It's a GUID (as far as I know) that is randomly generated every 30 minutes. I mean, if people think that's a serious privacy problem, then they shouldn't be usi

It's a GUID (as far as I know) that is randomly generated every 30 minutes. I mean, if people think that's a serious privacy problem, then they shouldn't be using any Internet protocols at all. I mean, you yourself draw the IP address comparison, so where do you draw the line? I mean, doesn't it bother anyone from the so called "FOSS" people that cell phones regularly identify themselves to supporting towers? (As a brief aside: I don't like calling the FSF supporters in this particular case FOSS people. FOSS is a broad field and not all of it are anti-commercial zealots) So this leaves me with a problem of defining what "personally identifiable" is. If it's comparable with an IP address, then the argument is so watered down, it's a non-starter. If you say that sending a random 128-bit number into the Internet somehow severely violates my privacy and degrades the usefulness of the software, then it's wrong. The reason why I call FSF zealots arrogant, is that they don't seem to ever consider the needs of users, but rather try to dictate them. They assume some moral and technical superiority and never consider the possibility that people are OK with the proprietary software's trade offs. I use Windows 10, OS X, and Adobe Creative Cloud among other things. Open source alternatives to those products (in my opinion) are shit. I really don't miss literally days of configuration -when I used to run Linux and FreeBSD machines exclusively 7 years ago- and still being in a constant state of subtle, changing brokenness. But it is a logical thing. FOSS is a philosophy, and not a business. Expecting it to produce polished end-user products is wrong: it is very hard and people doing it would like to get paid regularly, thank you very much. But that's the economics of it. Look at Ubuntu: they start to move towards a more polished, more coherent product, they become less libre and more commercial. Should we criticize them for it? No. So unless Windows 10 is tracking my bank transactions, I'm OK with it broadcasting a different GUID to the Internet now and again. If I'll get paranoid about my privacy, I will buy a rugged laptop, put OpenBSD on it and start living in the wilderness. And if people really want to commit to FOSS, then they should focus on writing clear and good software under public domain or MIT license and stay away from the cheap, patronising, rms-inspired politics.