Re: Phoning home
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 10:16:29AM +0100, Giacomo A. Catenazzi wrote:
> Lars Wirzenius wrote:
>> On su, 2008-02-24 at 16:43 -0600, Raphael Geissert wrote:
>>> * The package/software SHOULD offer a way to disable the 'phoning home' code
>>> if it contains such kind of 'feature'.
>> Speaking as a human being, I would suggest that Debian policy should be
>> that all "phoning home" MUST be enabled explicitly, and MUST be turned
>> off by default.
> No, I prefer the SHOULD form, because it permit the
> right thing to be done, giving the debian developer
> the freedom (and burden) to check what it is bad, and
> what it is acceptable.
"should" here would only mean that we've failed to correctly define "phoning
home". There's no legitimate reason for Debian packages to phone home, and
it's always a bug if they do; if this is to be referenced in policy at all,
this should be made plain.
> Think about:
> apt
Not "phoning home":
- the requests don't contain identifying information about the client, with
the exception of the source IP address.
- with the exception of security.d.o, there's no calling back to a central
server.
- the requests are central to the functionality of the package, not
gratuitous calls for purposes of statistics-gathering.
- the requests must be initiated by the user.
> ntpdate
Not phoning home, for the same reasons as above (minus the last point).
> clamav-freshclam
- central to the functionality of the package; if you don't want to be
trackable you don't install the package.
- statistics gathering is a side-effect of the main purpose of the package,
and there's no way around this short of anonymizing your client access
through tor or similar.
> dcc-client
again, if you don't want to be included in statistics, you wouldn't install
this package; sending data to the central server is core functionality of
the package.
> icewasel
Not sure which behavior you're referring to, here? I think even when it
comes to trying to find plugins, this is user-initiated (i.e., you have to
click the "find plugins" button).
> popularity-contest
Defaults to off; not an issue.
> and IIRC bind will check the root zone.
Yes, which is central to the functionality of a nameserver.
> Some of such project collects statistics.
The issue is not whether packages communicate with projects that collect
statistics; the issue is whether the packages do so for the *purpose* of
allowing statistics-gathering.
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
Reply to: