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People should really expect Ubuntu to call home. This is the same OS that for a while used to send every filesystem search you did in the default GUI to Amazon

People should really expect Ubuntu to call home. This is the same OS that for a while used to send every filesystem search you did in the default GUI to Amazon so that it could include ads in the results. I'm not even saying this is bad. Ubuntu has to fund itself somehow. But people should really know what they're getting. Ubuntu is not a privacy-focused or user-centric OS. It's the Windows of the Linux/Unix world.

rumanator 7y ago
> I'm not even saying this is bad. You should, though.
clarry 7y ago
> I'm not even saying this is bad. Ubuntu has to fund itself somehow. Yep, just like all the other distros...
rvz 7y ago
Well now this just makes my "Linux Desktop recommendation guide" even harder since the whole point of Linux distros these days are supposed to empower the user to have complete control over his/her computer and OS which is what Ubuntu was supposed to be doing and is viewed as the ground zero of introducing Linux to newcomers. > I'm not even saying this is bad. Ubuntu has to fund itself somehow. Oh dear. You make as if its fine for the users to give themselves up to Ubuntu (and Amazon) to be mined by the distro that does call itself "privacy-respecting" and "open-source"; some may call such claims misleading in the light of this now. Due to your defeatist rhetoric in supporting these overlords, I would have to change the guide to support the devil I know that can't read my encrypted data, rather than two or eight unknown devils that can. At least with macOS its all "encrypted" and has sane defaults with a consistent user interface and when some settings are turned off, they stay completely off.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Users have control to turn off Amazon search in Ubuntu. Control isn't the problem. Annoying defaults is.
- swiley 7y ago
  I honestly don't know what advice to give people at this point (they keep asking me) other than "try building a simple OS with busybox and a kernel so you can make an informed decision based on your needs." Literally everything you can't read and understand the code to seems to be actively hostile, I'm surprised clang doesn't call home.
  - rs23296008n1 7y ago
    I'm surprised it doesn't install something in each binary.
  - sjwright 7y ago
    Don’t you think it’s weird that we let all processes on a computer have unrestricted access to the network/internet by default? Isn’t that the problem? Access beyond the computer should be by consent only.
- m45t3r 7y ago
  > At least with macOS its all "encrypted" and has sane defaults with a consistent user interface and when some settings are turned off, they stay completely off. Wait, what. You can completely disable any "phone-home" features of Ubuntu. Actually, you can make sure that this feature is disabled by removing the corresponding package of your system, something that isn't possible in macOS. And you can also audit the code, because all this code is actually open-source [1]. Also, this controversial feature of Amazon search could be disabled quite easily [2], and this motd can also be disabled [3]. So sorry, Ubuntu may have some controversial features, however saying that using macOS is more privacy-respecting than Ubuntu is a lie. They are at least at the same level, however considering that I can't get the source code of macOS and make sure that turning off a knob will stop spying on me, I still think Ubuntu is better than macOS in this point. [1]: https://launchpad.net/unity-lens-shopping https://launchpad.net/unity-lens-shopping [2]: https://www.howtogeek.com/126995/how-to-disable-the-amazon-search-ads-in-ubuntus-unity-dash/ https://www.howtogeek.com/126995/how-to-disable-the-amazon-s... [3]: https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Disable_dynamic_motd_and_motd_news_spam_on_Ubuntu_18.04.html https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Disable_dynamic_motd_and_motd...
  - 013a 7y ago
    I very much disagree with this position. Privacy is not a super-set of Open Source. They're two different things; somewhat correlated, but only insomuch as the auditability and self-correction of any claims to privacy may be. Auditability is important, but most people won't do it, and even those who do miss things; OpenSSL is fully auditable, yet security bugs are discovered every year. Its not the same thing, but its in the same vein; just becuase we're capable of catching a needle among the haystack of a million lines of code doesn't mean we will (in the case of the MOTD, its less of a needle and more of a giagantic pile of crap just laying on top). Self-Correction is important, but even fewer people will do it. Defaults Matter. People just don't dive into VSCode and rip out Microsoft's analytics tracking code en mass. It doesn't happen. People use the defaults. In the face of these two assertions; Open Source is important in the fight for Privacy, there's no doubt about that. But even more important than that is Trust. Its not enough to see the code; its important that the organization and people writing it have a demonstrated history of caring about the privacy of their users, and that they've taken both "table-stakes" and "above and beyond" steps to assert their position on the matter on behalf of those users. Canonical does not have this demonstrated history. They barely lurch in the right direction, against their collective wills, when we care enough to crusade across the internet to convince them that they're wrong. By comparison; Apple does care. You can complain that its in the interest of their profit margins (OF COURSE IT IS) or that its genuine (I'd bet my net worth that this is also true); it doesn't matter. They productized full disk encryption with hardware security modules. They don't just support hardware MFA; they make it the default. When they realized phones wouldn't have the power to do natural-language processing on voice in the same way servers do, they didn't just throw their hands up and move everything to the server like Google did; they made better silicon. That's their history; Canonical's history is sending keystrokes to Amazon so they can sell you more expensive toilet paper. The most knowledgeable Ubuntu users turn this off; the most vulnerable won't even know its happening. Everyone is welcome to their own opinion on this, and you're also welcome to place the value of open source above the value of privacy; but I take the stance that Privacy isn't negotiable, and its more important than a product being open source or having privacy if you tweak the knobs in just the right way.

