Stallman On Unity Dash: Canonical Will Have To Give Users' Data To Governments

sad but true by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-13 05:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

if a company collects any data on you it's inevitable the government will try and take it.

Re:sad but true by aaron552 · 2012-10-13 05:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

If anyone collects data on you it's inevitable the government will try and take it
Fixed

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I had a sig once. It was lost in the great storm of '09.
Re:sad but true by Lumpy · 2012-10-13 06:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

They dont have to take it. It's available for dirt cheap at LexisNexis. I can buy enough data on you to freak you out. All I need is a name and an address and I can get your social Security number and pretty much everything else.
This is what most nutjobs don't understand. Stop worrying about the government, because corporations are already harvesting you and selling it to the government at a deep discount.

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Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:sad but true by Beardo+the+Bearded · 2012-10-13 06:36 · Score: 4, Insightful

That's why it's more important to give them false information 25% of the time than it is to worry about who or what is tracking you.
Poison the well.

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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Re:sad but true by couchslug · 2012-10-13 06:47 · Score: 3, Funny

"Stop worrying about the government, because corporations are already harvesting you and selling it to the government at a deep discount."
But, but I TRUST the Koch Brothers when they say Government Is Bad.
The Invisible Hand Of The Market will protect me.

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"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Re:sad but true by BeanThere · 2012-10-13 08:11 · Score: 3, Interesting

Stop worrying about the government, because corporations are already harvesting
Bad governments have killed hundreds of millions in the last 100 years alone ... I think I'd prefer to base what I worry most about on actual evidence, thanks.
Re:sad but true by http · 2012-10-13 09:54 · Score: 2

Do you really think they haven't figured out that a certain percentage of the db entries will be inaccurate? Inter-database correlations are powerful - e.g. there is a strong chance that this person nicknamed "Adolf Hitler" with a known birthday and an invalid address (and a 95% certain GeoIP) who wrote an online review of "Predator" is the same person as someone with the same birthday and ordered "Predator 2" a week later, and, oh look, the shipping address is close to the GeoIP area. That the errors are deliberately introduced on your part doesn't change the correction mechanism.
"Strong chance" given that a birthdate and a zip code have something like 95% odds of identifying a unique person. My understanding of stats is primitive at best, but I imagine you'd need more than 50% bogus entries to make a CPU twitch, and more than 95% bogus entries to make a measurable difference in load average.
These numbers are pulled from a hat, so I welcome more accurate numbers.

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If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
Re:sad but true by fredprado · 2012-10-13 14:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

He may have a lot of radical opinions, but none of them is based on madness as you suggest. You may disagree with many of his opinions, but you cant deny that he accurately predicted 20 years ago a lot of the problems we are facing nowadays with the government and corporation increasingly pressing for control and using new technologies against privacy.
Re:sad but true by Pav · 2012-10-13 17:57 · Score: 2

You seem to be getting methods mixed up with aims. Sometimes you burn a field and sometimes you flood it if you want a good crop - nothing weird there. If you have a hammer doesn't mean you use it to solve all problems either - you hit nails and you ignore china. Free Markets? You seem to be advocating a subset of free markets towards the "Laissez-faire" minimal intervention end of the spectrum. I see this as an extreme position - for example during the potato famine a lot of people starved in destitute Ireland because it was more economically sound to sell grain in England.
Re:sad but true by fredprado · 2012-10-13 18:43 · Score: 2

Defending a state controlled economy and strong individual rights is not a paradoxical position. It is the definition of "Liberal". Read the Nolan chart for a quick reference on the subject.

Defending "Laissez-faire" capitalism and strong individual rights, which you seem to think more coherent is what is called "Libertarianism".

The other extreme position of defending a strong governmental intervention in the economy AND strong restriction of individual freedom is authoritarianism, and it is usually very bad, as in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia bad.

Don't use Ubuntu by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-13 05:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

Even if you can uninstall this feature, by merely using Ubuntu you're implicitly supporting them, and their intentions obviously aren't very nice if they're doing it. Use a different distro, there are also many other issues with Ubuntu to keep using it anyway.

