F15 Why does gnome-shell automatically start Adobe acroread updater? (malware?)

[Deron Meranda]

> What I'm failing to see is how this is a failing of Fedora. You
> installed a non-Fedora package on your system (AdobeReader is not a part
> of Fedora) and it is that non-Fedora package that appears to be doing
> things in the background on your system. You can blame the distro for
> compromising your system when you were the one who circumvented the
> trusted packages list and installed something else.


Thanks for the info about xdg.  I was unable to find that on my
previous searches, and it doesn't show up in the graphical Gnome
preferences.

Sorry, I didn't mean to blame the distro; you're right, this was a
third party package problem. ... Except that the Gnome 3 shell doesn't
provide any feedback or information that it will run things in the
background, nor is there any apparent method of listing those things
(from the default install anyway).

I do blame Adobe though.  Yes, I contemplated very long very before
installing acroread because I do try to keep my system extremely pure
.. but alas, the needs to fill out tax forms nudged me over.  But
Adobe to their failing did not notify me that their software would
periodically attempt to download and install software on my system
without my knowledge.  Bad on them.


Concerning Fedora.  This could perhaps be partially guarded against if
there were an SELinux context into which I could label the "foreign"
software -- that would prohibit it from accessing the network, or
running scripts out of /tmp.  Is there such a type label that I could
chcon /usr/local/bin/acroread ??

Thanks
-- 
Deron Meranda
http://deron.meranda.us/