Metrics and your privacy

[Andy Green]

Bruno Wolff III wrote:

> I like Alan's suggestion. I think the real issues here is that the information
> being gathered needs to be transparent and providing it needs to be optional
> with the user actively consenting.

If the yum stuff didn't already exist now and historically without 
causing any comment, I'd agree.  But it does.  Just asking the question 
about doing something new has generated fear, "Hell, no!" and 
handwringing essays on the decline of Western civilization that just 
crunching the existing logs and publishing the results would not have.

> I think that is expected practice and people will expect at least that
> level of use of IP addresses. It would be nice to state retention times
> (and some juristictions may require long retention times of logs) and
> any other intended use of the log data that people might not expect.

Since the IP would be Geolocated and then discarded in the proposed 
system, I don't think this is an issue.

>> This is a different issue, but it wouldn't be RHAT but an upstream 
>> project that got perverted, like that attack on the kernel a while back 

> That wasn't the direction I was going with this. That's one way to get
> back doors into the software. The other is to have someone from the NSA
> (or other TLA) have a talk with very high level management and come to

I did see your point, but my imaginer throws an exception at the idea. 
Anyone could make a project to allow the forbidden thing, even if RHAT 
turn their nose up at it anyone can make packages.  Look at mplayer or 
mp3 support for example.  I doubt RHAT are on anyone's radar to start 
bouncing, although MSFT likely have been for some time (especially since 
they sing the song in the corridors of power about being a powerful 
spearhead of American interests worldwide so deserving of special 
antitrust treatment, etc, wouldn't surprise me if there was a quid pro 
quo or three in there somewhere).

-Andy