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posted by martyb on Thursday September 30 2021, @09:32PM   Printer-friendly

KDE's Telemetry: The Tip Of The Iceberg?:

Recently, there was a debate on the PCLinuxOS forum about KDE Plasma's implementation of telemetry through KUserFeedback. While in PCLinuxOS, we can remove it without any collateral effects to the system, while other users reported that doing the same in other distros (like Debian 11) results in the complete removal of KDE Plasma! Why force such an implementation, if, as KDE's developers say, it is just an innocuous, privacy-respecting measure?

Coincidence or not, in the past years many popular Linux distributions started rolling out optional telemetry. Then it was the time of computer programs: news broke out in May regarding Audacity, a popular audio editing app, which announced it was starting the use of telemetry. The move was finally pushed back after users revolted against it.

While many point out that the data collection is by opt-in and entirely anonymous, others have found that, even if you don't activate telemetry, data is still collected, using computer resources, registering "apps and boot, number of times used and duration in /home/user/telemetry folder." As such, they argue that, because of the way Linux permissions work, other programs could have access to these log files. KUserFeedback's FAQs page confirms this:

"KUserFeedback is designed to be compliant with KDE Telemetry Policy, which forbids the usage of unique identification. If you are using KUserFeedback outside of the scope of that policy, it's of course possible to add a custom data source generating and transmitting a unique id."

Do any Soylentils have opinions about this, or experiences with it?


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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by srobert on Thursday September 30 2021, @11:42PM (4 children)

    by srobert (4803) on Thursday September 30 2021, @11:42PM (#1183231)

    You don't recognize the floppy disk icon because you're young, and it was before your time. I didn't recognize it when it was new, because I was already old then.

    Starting Score:    1  point
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    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by shortscreen on Friday October 01 2021, @05:39AM (3 children)

    by shortscreen (2252) on Friday October 01 2021, @05:39AM (#1183283) Journal

    The problem here is that most of us didn't learn hieroglyphics in school, we learned this new-fangled 'alphabet' stuff. Most of us, except for software developers evidently, who are still stuck on the idea of using little abstract illustrations to represent concepts. And when it comes time to choose an appropriate hieroglyph for their GUI, they don't choose one of the ones that've been around for centuries and are known to a billion+ Chinese, etc. They make up their own heiroglyph. BECAUSE THEY ARE SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS!!

    https://uxmyths.com/post/715009009/myth-icons-enhance-usability [uxmyths.com]

    • (Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Friday October 01 2021, @06:21AM

      by Dr Spin (5239) on Friday October 01 2021, @06:21AM (#1183298)

      I vote for a complete ban on all Icons that could be replaced by Kanji.

      --
      Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 01 2021, @03:13PM (1 child)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 01 2021, @03:13PM (#1183391) Journal

      Thirty years ago user interfaces were fairly stable and being genuinely improved. Now UI design is a crazy free-for-all. No consistency. Hey, let's change the brake pedal into a cool hand crank control and put it where nobody will expect to find it!

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday October 01 2021, @06:10PM

        by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 01 2021, @06:10PM (#1183452) Homepage Journal

        let's change the brake pedal into a cool hand crank control

        Just the kind of thing I'll need if diabetic neuropathy makes me unable to control my feet anymore. (I hope never)