Re:Don't use Ubuntu by mumblestheclown · 2012-10-13 05:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said, "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!" He said, "Like what?" I said, "Well, are you religious or atheist?" He said, "Religious." I said, "Me too! Are your Christian or Buddhist?" He said, "Christian." I said, "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?" He said, "Protestant." I said, Me too! Are your Episcopalian or Baptist? He said, "Baptist!" I said, "Wow! Me too! Are your Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord? He said, Baptist Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are your Original Baptist Church of God or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic scum!" and pushed him off.
Welcome to the world of Linux distributions. Who can figure out the mystery of the sub 2 percent combined desktop market share?
Re:Don't use Ubuntu by Qwavel · 2012-10-13 06:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

"their intentions obviously aren't very nice if they're doing it"
Based on what we know of them so far, I'd say that they are just trying to figure out a way to make some money, not be evil.
Personally, I hope they are successful in making money, and if there users feel that this latest initiative is the wrong approach then I hope they will respond in a constructive manner and not abandon Ubuntu.
Re:Don't use Ubuntu by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-13 06:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

Sanest thing I've heard all week. Thank you.
Re:Don't use Ubuntu by Nerdfest · 2012-10-13 06:30 · Score: 3, Interesting

I think the "ask for it" approach they're trying is a much less evil approach, and would probably pay off more in the long run, both in dollars and good will.
Re:Don't use Ubuntu by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-13 06:49 · Score: 3, Informative

Attribution: Emo Philips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBKIyCbppfs
Re:Don't use Ubuntu by EmperorOfCanada · 2012-10-13 06:58 · Score: 4, Interesting

With the addition of this feature Ubuntu was crossed off my list. Until now it was Ubuntu for desktops and CentOS for servers. Now it it Mint for desktops and still CentOS for servers. Wow that was hard. Mint is prettier anyway.

Again some MBA was let loose with his spreadsheet. He crunched some numbers and everybody when woooooo. There are all kinds of bad things that look good when put on a spreadsheet. A really nice bold bottom line doesn't make them less bad; it just makes making a bad decision seem better.
Re:Don't use Ubuntu by s4m7 · 2012-10-13 10:22 · Score: 2

They might try some more conventional approaches before being total scumbags.
You mean, for example, selling support services, offering affordable cloud services, and creating an online store for linux-compatible software vendors?
Yeah... they should really try that stuff...

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This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
Re:Don't use Ubuntu by s4m7 · 2012-10-13 10:24 · Score: 5, Informative

Mint makes money through their default search engine redirect, or in other words, by selling your keyword searches. Which is exactly what Ubuntu is doing. They've just been doing it for longer.

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This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
Re:Don't use Ubuntu by cOldhandle · 2012-10-13 18:43 · Score: 2

I initially defended this Unity Dash adware with the same comparison, but after reading more about it, the Mint advertising is nowhere near as bad. All LOCAL searches are transmitted UNENCRYPTED back to Canonical! If users aren't aware of this new "addition", they will be leaking potentially private local information all over the net - I'm surprised this is even legal (it probably isn't in the EU). There is also no filtering done on pictures of suggestions returned from Amazon, so even pornographic images can be displayed - I guess this automatically bars Ubuntu from any workplaces/net cafes/universities etc. due to possibilities of dismissals, sexual harassment lawsuits etc.

Pretty much always the case with online services by Fastolfe · 2012-10-13 05:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

This shouldn't be surprising. If someone is in a position to collect data, and they do so, governments can get that data. Pretty much everyone collects data when you interact with their services. To paraphrase Eric Schmidt, If you don't want anyone to know what you're doing online, don't do things online.

sudo apt-get install shred by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-13 05:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

Then install debian.

