4 ms·
I begin to understand what Richard Stallman has been saying all those years. Although I don't like the guy on the personal level, this incident make him complet
by greyman 15y ago
I begin to understand what Richard Stallman has been saying all those years. Although I don't like the guy on the personal level, this incident make him completely right - running closed source software can compromise your rights. (rights to privacy in this case).
I also want to thank the author of this post to discover this! I wanted to try Path some time ago, now I can safely avoid it without regret.
- munin 15y agoopen source software can collect exactly the same information on you. there was a furor recently where it was revealed that OS X and Windows collect data on what access points you have associated with. what was omitted was that linux does exactly the same thing: the wireless subsystem has a debug print (at a debug info level turned on in all major distributions) that will log the MAC address of the AP you just associated with. it's still there, afaik.
- nl 15y agoI think I'm missing something. You think people should be upset because a Linux computer knows the MAC address of the AP you are associated with? If that is a problem, then imagine what people will think when they realize that the computer knows what keys you press on the keyboard (!!??) There is only a problem if the operating system shares information with 3rd parties without authorization.
- munin 15y agothe furor (at least, that I saw) was that the devices stored this information and would potentially let others look at it later. it shouldn't be upsetting that your computer knows what keys you're pressing or what network you are affiliating with. recording that information permanently could be bad. if you have an ubuntu laptop with wireless handy, run the following command: sudo grep AssocResp /var/log/syslog