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Analytics are an invaluable resource for a volunteer-run project. To their credit, they issue a noticeable warning with the command to turn it off. It seems to

Analytics are an invaluable resource for a volunteer-run project. To their credit, they issue a noticeable warning with the command to turn it off. It seems to me your issue is more about using Google Analytics - if there's a better alternative that is sustainable (read: free and doesn't require much effort to maintain) that should be suggested.

sneak 5y ago
My issue is that the data is exfiltrated without consent. It literally does not matter where it goes if private data is transmitted without consent. With consent, it's fine to send it anywhere they like. Their analytics are also unauthenticated. I sort of want to make the first letter of each package in the top packages ranking spell out something funny.
- myolxid1 5y ago
  Fine on the unauthenticated part. But about private data - it's literally anonymous and just counting the number of installs of a package and the number of build failures. All the data they collect (and the code that handles it) is public. They can't even isolate individual users because no individual data is collected.
  - sneak 5y ago
    It's not anonymous by any stretch, that's a false claim. It includes a persistent unique identifier, generated on install, a sort of Homebrew supercookie for tracking you across months or years until you wipe your OS install. It also includes the client IP address (because you can't make an HTTP connection without transmitting that). The fact that Homebrew doesn't see this information doesn't mean it's not transmitted (to Google). This leaks your city-level location. These two things permit Google to assemble a rough location tracklog based on client IP geolocation (correlated via the unique install ID), along with which packages you installed. Google, as we know, spies for the US federal government. You're missing the point here, though: even if it were totally anonymous (which, as I've pointed out, it's not): it's still unethical malware even in that case because it's private data transmitted without consent. The fact that you don't consider your usage data private is fine; others do and transmitting that from their systems without consent is abuse. I mentioned that it's unauthenticated to point out that there's literally nothing stopping anyone on the whole internet from polluting the dataset with whatever bogus information they want. I wouldn't undertake this myself, but it's entirely in-bounds for an organization that feels entitled to co-opt your private computer to conduct surveillance on you without your consent. It's a public API, after all.
    - Hackbraten 5y ago
      We’re looking into other analytics platforms. If you happen to know a good replacement with better privacy and similar features, we’d be happy to review PRs. Please mind that knowing unique installs will remain important for us though. We have zero interest in tracking people but we do need meaningful install counts. Those numbers have been super helpful for making decisions, for example which packages are worth maintainers’ time and which aren’t.
      - sneak 5y ago
        I don't care at all about how valuable the stolen data you've obtained by violating people's consent is to you. You're shipping unethical malware. Making the data more private, switching analytics platforms, doing IP scrubbing... it doesn't change the ethical issue at all. You're stealing data without the consent of the subject/generator of that data. What you're doing is illegal in medicine, for example.

sneak 5y ago

My issue is that the data is exfiltrated without consent. It literally does not matter where it goes if private data is transmitted without consent. With consent, it's fine to send it anywhere they like. Their analytics are also unauthenticated. I sort of want to make the first letter of each package in the top packages ranking spell out something funny.

myolxid1 5y ago
Fine on the unauthenticated part. But about private data - it's literally anonymous and just counting the number of installs of a package and the number of build failures. All the data they collect (and the code that handles it) is public. They can't even isolate individual users because no individual data is collected.
- sneak 5y ago
  It's not anonymous by any stretch, that's a false claim. It includes a persistent unique identifier, generated on install, a sort of Homebrew supercookie for tracking you across months or years until you wipe your OS install. It also includes the client IP address (because you can't make an HTTP connection without transmitting that). The fact that Homebrew doesn't see this information doesn't mean it's not transmitted (to Google). This leaks your city-level location. These two things permit Google to assemble a rough location tracklog based on client IP geolocation (correlated via the unique install ID), along with which packages you installed. Google, as we know, spies for the US federal government. You're missing the point here, though: even if it were totally anonymous (which, as I've pointed out, it's not): it's still unethical malware even in that case because it's private data transmitted without consent. The fact that you don't consider your usage data private is fine; others do and transmitting that from their systems without consent is abuse. I mentioned that it's unauthenticated to point out that there's literally nothing stopping anyone on the whole internet from polluting the dataset with whatever bogus information they want. I wouldn't undertake this myself, but it's entirely in-bounds for an organization that feels entitled to co-opt your private computer to conduct surveillance on you without your consent. It's a public API, after all.
  - Hackbraten 5y ago
    We’re looking into other analytics platforms. If you happen to know a good replacement with better privacy and similar features, we’d be happy to review PRs. Please mind that knowing unique installs will remain important for us though. We have zero interest in tracking people but we do need meaningful install counts. Those numbers have been super helpful for making decisions, for example which packages are worth maintainers’ time and which aren’t.
    - sneak 5y ago
      I don't care at all about how valuable the stolen data you've obtained by violating people's consent is to you. You're shipping unethical malware. Making the data more private, switching analytics platforms, doing IP scrubbing... it doesn't change the ethical issue at all. You're stealing data without the consent of the subject/generator of that data. What you're doing is illegal in medicine, for example.