Re:sudo apt-get install shred by kthreadd · 2012-10-13 06:17 · Score: 5, Informative

Then install debian.
Stallman's organization maintains a list of approved distributions.
Debian is not there, so he won't recommend it.
Re:sudo apt-get install shred by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-13 07:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

I believe the FSF uses Debian as well. Debian is 'libre' by default even the kernel nowadays. Stallman won't recommend it because it has non-free repos. But they're disabled by default. Debian is perfectly fine if you don't enable those repositories.
Re:sudo apt-get install shred by Nerdfest · 2012-10-13 08:04 · Score: 2

That man is partially responsible for the progress that has been made in the spread of open software. I think his opinion has more value than a lot of others, especially these days when things in the area of personal computing are growing more closed very quickly.
Re:sudo apt-get install shred by Nerdfest · 2012-10-13 08:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

Server computing, development frameworks, etc, are getting more open. Personal computing is getting more closed. iOS, and now the Windows 8 store for me are a very big push against all the progress that has been made. I'm quite old ... I remember the IBM days and I remember AOL ... both very restricted. I have a feeling most people don't remember those and are taking the freedom they have (or had) for granted.
Re:sudo apt-get install shred by maxwell+demon · 2012-10-13 10:04 · Score: 3, Interesting

Here's what the FSF has to say about Debian:

Debian's Social Contract states the goal of making Debian entirely free software, and Debian conscientiously keeps nonfree software out of the official Debian system. However, Debian also provides a repository of nonfree software. According to the project, this software is “not part of the Debian system,” but the repository is hosted on many of the project's main servers, and people can readily learn about these nonfree packages by browsing Debian's online package database.
So with Debian, the people can learn that there is non-free software! Oh the horrors!

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The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Re:sudo apt-get install shred by doshell · 2012-10-14 01:16 · Score: 2

I'm sorry, but getting paid for your work, in a world where money is necessary to survive, is NOT morally wrong.
I'm no hardline stallmanite, but what does this have to do with free software? Nothing in the definition of free software precludes you from making money through it. At most, it forbids certain ways of making money with it.

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Score: i, Imaginary

Obligatory xkcd by kvvbassboy · 2012-10-13 05:59 · Score: 3, Funny

http://xkcd.com/1095/

Mod parent +1 funny.

Re:Pretty much always the case with online service by Captain+Hook · 2012-10-13 06:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

If you don't want anyone to know what you're doing online, don't do things online.

Some how I think you've missed the point.

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These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.

Mission Creep by Stormy+Dragon · 2012-10-13 06:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

Amazon was a member of ALEC. ALEC is the right-wing lobbying group that promotes voter-suppression laws and "shoot first" laws, as well as attacks against wages and working conditions in the US. Amazon quit ALEC after public pressure in May 2012, but I am sure it still seeks the same nasty policies that ALEC advocated and is waiting for a new tool to achieve them.

Even if we accept Stallman's rather innacurate description of ALEC's activities, neither campaign finance, gun rights, or minimum wage laws have anything to do with the free software movement. Stallman's belief to the contrary, Linux is not his personal political hobby horse.

Re:Mission Creep by leromarinvit · 2012-10-13 06:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

So Stallman isn't entitled to have an opinion on these subjects? Or is he just not allowed to voice it, whether asked or not? This is his personal website you're talking about.
Tell me, what qualifies you to say that campaign finance, gun rights, and minimum wage laws are none of Stallman's business?

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Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
Re:Mission Creep by sumdumass · 2012-10-13 08:20 · Score: 2

I think that is the problem with these anointed leaders of Linux and Free Software espousing political commentary not related to Linux and Free Software. It makes it appear as if they are trying to include the people who support them and their ideals as support for the political externalizations.
Of course there are people like you who without knowing how qualified he is with something outside Linux and Free Software who hang on his words. But there are people who support the opposite of what Stallman is saying, people who are friendly to all or part of ALEC's agenda, who see his comments as offensive. There are people who have an entire different host of political ideals who support free software and should not be put in a position (at least in appearance if not directly by association) because of the stature of the leaders and their contradictory positions in politics.
Linux and Free Software should only be politicized to the point policy law impacts it. Any more then that and not only will we find it ineffectual to appose policy because one side will see Linux and Free Software as a front group for another side of politics, but it can be damaging when groups purposely ignore Linux and Free Software in policy and law or worse yet, ignore negative impacts it will have because- after all, they are just a front group some politician's ideology.
Re:Mission Creep by leromarinvit · 2012-10-13 09:30 · Score: 2

