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Kite telemetry code in Sublime package SideBarEnhancements

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Re: Kite telemetry code in Sublime package SideBarEnhancements

#91

Post by eropple »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #88
hsod wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never used SideBarEnhancement. I assumed users knew it was related to Kite. Considering how many posts you've made in this thread defending Kite, this seems like a major gap in your understanding. A simple ctrl-F of both the Github README and the PackageControl page show no mention of Kite.

True, though all the code was doing was collecting a list of installed packages and a list of file extensions you've edited. Judging by the reactions here, you'd think they were uploading your entire ~/ directory. I'm curious how Kite got the telemetry into that extension if it's unaffiliated. https://github.com/titoBouzout seems like a fairly standard github account, though it's strange he had no commits for six mon…

They paid him, I do believe (saw this asserted by folks who'd know and saw no contesting it).

Re: Kite telemetry code in Sublime package SideBarEnhancements

#93

Post by hsod »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #88
hsod wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never used SideBarEnhancement. I assumed users knew it was related to Kite. Considering how many posts you've made in this thread defending Kite, this seems like a major gap in your understanding. A simple ctrl-F of both the Github README and the PackageControl page show no mention of Kite.

True, though all the code was doing was collecting a list of installed packages and a list of file extensions you've edited. Judging by the reactions here, you'd think they were uploading your entire ~/ directory. I'm curious how Kite got the telemetry into that extension if it's unaffiliated. https://github.com/titoBouzout seems like a fairly standard github account, though it's strange he had no commits for six mon…

> True, though all the code was doing was collecting a list of installed packages and a list of file extensions you've edited. Judging by the reactions here, you'd think they were uploading your entire ~/ directory.

OK, so you acknowledge that this was an unacceptable privacy breach, you're just a little less upset about it than some other people here. Damning with faint praise, I guess.

> I'm curious how Kite got the telemetry into that extension if it's unaffiliated.

They probably paid him.

Re: Kite telemetry code in Sublime package SideBarEnhancements

#94

Post by sillysaurus3 »

hsod wrote: post #93
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, though all the code was doing was collecting a list of installed packages and a list of file extensions you've edited. Judging by the reactions here, you'd think they were uploading your entire ~/ directory. I'm curious how Kite got the telemetry into that extension if it's unaffiliated. https://github.com/titoBouzout seems like a fairly standard github account, though it's strange he had no commits for six mon…

> True, though all the code was doing was collecting a list of installed packages and a list of file extensions you've edited. Judging by the reactions here, you'd think they were uploading your entire ~/ directory. OK, so you acknowledge that this was an unacceptable privacy breach, you're just a little less upset about it than some other people here. Damning with faint praise, I guess. > I'm curious how Kite got th…

It's not a privacy breach to collect the file extensions you've edited bucketed by time. (Collecting the list of installed packages is debatable.) The unacceptable breach of trust was that they tried to hide the fact that they were doing it. It was incredibly stupid to hide it, since few people would've cared if they were just honest. Now they're in the same category as paid spyware marketers.

I'd rather look like a fool and get to the truth than stay silent and let a story go half told. At least people are clear about what precisely was being collected.

Re: Kite telemetry code in Sublime package SideBarEnhancements

#96

Post by eropple »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #94
hsod wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> True, though all the code was doing was collecting a list of installed packages and a list of file extensions you've edited. Judging by the reactions here, you'd think they were uploading your entire ~/ directory. OK, so you acknowledge that this was an unacceptable privacy breach, you're just a little less upset about it than some other people here. Damning with faint praise, I guess. > I'm curious how Kite got th…

It's not a privacy breach to collect the file extensions you've edited bucketed by time. (Collecting the list of installed packages is debatable.) The unacceptable breach of trust was that they tried to hide the fact that they were doing it. It was incredibly stupid to hide it, since few people would've cared if they were just honest. Now they're in the same category as paid spyware marketers. I'd rather look like a…

FWIW I think that's cool and gracious of you. People don't mea culpa often.

Re: Kite telemetry code in Sublime package SideBarEnhancements

#97

Post by sillysaurus3 »

eropple wrote: post #96
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a privacy breach to collect the file extensions you've edited bucketed by time. (Collecting the list of installed packages is debatable.) The unacceptable breach of trust was that they tried to hide the fact that they were doing it. It was incredibly stupid to hide it, since few people would've cared if they were just honest. Now they're in the same category as paid spyware marketers. I'd rather look like a…

FWIW I think that's cool and gracious of you. People don't mea culpa often.

Thanks for the level headed analysis. It was appreciated.

Re: Kite telemetry code in Sublime package SideBarEnhancements

#98

Post by wbond »

fooey wrote: post #65
wbond wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They apparently paid the author (Tito) to add it in. Originally he had pulled all of his packages from the default channel because he was unhappy that we require semver for all new packages (to allow newer features to work). After a bunch of users complained, he added SideBarEnhancements back (his most popular package), but apparently at some point later Kite paid him to add tracking code to it.

If an addon maintainer was successfully bribed to add something like this to their addon, that maintainer should probably be banned from the ecosystem along with everything Kite touches. Kite is the primary corrupting force here, but the people who keep taking money to screw over their userbase need to be punished as well. Sublime, Atom, and VSCode all need to step up right now and make it clear that this kind of beh…

Please see https://forum.sublimetext.com/t/rfc-default-package-control-... for the reason that SideBarEnhancements was re-added. In this case not re-adding it would lead to continued tracking of users, which seems to me would be the more negligent action on my part.

Re: Kite telemetry code in Sublime package SideBarEnhancements

#99

Post by kuschku »

rankam wrote: post #87
kuschku wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not okay for websites doing this, and any website doing this from May 2018 on will end up fined hundredthousands of dollars every time they do this. The European General Data Protection Regulation [1] is coming, and everyone that doesn't comply with it will have more than just a little problem. No site or program is allowed to track or store anything about me, to transmit anything to a third party, or to even co…

I don't know anything about the regulation and just skimmed the Wikipedia article for a minute, but isn't this regulation unenforceable in practice? If I have a website, how am I supposed to know if a visitor is a citizen of the EU? If my company operates outside of the EU, the EU has no jurisdiction.

This is an interesting thing, but, in response to the US applying their laws supraterritorially[1], the EU has decided that the EU GDPR will apply supraterritorial (aka, everywhere, globally, as soon as an EU citizen could be affected).

So, if you're outside the EU, and you violate it, you might suddenly experience that your bank accounts get frozen.

[1] Just look at the recent case where US citizen sued Saudi Arabia in a US court, and the US senate overrode a veto of President Obama to allow this to happen supraterritorially.

Re: Kite telemetry code in Sublime package SideBarEnhancements

#100

Post by joshschreuder »

TaizWeb wrote: post #92

Just uninstalled the package, are there any alternatives available? I can live without it but it'd be nice if I had something to replace it with

The current version on Github is clean (telemetry removed). You can always fork it yourself, or just download the repo files and add to Sublime Text 3\Installed Packages.

If you have the .sublime-package file still, you can unzip it to that directory and modify the extension

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