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What? It happens all the time. Retail stores count the rate at which people enter their doors to help determine how to staff the store. Traffic engineers count

What? It happens all the time. Retail stores count the rate at which people enter their doors to help determine how to staff the store. Traffic engineers count how many vehicles and pedestrians use certain roadways so they know which modes to optimize for. Your ISP gathers aggregate statistics about how much bandwidth is being used across regions to decide where to upgrade their network. Data collection can be harmful, but it's also extremely useful to know how people are using products and infrastructure. There's a balance, and if you're on the "zero data collection" side, I think you need to justify making the devs' lives harder by explaining what harms will come from the proposed collection.

JohnFen 2y ago
> I think you need to justify making the devs' lives harder by explaining what harms will come from the proposed collection. I disagree. I don't need to show actual harm to reasonably object to being spied on. At least Manjaro isn't talking about making this mandatory, but opt-out is is still a very poor look that would make me avoid using it as long as there are other options that are more respectful.
- coldpie 2y ago
  > being spied on Please explain what specifically Manjaro is proposing to do that you classify as being "spied on." Don't handwave this away, actually answer the question.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    The collection of any data about me, my machines, or my use of my machines without my explicit informed consent is spying.
    - coldpie 2y ago
      What data is Manjaro collecting?
      - JohnFen 2y ago
        I had trouble finding exactly what MDD collects, but my assumption is that it collects data about the hardware in use and what packages are installed, at a minimum.
        coldpie 2y ago
        Okay. So you can't explain how you are harmed by this data collection, and you have an opt-out mechanism you can use to disable it anyway. What are we complaining about?
        JohnFen 2y ago
        I'm not saying I can't explain harm, I'm saying that the presence or absence of harm is orthogonal to the issue. What I'm complaining about is the evasion of having to get informed consent to collect personal data. Opt-out is a way to try to cover your ass while at the same time being able to avoid asking for consent. The argument for it is always the same: if we make it opt-in, then not enough people will opt in. Which is another way of saying "if people won't give us permission to collect data about them, then we need to stop asking permission."
        coldpie 2y ago
        Well, yeah. If opt-in doesn't lead to useful results, then you may as well not have the feature at all. But they want the feature, because it helps them improve their software. So, "collect data in a way that preserves as much privacy as possible by default, and provide a mechanism to opt-out entirely" is the least-bad option. It gives them the data they want, and it provides an opt-out mechanism for people who don't trust them with the collected data. It seems like the best compromise to me.
        JohnFen 2y ago
        > It seems like the best compromise to me. It's not really a compromise. It's devs declaring that they deserve access to this data regardless of what users want, and trying to make it less objectionable. It remains the case that this is a back door method of extracting data from users that they don't really want to give. If users didn't mind giving it, then enough would say "yes" to the opt-in screen that it wouldn't matter. But they don't, so these devs are trying to impose the very thing users don't want as forcefully as they can get away with. This is all about disempowering users.
  - bondarchuk 2y ago
    "espionage: The act or process of learning secret information through clandestine means." That is, the specific information does not matter; the fact that someone wants to keep it hidden (which is their stated preference), and someone else wants to collect it through clandestine means (which is how we could interpret a sneaky opt-out mechanism) is enough to define it as being spied on.
    - pdimitar 2y ago
      1. Your hardware specs are secret information? How many times you clicked on i3wm's settings panel is secret information? I mean OK, you might really want to keep the latter for yourself, sure, but calling it a secret information is reaching. 2. It very much matters what the specific information is. I too wouldn't want my Linux distro scanning my GMail inbox through their distro-bundled browser, of course. But how many times I started Kitty is something I don't quite enjoy being shared but I also wouldn't be outraged if it was. Nuance matters, just doing an extremist takes does not help anyone.
