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posted by mrpg on Tuesday February 20 2018, @12:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the fool-me-once... dept.

The Register spotted Ubuntu behaving badly again with respect to users' privacy. In their article "Ubuntu wants to slurp PCs' vital statistics – even location – with new desktop installs: Data harvest notice will be checked by default", they note that in addition to installing popcon and apport by default, Canonical seeks much deeper data mining (without using the word "telemetry"):

[...] "We want to be able to focus our engineering efforts on the things that matter most to our users, and in order to do that we need to get some more data about sort of setups our users have and which software they are running on it," explained Will Cooke, the director of Ubuntu Desktop at Canonical.

[...] Data Canonical seeks "would include" the following: Ubuntu Flavour, Ubuntu Version, Network connectivity or not, CPU family, RAM, Disk(s) size, Screen(s) resolution, GPU vendor and model, OEM Manufacturer, Location (based on the location selection made by the user at install). No IP information would be gathered, Installation duration (time taken), Auto login enabled or not, Disk layout selected, Third party software selected or not, Download updates during install or not, [and] LivePatch enabled or not.

The system plans to leverage the power of the default setting by making the choice opt-out, not opt-in as popcon has been in the past: Cooke explained to the ubuntu-devel audience that "Any user can simply opt out by unchecking the box, which triggers one simple POST stating, 'diagnostics=false'. There will be a corresponding checkbox in the Privacy panel of GNOME Settings to toggle the state of this."

El Reg also noted Ubuntu's plan to address user privacy concerns:

"The Ubuntu privacy policy would be updated to reflect this change."

This seems less egregious than Ubuntu's past invasions of privacy, but much more invasive and Windows 10-like.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 20 2018, @02:50PM (4 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 20 2018, @02:50PM (#640648) Journal

    Linux isn't collecting your data. Canonical / *buntu is collecting data. People commonly make a similar mistake with telephones. "My phone is spying on me - Android is terrible!" In actuality, Android doesn't spy on you - your phone provider configured the phone to spy on you. Linux is very different from *buntu. *Buntu is a customer of Linux, Linux is not dependent on *buntu.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @10:47PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @10:47PM (#640910)

    You're drawing an awfully fine distinction to protect Linux's good name.
    The fact that Linux can be and is being configured to spy on you thanks to a very, very popular distribution does sully Linux. Linux is not a "safe" choice.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 20 2018, @11:14PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 20 2018, @11:14PM (#640924) Journal

      It really isn't that fine a distinction. You go to an auto dealership, buy a car, and drive it home. Over the course of time, you figure out that your car has GPS tracking attached to it. Someone is spying on you. Investigation determines that the dealership equips all cars sold at their lot with GPS tracking devices, so that they can repossess more easily. Do you blame General Motors for that tracking?

      Linux isn't configured OOB to spy on anyone. Torvalds offers his kernel, free of charge, with source code, to be configured however people wish to configure it. He encourages the people who own the computer to compile and configure his kernel to their liking. Ubuntu is doing exactly that - they are configuring the kernel and the OS to their liking.

      You don't confuse an auto dealership with the auto manufacturer, why are you confusing a distro with the kernel? This isn't Windows, which does actively spy on your computer usage. Nor is it Apple's walled garden. If you don't like something on your computer - change it. Anything and everything can be changed. Unless, of course, you don't own your computer. Ahhh, Ubuntu. Ubuntu has made decisions in the past that suggest that they wish to retain ownership of your computer. So far, the nefarious level has only reached the level of "alarming". That is, we should all be alarmed that Canonical doesn't respect user's rights. Canonical isn't Microsoft, but they would like to be.

      No matter what you wish to acquire, always make sure that the sales force isn't trying to screw you over. You can get the same Linux elsewhere, at the same price, WITHOUT any kind of tracking. Choose a better salesman.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:28AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:28AM (#641088)

    "My phone is spying on me - Android is terrible!" In actuality, Android doesn't spy on you - your phone provider configured the phone to spy on you.

    Too bad they all use the Google version of Android (If google had a dime for every time they spied on someone, they would be as rich as - well, Google).

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:05PM (#641161)

    "Android" may not spy on me, but Google, via GApps and other very tightly connected apps does. I think confusing the two is fair for most purposes, in the same way that if IE6 was spying on Internet use in 1998, it would be fair for people to say "Windows is spying on my Internet use". Actually, it's more fair. The main Android OS distros, as promoted by the phone companies, includes GApps as a selling point and most people aren't even aware there is an alternative to the Google Play Store. At least in 1998, most people knews there were other browsers available and were easy to install.