Given the seeming poor faith in some of Muse's explanations for some of the changes, I rechristen Audacity as Mendacity. More seriously, I propose a general di

Given the seeming poor faith in some of Muse's explanations for some of the changes, I rechristen Audacity as Mendacity. More seriously, I propose a general disintermediated solution to the general problem of bug verification via automatic reports: 1) All crash reports are opt-in. Reports are created locally after a crash or other event. They are added to a log folder. Users are given tools to examine the report data. Then either: A user can choose to upload any reports they want. A user can have already chosen to upload all reports automatically. Either way, transmissions include nothing but the reports logged for review by users. A condition that can be verified by examination of the programs source. The transparency of what is sent, and requirement of consent, both strongly incentivize reports constructed to be anonymous and limited in terms of any possible nefarious use. 2) The transmission goes to a third party bug identification agent of the users choosing. Users can make their choice based on a public list of such agents and their sites with their public reports. 3) The bug identification party is a third party, separate from the developer group, that works to identify and characterize the bug in the source code. Bug characterization reports are then created that include a list hash values for each of the crash reports that contributed to the report. The bug identification report is then made available publicly so users can be aware of it and developers can use it to identify and implement solutions. The public disclosure of the bug characterization incentivizes a report that reveals little or nothing that could be interpreted as privacy violations. An exception is made if the bug reveals serious security concerns, in which case the bug identification report can be made to developers earlier than public release, with assurances in writing that developers have a certain amount of time to act before the bug identification is made public. Instead of immediately making the bug identification public, only its hash is made public so users can be aware of an anonymous bug fix in progress. Developers in that window of time have the opportunity to fix the bug, determine that a bug fix is not practical or important enough, or they will continue working on the bug, etc., but must be transparent about either within the time frame or be seen to have violated trust. At the end of the window, the bug report agent will publish the bug report, and the developers actions (fix, decision not to fix, decision to take more time, etc). Note that the bug report agent can operate unimpeded without any cooperation from developers if there is none. But developers certainly have some incentive to take the bug reports seriously.