If you want to politicize Linux and Open Source Software, go right ahead.
Stallman doesn't care as much about Open Source as he does about Free Software. The differences can sometimes seem small, but I think the latter is inherently political, as is "hacker culture" in general.

If we get a right wing government anywhere in the world, should they automatically ignore the concerns of OSS because it is seen as a front group for left wing nutters?
As a "left wing nutter", I wouldn't have too much hope of a right wing government doing much of anything that benefits common (working class) people. I think trying to get them to pass "OSS-friendly" laws would be a futile endeavour.

As for qualifications, I would suggest the same thing qualifies him to speak out against stallman entangling political views with OSS as does qualify you to speak out against him for doing it. Stallman is not on some pedestal that make him irreproachable or uniquely off limits to criticism for his comments or stances.
Of course. But he seemed to suggest that since political topics have (in his opinion) nothing to do with Free Software, Stallman shouldn't talk about them. This just rubbed me the wrong way, similar to how whenever Chomsky says something political, there are those who claim that since his most well-known works are in linguistics, he should shut up because he's not "qualified" to talk about politics.

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Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
Re:Mission Creep by leromarinvit · 2012-10-13 12:54 · Score: 2

So tell me, if Europe decided that software patents were a good thing and some right wing governments wanted to make it law, would the opinion of software enthusiasts and advocates have more impact in this decision or would the opinion of left wing organizations crying about software freedom?
The European Patent Office has already decided that on its own, by granting thousands of software patents, openly disregarding the law (which says software is unpatentable). If you believe that "neutral" software freedom advocates have any real power to influence governments to act against the interests of capital, you're naive.

If governments were deciding to change their software, would FOSS be considered when it is seen as a political opposition group? As uncomfortable as it may be for you, the seemingly neutral advocates and enthusiasts would carry more weight in these decisions then groups of political opposition who are also interested in software.
On this I agree with you. If you only care about the number of Linux installs or some similar metric, appearing neutral will help. But I doubt that's all Stallman is after.

I took the op's statement to mean more that Stallman should not be conflating FOSS with outside political ideas like Gun control and so on. That has no place in in FOSS in my opinion. But if the "leaders" want to entangle FOSS with politics like that, they better be ready to accept the consequences of being relegated to just another political mouth piece when something important comes up.
What do you suppose he should do? Refrain from talking about politics? That's also a statement - an endorsement of the status quo. Politics just isn't a private matter, and treating it like one doesn't make you "ideology-free". It just means you're following the neoliberal ideology of pretending not to have one.

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Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.

Or just wipe unity from your machine by bytesex · 2012-10-13 06:18 · Score: 2

And use kubuntu instead!

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Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.

Alienating your user base by ntropia · 2012-10-13 06:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

Putting aside any judgements for a moment, one could try to see the desire of Shuttleworth to push Linux in the mainstream, and this could be good... somehow.
But then, from Shuttleworth's words:

"It makes perfect sense to integrate Amazon search results in the Dash, because the Home Lens of the Dash should let you find *anything* anywhere"

Seriously? it should "let me find"? You put tons of advertises in user's computers *and* tons of user's data on Amazon servers and you didn't provide it as opt-in feature? And I can't even disable it [until a rushed update came out]?
Good job! You're alienating the most important thing you gained so far, your users. You know, not only it is important to bring Ubuntu in the mainstream: you need to be sure you don't get there alone, you know?

It seems another case of "shut up, we know better than users what users really want".
Do you?

