVIDIA now has telemetry included with its drivers. It also continues the bloat with nVIDIA Wireless Controller and ShadowPlay services, something many don't need.

First, let's go over what these are.

• Telemetry is essentially considered spying by many as it is a way to send data back and forth. It's nowhere near that simple, but we'd like to know what it's doing in our video drivers when it's never been needed before.
• nVIDIA Wireless Controller requires you have, you guessed it, a nVIDIA Wireless Controller.
• ShadowPlay is a way to capture and record gameplay.

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NVIDIA Adds Telemetry to Latest Drivers; Here's How to Disable It (Update) - MajorGeeks

Is there anything to worry about on Linux ?

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Originally Posted by piratemeister

Is there anything to worry about on Linux ?

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If you're using a free and open source driver, no, and it's unlikely that they'd add something like this. Otherwise, I don't know.

Your OS spies on you, your drivers spy on you. I guess chipsets will have built-in telemetry next. The world is becoming a harsh place for those that care any about privacy.

The graphics driver telemetry is particularly concerning. If they send a memory dump after a crash, it could have anything that was displayed on your screen recently, including potentially very private things.

I think everyone should use a firewall to help mitigate this sort of thing. I use "Windows Firewall Control" [1]. It blocks outgoing connections by default, and you can give each program permission on a case-by-case basis. Essentially every program phones home these days, and most will work just fine if you don't allow that. Firewall usage is especially important if you're pirating software.

[1] http://www.binisoft.org/wfc.php

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Originally Posted by Kyle17

Your OS spies on you, your drivers spy on you. I guess chipsets will have built-in telemetry next. The world is becoming a harsh place for those that care any about privacy.

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Yeah - the worst part is, it seems 100% of the time these settings are hidden (this case) or cannot be entirely turned off (Windows 10, Google Chrome) :dabs:

An alternate viewpoint regarding these news: Relax, NVIDIA’s Telemetry Didn’t Just Start Spying on You