Mark Shuttleworth Addresses Ubuntu Privacy Issues

sfcrazy writes "Mark Shuttleworth has for the first time talked about the privacy issues in Ubuntu Dash after being criticized by EFF and FSF. He mentioned some changes in the way use can 'disable' the search results. However the company has showed that under no circumstances they will disable the online search by default as demanded by EFF and FSF. Shuttleworth was simply spinning the wheel moving things around to give an impression that something has been done where as the core problem remains — Dash sends keystrokes by default and legally every user agrees to send such keystrokes to PRODUCT.canonical.com server to be shared with partners like Facebook."

Comments

hello hosts file

[Gothmolly]

127.0.0.1 product.canonical.com

Re:hello hosts file

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue that once a distribution has gone "dark" in the manner that Ubuntu and its parent company Canonical have, measures like these are a moot point... Yes, you can block their servers. Now. If they decide to write a daemon that watches the host file for alterations and automatically restores it to a protected backup, what then? You find a way around it of course. Then they come up with more protection, you come up with more ways around said protection...and nobody wins.

The alternative is to use something else. I have a favourite distribution but I'm not going to hawk it here as an alternative because I'm not a shill :P I do suggest this though, in all seriousness -- instead of measures like these, try another distribution. Any one that you like! And be sure to let Canonical know you switched -because- they forced you into taking measures like altering your host file just to feel secure from THEIR OWN SPYWARE!

Linux distro's survive upon word of mouth and goodwill from the community -- if you take away that second part, the first part tends to dry up rather quickly too. Don't fight with your own OS to protect your security, just use one that doesn't force you into it in the first place, no matter what that might be!

This is how shuttleworth kills ubuntu

[h4rr4r]

All that will happen is people will move to fedora or mint or countless other Linux distros.

Mark, if you want to make some money try selling something worthwhile. Games would be one idea, hell get steam to give you a cut if you make installation of steam optional during OS install. Selling users data is a bad idea.

Re:This is how shuttleworth kills ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Or even just ask me if I'm ok with stuff like this. Tell me what I'm sharing, who with, and ask if I want to enable it. Depending on what that says, I might well have said, "Yeah sure."

Re:This is how shuttleworth kills ubuntu

[Captain Hook]

Tell me what I'm sharing, who with

The problem with that is that all your keystrokes go to a single Canonical controlled server and it's the server which then forwards the data to whoever it wants.

Today you sign up for Amazon getting the search queries but without any changes to your machine tomorrow they go to Facebook as well, and then the day after they all get stored by Canonical as a way of providing historical context to the searches you've made (just so they can better server your queries... nothing creepy about it).

Sure they say you are agreeing to Amazon get the search queries in all the big font agreements people are signing now but I bet the licence lets them send the data to whoever they chose to.

The End of Ubuntu?

[fallen1]

I would say that pretty much ends the usefulness of the Ubuntu line. Anyone who thinks that sending all my keystrokes to their server - which they can in turn sell off to third parties - is, in my not so humble opinion, bat fucking crazy.

You should not have to edit hosts files or anything else to make a product usable, because that product should not be spying on you from install forward. I do believe my personal response to Mark is a big "FUCK OFF AND DIE". End of story. End of Ubuntu.

Re:The End of Ubuntu?

[jma05]

> Anyone who thinks that sending all my keystrokes to their server...

Well. Not ALL keystrokes. Just Unity Dash searches. Doesn't Android's integrated search bar do something like this too? Not that it makes it OK of course.

Re:Amazing.

[redmid17]

It amazes me that people in charge of projects like Ubuntu think that a policy like that won't have a significant impact on the popularity of the distro over the long term, especially with heavily slanted tech crowd that uses Linux distros in the first place.

Re:Amazing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. You can disable it. And you don't even have to fiddle around with apt or anything, it's an option present in their own GUI. Slashdot, Google and the whole rest of the internet is much more annoying, since to disable ads you have to download AdBlock. Canonical is giving you a choice. "Here, use our ad-supported OS. You don't want ads? Ok, then, just use the damn thing entirely free anyway!" I fail to see how that can be anything other than completely ethical.

Except they aren't offering that choice, they where sneaky and underhanded. As other have said, it's spyware. Ubuntu did a great job for a while, but first it was Unity and now this. They're treating their users like we don't have a choice. I do and won't be installing Ubuntu again.

Re:Amazing.

[ohnocitizen]

It amazes me that there are people who will excuse the ethics of an action, if it is a business doing so to support a free product. Who cares if its "super easy" for the non-technical users ubuntu is marketed at to find and edit the hosts file. Giving users a product for free doesn't justify everything. Selling user data without an explicit opt-in is unethical, and I don't want to contribute in any way to a distro engaging in that practice.

Fuck ubuntu

[WaffleMonster]

This is the problem with "success" of open projects as they grow they require more and more money to continue to reinforce their expansion and it only snowballs downhill from there. Before you know it your out there selling your soul and your users data to the highest bidder. You can still reap profit on support alone but you can't expect it to support an organization of any size with fat paychecks for all doing this. There aint any shortage of corporate customers happily willing to purchase yearly support subscriptions whether they actually need it or use it.

Distributions put together by people who give a shit don't have this problem. The cost of packaging in time and effort is such a minsicule effort and mostly a solved problem contrasted with the effort required to produce operating system and software bundled with it.

What if bash maintainers decided they need more money too and decided to ship your keystrokes off to facebook as well? What if the maintainers of every one of the thousands of packages that go into a modern distribution followed suite? Spying by default is indefensible.

My personal observation

[koan]

Using Ubuntu these days goes against why I used Linux to start with.