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Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

forum.manjaro.org

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Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#21

Post by LinuxBender »

If they just want to count unique installs, then the comment on that thread I believe partially works:

    set -x
    stat / | grep -i "birth:" | awk '{print $2}'
Then use the output piped to md5sum to make a user-id.

And then finally use an opt-in on demand ephemeral instantiation of Tor to submit the results so they can not get the real IP if they wanted to. In my opinion all telemetry should be opt-in and provide a text/plain preview of what is going to be submitted ahead of time. This gives the system owner a chance to back out of posting the telemetry should they see something sensitive. set -x to show an audit trail for what commands were executed in plain text.

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#22

Post by saintfire »

scheeseman486 wrote: post #3

If you want easy Arch, there's EndevourOS. It's rolling instead of "stable" but in my experience Manjaro's actual stability is overrated, an update straight up trashed the bootloader once.

I've had a manjaro update break an install 3 times in a several year span. Ironically, given the vetted package system, it was the only Linux distro to ever break an install for me.

Since switching to endeavour a couple years ago I've never had an update break anything.

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#23

Post by hx8 »

Alcatros552 wrote: post #14
jeroenhd wrote: post #7

Based on this thread, it seems like the initial idea was 'just enable it by default and let people disable it' but that quickly changed after the first objections came in. Whatever step the proposal is in right now seems to be focused on making a system to gather telemetry first, I can't see any definitive decision on opt-in vs opt-out (though opt-in through the installer/welcome screen seems to be the best solution…

Asking for it and not enable it by default is the only way to abide by European and South American Data Protection laws..

Manjaro doesn't have region specific isos, so it sounds like this will end up being the global policy. However international compliance isn't something every developer is aware of so it may take time before the project is releases a compliant version.

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#25

Post by _heimdall »

Alcatros552 wrote: post #14
jeroenhd wrote: post #7

Based on this thread, it seems like the initial idea was 'just enable it by default and let people disable it' but that quickly changed after the first objections came in. Whatever step the proposal is in right now seems to be focused on making a system to gather telemetry first, I can't see any definitive decision on opt-in vs opt-out (though opt-in through the installer/welcome screen seems to be the best solution…

Asking for it and not enable it by default is the only way to abide by European and South American Data Protection laws..

Does that only hold if the data collection contains PII and isn't considered necessary for the product?

Either way I expect Manjaro's collection would be an issue if its opt-out, just curious how those edges of that law are defined.

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#26

Post by jeroenhd »

JonChesterfield wrote: post #9

> Until now what has been done, was counting systems via ping.manjaro.org 11. These pings are sent from Manjaro systems via the NetworkManager. I really hope that's not the default out of the box behaviour.

Most operating systems do this. Ubuntu uses http://connectivity-check.ubuntu.com, the Arch wiki suggests http://nmcheck.gnome.org/check_network_status.txt (used to default to http://www.archlinux.org/check_network_status.txt), Debian uses http://network-test.debian.org/nm if you install `network-manager-config-connectivity-debian`. Of course Apple, Google, and Microsoft have servers of their own.

You can disable the check, of course, or upload a text file somewhere you control to maintain the connectivity check without sharing your IP address with your distro.

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#29

Post by codedokode »

Retr0id wrote: post #18

The less I know about users of the software I write, the better. > we need at least some data about how Manjaro is being used by so many people around the world in order to show that the project has a future and also to plan for that future. Charitably, this implies they want to plan around things like infrastructure scaling. Why can't they just look at present demands on their infrastructure? (i.e. why bother with a…

> we need at least some data about how Manjaro is being used

No, you don't. It is my computer, not yours.

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#30

Post by jeroenhd »

Alcatros552 wrote: post #14
jeroenhd wrote: post #7

Based on this thread, it seems like the initial idea was 'just enable it by default and let people disable it' but that quickly changed after the first objections came in. Whatever step the proposal is in right now seems to be focused on making a system to gather telemetry first, I can't see any definitive decision on opt-in vs opt-out (though opt-in through the installer/welcome screen seems to be the best solution…

Asking for it and not enable it by default is the only way to abide by European and South American Data Protection laws..

I agree. And as was said in a comment by the author in the thread:

    > True, that. I wasn’t even thinking about the GDPR when I wrote that. :man_facepalming:
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