Re:Alienating your user base by bkerensa · 2012-10-13 07:30 · Score: 2, Interesting

Shuttleworth also in that same blog post in the comments said Canonical had a privacy policy covering the lens.... I was the person who made it clear they did not and they just now added a disclaimer which really does not tell us what will happen to the data like a full privacy policy would.
Re:Alienating your user base by RocketRabbit · 2012-10-13 17:30 · Score: 2

Listen to this parasitic fuck's arrogance: "Donâ(TM)t trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with your data already. You trust us not to screw up on your machine with every update."
No, no I don't. In fact, I don't know anybody who simply trusts Ubuntu's update feature - all the Ubuntu users I know have been burned to a lesser or greater extent on EVERY update.
Sorry, Shuttleworth, I don't trust you, you don't have root, and I'm not going to fund your private Isle of Man party by allowing you to affiliate-scam every Amazon purchase I make.

Re:who even uses ubuntu by Spy+Handler · 2012-10-13 06:29 · Score: 2

well then what do you recommend today for someone looking for an easy-to-use, well-supported and active distro that will do a good job of detecting your hardware and not force you to hunt down or write your own device drivers?

Re:who even uses ubuntu by Neil_Brown · 2012-10-13 06:38 · Score: 3, Informative

Linux Mint is way more legitimate in every way... UBUNTU IS NOT RELEVANT

It may have changed — my last install of Mint was Helena — but is Mint not based on Ubuntu?

For Mint, I'd have thought Ubuntu was very relevant indeed.

Re:So tell me... by couchslug · 2012-10-13 06:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

"He's a dirty fucking hippy." who is usually proven correct, and who doesn't prefer comfortable slavery to freedom.

I don't care if he smells like a burning landfill, he's done more for freedom than either of us ever will.

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"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."

Re:Thanks by jedidiah · 2012-10-13 07:59 · Score: 2

Why stop there.

Just do "sudo apt-get remove unity.*"

Regular expressions are a beatiful thing.

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A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.

Ethics should apply in your life by betterunixthanunix · 2012-10-13 08:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

Stallman lives by a particular ethical code. Despite the widespread belief that people should separate their ethical beliefs from their work, Stallman does not actually do so, and thus if he believes that Amazon is doing unethical things (which is not really a stretch), he is not going to support the idea of taking his software (which is part of the basis of Ubuntu) and using it to support Amazon financially. I do not see why he should be criticized for that, any more than people should be criticized for refusing to seek employment with companies whose behavior they object to.

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Palm trees and 8

Re:who even uses ubuntu by Gordonjcp · 2012-10-13 10:06 · Score: 2

I had a look at Mint, but it doesn't appear to have Unity. So, back to Ubuntu, then.

Torvalds as a FOSS spokesmun by aNonnyMouseCowered · 2012-10-13 13:19 · Score: 2

I don't know about RMS, but Torvalds? He's been known to use four-letter words to describe the things he don't like. As far as online reputations go, Torvalds sounds like a nicer person in person, but he tends to use more abrasive language than RMS, who mostly reserves his online rants to describing congressmen as "congress critters", stuff that he posts on his "personal" web site.

Read the stuff though that he's posted on the official FSF sites. They're more well-thought out than anything Torvalds has written, since, well, Torvalds, as a self-confessed pragmatist, tends not to take official positions on anything. Torvalds himself admits, no, he's proud of the fact that he has NO vision as a software godfather. Which isn't necessarily a bad "position" to take. If you believe that like life on Earth, software should evolve, free from ideological design.

Re:Torvalds as a FOSS spokesmun by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-13 19:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

Posting anonymously so as to not have my modding activity zapped.... Our industry had/has lots of "eccentric" individuals, some of whom have contributed the most.
I'm not the biggest fan of RMS either, but I'm always prepared to listen to what he has to say. Criticize him for his opinion and words, not his appearance or occasional odd behaviour.
/andrewa

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Stallman On Unity Dash: Canonical Will Have To Give Users' Data To Governments

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