Smolt: firsboot revisited

[Michael Schwendt]

This entire discussion would be easier if it discussed specific issues
with "smolt" instead of trying to cover general problems related to data
acquisition and data protection. "smolt" is not about personal data, such
as name, address, data of birth, phone numbers.

If you are concerned that the IP address is stored, too, and is some form
of personalisation or could lead to illegal data acquisition activities,
you should not use the Internet, not connect to any server, not use Yum,
not use AptRPM, not send mails, not enable Cookies, nothing.

> >  Or are you saying it is illegal to
> > ask someone to fillout a survey form ,
>
> No, it is not, but (at least some) Germans probably will be very
> reluctant to fill out such forms and be very careful about what they
> fill out.

What has this to do with smolt? Generally paranoid or overcautious people
would not opt-in for smolt even if it came with a long legal disclaimer
and if it displayed exactly the raw data it wants to transfer. I don't
think there is reason to worry, because this is an open source piece of
software, opt-in, not running in the background, not running unattended,
can be removed again. And, of course, Red Hat would be playing with fire
if any questionable data acquisition practices ever turned up in "smolt".

> >  where they can simply ignore,
> > in your country?
> Common practice on "statistical survey forms" is them to carry an
> explicit "data-privacy disclaimer", which people explicitly have to
> check (== opt-in), which details what the data is being used for, to
> whom it will be passed on and when it will be deleted.

I think the "when it will be deleted" is not well-defined in the majority
of cases. Further, if you agree that your data may be passed on to third
parties, you've lost already.