rumanator 7y ago

> I'm not even saying this is bad. You should, though.

clarry 7y ago

> I'm not even saying this is bad. Ubuntu has to fund itself somehow. Yep, just like all the other distros...

rvz 7y ago

Well now this just makes my "Linux Desktop recommendation guide" even harder since the whole point of Linux distros these days are supposed to empower the user to have complete control over his/her computer and OS which is what Ubuntu was supposed to be doing and is viewed as the ground zero of introducing Linux to newcomers. > I'm not even saying this is bad. Ubuntu has to fund itself somehow. Oh dear. You make as if its fine for the users to give themselves up to Ubuntu (and Amazon) to be mined by the distro that does call itself "privacy-respecting" and "open-source"; some may call such claims misleading in the light of this now. Due to your defeatist rhetoric in supporting these overlords, I would have to change the guide to support the devil I know that can't read my encrypted data, rather than two or eight unknown devils that can. At least with macOS its all "encrypted" and has sane defaults with a consistent user interface and when some settings are turned off, they stay completely off.

lonelappde 7y ago
Users have control to turn off Amazon search in Ubuntu. Control isn't the problem. Annoying defaults is.
swiley 7y ago
I honestly don't know what advice to give people at this point (they keep asking me) other than "try building a simple OS with busybox and a kernel so you can make an informed decision based on your needs." Literally everything you can't read and understand the code to seems to be actively hostile, I'm surprised clang doesn't call home.
- rs23296008n1 7y ago
  I'm surprised it doesn't install something in each binary.
- sjwright 7y ago
  Don’t you think it’s weird that we let all processes on a computer have unrestricted access to the network/internet by default? Isn’t that the problem? Access beyond the computer should be by consent only.
m45t3r 7y ago
> At least with macOS its all "encrypted" and has sane defaults with a consistent user interface and when some settings are turned off, they stay completely off. Wait, what. You can completely disable any "phone-home" features of Ubuntu. Actually, you can make sure that this feature is disabled by removing the corresponding package of your system, something that isn't possible in macOS. And you can also audit the code, because all this code is actually open-source [1]. Also, this controversial feature of Amazon search could be disabled quite easily [2], and this motd can also be disabled [3]. So sorry, Ubuntu may have some controversial features, however saying that using macOS is more privacy-respecting than Ubuntu is a lie. They are at least at the same level, however considering that I can't get the source code of macOS and make sure that turning off a knob will stop spying on me, I still think Ubuntu is better than macOS in this point. [1]: https://launchpad.net/unity-lens-shopping https://launchpad.net/unity-lens-shopping [2]: https://www.howtogeek.com/126995/how-to-disable-the-amazon-search-ads-in-ubuntus-unity-dash/ https://www.howtogeek.com/126995/how-to-disable-the-amazon-s... [3]: https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Disable_dynamic_motd_and_motd_news_spam_on_Ubuntu_18.04.html https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Disable_dynamic_motd_and_motd...
- 013a 7y ago
  I very much disagree with this position. Privacy is not a super-set of Open Source. They're two different things; somewhat correlated, but only insomuch as the auditability and self-correction of any claims to privacy may be. Auditability is important, but most people won't do it, and even those who do miss things; OpenSSL is fully auditable, yet security bugs are discovered every year. Its not the same thing, but its in the same vein; just becuase we're capable of catching a needle among the haystack of a million lines of code doesn't mean we will (in the case of the MOTD, its less of a needle and more of a giagantic pile of crap just laying on top). Self-Correction is important, but even fewer people will do it. Defaults Matter. People just don't dive into VSCode and rip out Microsoft's analytics tracking code en mass. It doesn't happen. People use the defaults. In the face of these two assertions; Open Source is important in the fight for Privacy, there's no doubt about that. But even more important than that is Trust. Its not enough to see the code; its important that the organization and people writing it have a demonstrated history of caring about the privacy of their users, and that they've taken both "table-stakes" and "above and beyond" steps to assert their position on the matter on behalf of those users. Canonical does not have this demonstrated history. They barely lurch in the right direction, against their collective wills, when we care enough to crusade across the internet to convince them that they're wrong. By comparison; Apple does care. You can complain that its in the interest of their profit margins (OF COURSE IT IS) or that its genuine (I'd bet my net worth that this is also true); it doesn't matter. They productized full disk encryption with hardware security modules. They don't just support hardware MFA; they make it the default. When they realized phones wouldn't have the power to do natural-language processing on voice in the same way servers do, they didn't just throw their hands up and move everything to the server like Google did; they made better silicon. That's their history; Canonical's history is sending keystrokes to Amazon so they can sell you more expensive toilet paper. The most knowledgeable Ubuntu users turn this off; the most vulnerable won't even know its happening. Everyone is welcome to their own opinion on this, and you're also welcome to place the value of open source above the value of privacy; but I take the stance that Privacy isn't negotiable, and its more important than a product being open source or having privacy if you tweak the knobs in just the right way.