Re: Smolt: Fedora Hardware Profiler

["Peter Gordon" <peter thecodergeek com>]

Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> It unattendedly collects various data which is not publically available
> from a local machine => SPY-WARE

It only does so if you explicitly select the "Yes" option. Otherwise, NOTHING
IS SENT WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION. That's about as simple as it can be said...

> Connecting this information with IP-numbers opens many opportunities for
> abuse => Opens many chances to privacy breaches.

IP addresses and other personally-identifable information is not sent, only
the hardware listing.

> You have this (BTW: absolutely not unique and forgable) hardware id in
> connection with IP-numbers. This allows backtracking.

Only if you tell others the UUID stored on your computer. This UUID is not sent
as part of the data report, as I understand it.

> Having a script that is not being run automatically (not used by first
> boot), but being run at user-request as part of eg. a
> bug-report (similar to bug-buddy) is a completely different topic.

No, it's virtually the same thing: Nothing happens without the user's explicit
consent.

> There is not way to convince me about such spy-ware. If you want to
> collect statics with an opt-in, you can achieve the same by launching a
> counter website.

Fine, then according to your "definition," Yum and virtually every web browser
are all also spyware, among others. They also send with their requests your
hostname/IP information, User-Agent information, timestamp, etc.
-- 
Peter Gordon (codergeek42)
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