      - account42 2y ago
        > Your hardware specs are secret information? How many times you clicked on i3wm's settings panel is secret information? Yes it is, until I choose to share it. That is the point of consent - I decide what I want to share, not you.
        pdimitar 2y ago
        Of course, that's your right. That's why I vet my software on a per-piece basis. It can be exhausting but I at least know that stuff that I'd be very not okay with being shared, is not in fact shared. As said in another comment of mine posted just minutes ago -- practice shows that anonymous telemetry is the only viable way of getting some usage data. Almost nobody fills out surveys. Do most software need those stats? I'd say they don't, but I worked on pieces of software that absolutely needed to know which parts are most used and which are almost not used because the extra features cluttered the UI and confused people, leading to less buys / subs.
- pdimitar 2y ago
  What spying on, dude? Have you ever wrote telemetry handlers even once in your software? I've done so, no less than 15 times in the last ~9 years. We always took special care to never include anything personally identifiable; it was a hard requirement and was enforced in code reviews and because of that we ended up hashing user IDs because we still wanted to do flame graphs and various distribution statistics of API endpoint usage and user IDs were one of the axii (two others were hours of day and days of week), but we didn't care who the user was. Seriously, a little less extremism helps. I am a programmer, likely just like you. We are trying to get some data to improve our software. In several of my previous gigs even the CTOs barely cared about the telemetry graphs and aggregation dashboards and only looked at them at the middle of the quarter to make sure we're not spending too much on Grafana so the executives won't bite their heads off. And the CEO / marketing? Forget it, they don't care. Of course there are some very predatory companies out there, no doubt. But I think we would be very hard-pressed to put the team of an open Linux distribution among them.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    > We always took special care to never include anything personally identifiable Sure, but that's not really the point. First, in every company I've worked at that has dealt with PII, their definition of "PII" excludes quite a lot of data that should count. But even if all PII is properly excluded and everything is actually anonymized, that still doesn't address the point. The point is all about consent. Consent seems like it should be table stakes, no?
    - pdimitar 2y ago
      > Consent seems like it should be table stakes, no? I agreed for most of my career but not anymore. Truth is, everywhere I worked, the voluntary user surveys had extremely low engagement rate -- which was frustrating for the dev team who wanted to make sure their users like the product. Sometimes that means deprecating / removing parts of the software. I get your idea and I don't generally disagree. It's just that practice has shown that collecting anonymous telemetry is the only really viable way of getting information of what's being used, how much, does it perform well (I used telemetry stats to optimize a hot code path on a number of occasions) both in terms of hardware efficiency and business terms, and others. It's one of those things that I solved for myself by trusting or not trusting each piece of software individually. That's why I am currently slowly migrating back to Linux (from macOS); Apple overdid the telemetry to downright complete spying and sometimes censorship so I am no longer okay with them.
eth0up 2y ago
First, yes, data is extraordinarily valuable. No doubt. While it may be commonly accepted by most, I don't want my personal computer crawling with telemetry. I despise the idea. The harm is, in my opinion, partly in creep, where just a little more, here and there, leads to a festering, unchecked data brothel. And regarding 'harm' as a necessary parameter for maintaining privacy, dignity, etc; it would cause absolutely no harm to me if I was watched every time I used the bathroom, provided responsible handling of the acquired video. But I don't want this and would object to any effort otherwise. I don't think harm is the only factor.

