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Thread: Nasty articles on Ubuntu. Is the privacy an issue with Ubuntu ?

  1. #1
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    Apr 2013
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    Nasty articles on Ubuntu. Is the privacy an issue with Ubuntu ?

    Dear all



    This community has been great . Very helpful and timely. So I am taking the liberty of asking one more question. Are there serious privacy issues with Ubuntu ?

    1. Does Ubuntu log key strokes and send it on the net ?
    Technically, when you search for something in Dash, your computer makes a secure HTTPS connection to productsearch.ubuntu.com, sending along your search query and your IP address. If it returns Amazon products to display, your computer then insecurely loads the product images from Amazon's server over HTTP
    Source :
    https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/1...and-data-leaks
    2. Are there other privacy concerns like allowing all users not just the admin user the access to root ?

    3. I read the following post and would be greatful if some one could clarify
    Ubuntu still logs your keystrokes in its dash search. It's just hopefully more secure and less awkward now, and Canonical has finally gotten around to writing an actual legal notice like it probably should have done to begin with
    http://voices.yahoo.com/a-very-brief...-12115434.html

    Overall I like Ubuntu and would be greatful if someone claclarified

    i thought open source and Linux is super secure, so I am a little worried reading these

    also are these web posts making too much out of nothing ? How does window$ fare on these areas ?



    Regards


    at

  2. #2
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    Re: Nasty articles on Ubuntu. Is the privacy an issue with Ubuntu ?

    This has been addressed several times before.

    Thread moved to Recurring Discussions.
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  3. #3
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    Re: Nasty articles on Ubuntu. Is the privacy an issue with Ubuntu ?

    Adam,
    Transparency good, opacity bad.

    Cover most if not all of Ubuntu thoughts and policies on the subject of privacy;
    http://www.ubuntu.com/legal
    http://www.ubuntu.com/privacy-policy
    http://www.ubuntu.com/privacy-policy/third-parties


    I would first consider hardening Mozilla Firefox by adding sever add-ons like;
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...betterprivacy/
    https://addons.mozilla.org/En-us/fir...ddon/noscript/
    https://addons.mozilla.org/En-us/fir.../adblock-plus/
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/fir...ddon/ghostery/

    Ubuntu is to be applauded for detailing privacy policies as are those singled out by EFF;
    https://www.eff.org/mention/eff-repo...your-back-data

    Further thoughts on privacy notices relating to the Dash
    http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/u...ystem-settings


    So Adam,
    After a bit of research I'm not too worried about Ubuntu privacy policies, I'm far more worried about third party browsing habits being passed about with or withouts those browsing as relieved by Ghostrtery or unexpected code running and being thawed by NoScript.

  4. #4
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    Re: Nasty articles on Ubuntu. Is the privacy an issue with Ubuntu ?

    Bottom line is, by default, your desktop searches are sent to Canonical and then used to display Amazon results. You can turn off the Amazon search feature, but I'm not sure if that means Canonical doesn't record your queries (does anyone know?) Anyway, if you're not okay with that, just get rid of Unity and use a different desktop environment.

  5. #5
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    Re: Nasty articles on Ubuntu. Is the privacy an issue with Ubuntu ?

    I don't understand the fuss (unless you are searching for something illegal or immoral).

  6. #6
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    Re: Nasty articles on Ubuntu. Is the privacy an issue with Ubuntu ?

    Quote Originally Posted by snowpine View Post
    I don't understand the fuss (unless you are searching for something illegal or immoral).
    Privacy. Most people would want to be notified when their seemingly normal desktop activities are being sent to a third party. Especially Linux people, who traditionally value freedom to do what they want with software. At the very least, Canonical should have made it clear what they were doing from the get-go, instead of having other people find it out and then write those articles. As we've seen on this forum, it's started quite the PR fiasco.

    That's not to say if they had come out and made it clear in the beginning that these articles wouldn't have been written, but I think the way they handled it makes them look like they were trying to hide it.
    Last edited by montag dp; May 4th, 2013 at 01:44 PM.

  7. #7
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    Re: Nasty articles on Ubuntu. Is the privacy an issue with Ubuntu ?

    It worries me that people are so thorough in finding articles on the web exposing Canonical/Ubuntu's nefarious activities but somehow fail to search the forum for existing threads on the same topic.

  8. #8
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    Re: Nasty articles on Ubuntu. Is the privacy an issue with Ubuntu ?

    This is 2013. There is no "privacy." Do you think your posts on this forum are not being analyzed by armies of web bots as we speak?

  9. #9
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    Re: Nasty articles on Ubuntu. Is the privacy an issue with Ubuntu ?

    Quote Originally Posted by snowpine View Post
    This is 2013. There is no "privacy." Do you think your posts on this forum are not being analyzed by armies of web bots as we speak?
    I think you mean on the internet there is no privacy. There never has been, as far as I know. That's hardly a good reason to remove privacy from the Linux desktop without making it clear to users ahead of time.

  10. #10
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    Re: Nasty articles on Ubuntu. Is the privacy an issue with Ubuntu ?

    Quote Originally Posted by montag dp View Post
    I think you mean on the internet there is no privacy. There never has been, as far as I know. That's hardly a good reason to remove privacy from the Linux desktop without making it clear to users ahead of time.
    That's true, I suppose. In this case, the "good reason" is to financially support Canonical so they can continue developing Ubuntu and giving it away for free.

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