JohnFen 2y ago

> I think you need to justify making the devs' lives harder by explaining what harms will come from the proposed collection. I disagree. I don't need to show actual harm to reasonably object to being spied on. At least Manjaro isn't talking about making this mandatory, but opt-out is is still a very poor look that would make me avoid using it as long as there are other options that are more respectful.

coldpie 2y ago
> being spied on Please explain what specifically Manjaro is proposing to do that you classify as being "spied on." Don't handwave this away, actually answer the question.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  The collection of any data about me, my machines, or my use of my machines without my explicit informed consent is spying.
  - coldpie 2y ago
    What data is Manjaro collecting?
    - JohnFen 2y ago
      I had trouble finding exactly what MDD collects, but my assumption is that it collects data about the hardware in use and what packages are installed, at a minimum.
      - coldpie 2y ago
        Okay. So you can't explain how you are harmed by this data collection, and you have an opt-out mechanism you can use to disable it anyway. What are we complaining about?
        JohnFen 2y ago
        I'm not saying I can't explain harm, I'm saying that the presence or absence of harm is orthogonal to the issue. What I'm complaining about is the evasion of having to get informed consent to collect personal data. Opt-out is a way to try to cover your ass while at the same time being able to avoid asking for consent. The argument for it is always the same: if we make it opt-in, then not enough people will opt in. Which is another way of saying "if people won't give us permission to collect data about them, then we need to stop asking permission."
        coldpie 2y ago
        Well, yeah. If opt-in doesn't lead to useful results, then you may as well not have the feature at all. But they want the feature, because it helps them improve their software. So, "collect data in a way that preserves as much privacy as possible by default, and provide a mechanism to opt-out entirely" is the least-bad option. It gives them the data they want, and it provides an opt-out mechanism for people who don't trust them with the collected data. It seems like the best compromise to me.
        JohnFen 2y ago
        > It seems like the best compromise to me. It's not really a compromise. It's devs declaring that they deserve access to this data regardless of what users want, and trying to make it less objectionable. It remains the case that this is a back door method of extracting data from users that they don't really want to give. If users didn't mind giving it, then enough would say "yes" to the opt-in screen that it wouldn't matter. But they don't, so these devs are trying to impose the very thing users don't want as forcefully as they can get away with. This is all about disempowering users.
- bondarchuk 2y ago
  "espionage: The act or process of learning secret information through clandestine means." That is, the specific information does not matter; the fact that someone wants to keep it hidden (which is their stated preference), and someone else wants to collect it through clandestine means (which is how we could interpret a sneaky opt-out mechanism) is enough to define it as being spied on.
  - pdimitar 2y ago
    1. Your hardware specs are secret information? How many times you clicked on i3wm's settings panel is secret information? I mean OK, you might really want to keep the latter for yourself, sure, but calling it a secret information is reaching. 2. It very much matters what the specific information is. I too wouldn't want my Linux distro scanning my GMail inbox through their distro-bundled browser, of course. But how many times I started Kitty is something I don't quite enjoy being shared but I also wouldn't be outraged if it was. Nuance matters, just doing an extremist takes does not help anyone.
    - account42 2y ago
      > Your hardware specs are secret information? How many times you clicked on i3wm's settings panel is secret information? Yes it is, until I choose to share it. That is the point of consent - I decide what I want to share, not you.
      - pdimitar 2y ago
        Of course, that's your right. That's why I vet my software on a per-piece basis. It can be exhausting but I at least know that stuff that I'd be very not okay with being shared, is not in fact shared. As said in another comment of mine posted just minutes ago -- practice shows that anonymous telemetry is the only viable way of getting some usage data. Almost nobody fills out surveys. Do most software need those stats? I'd say they don't, but I worked on pieces of software that absolutely needed to know which parts are most used and which are almost not used because the extra features cluttered the UI and confused people, leading to less buys / subs.
pdimitar 2y ago
What spying on, dude? Have you ever wrote telemetry handlers even once in your software? I've done so, no less than 15 times in the last ~9 years. We always took special care to never include anything personally identifiable; it was a hard requirement and was enforced in code reviews and because of that we ended up hashing user IDs because we still wanted to do flame graphs and various distribution statistics of API endpoint usage and user IDs were one of the axii (two others were hours of day and days of week), but we didn't care who the user was. Seriously, a little less extremism helps. I am a programmer, likely just like you. We are trying to get some data to improve our software. In several of my previous gigs even the CTOs barely cared about the telemetry graphs and aggregation dashboards and only looked at them at the middle of the quarter to make sure we're not spending too much on Grafana so the executives won't bite their heads off. And the CEO / marketing? Forget it, they don't care. Of course there are some very predatory companies out there, no doubt. But I think we would be very hard-pressed to put the team of an open Linux distribution among them.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  > We always took special care to never include anything personally identifiable Sure, but that's not really the point. First, in every company I've worked at that has dealt with PII, their definition of "PII" excludes quite a lot of data that should count. But even if all PII is properly excluded and everything is actually anonymized, that still doesn't address the point. The point is all about consent. Consent seems like it should be table stakes, no?
  - pdimitar 2y ago
    > Consent seems like it should be table stakes, no? I agreed for most of my career but not anymore. Truth is, everywhere I worked, the voluntary user surveys had extremely low engagement rate -- which was frustrating for the dev team who wanted to make sure their users like the product. Sometimes that means deprecating / removing parts of the software. I get your idea and I don't generally disagree. It's just that practice has shown that collecting anonymous telemetry is the only really viable way of getting information of what's being used, how much, does it perform well (I used telemetry stats to optimize a hot code path on a number of occasions) both in terms of hardware efficiency and business terms, and others. It's one of those things that I solved for myself by trusting or not trusting each piece of software individually. That's why I am currently slowly migrating back to Linux (from macOS); Apple overdid the telemetry to downright complete spying and sometimes censorship so I am no longer okay with them.

eth0up 2y ago

First, yes, data is extraordinarily valuable. No doubt. While it may be commonly accepted by most, I don't want my personal computer crawling with telemetry. I despise the idea. The harm is, in my opinion, partly in creep, where just a little more, here and there, leads to a festering, unchecked data brothel. And regarding 'harm' as a necessary parameter for maintaining privacy, dignity, etc; it would cause absolutely no harm to me if I was watched every time I used the bathroom, provided responsible handling of the acquired video. But I don't want this and would object to any effort otherwise. I don't think harm is the only factor.