Metrics and your privacy

[Bruno Wolff III]

On Fri, Nov 24, 2006 at 00:23:17 +0530,
  "Vivek J. Patankar" <list307 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> >just off of types of hardware, it should be reversible. If it includes
> >device serial numbers reversing it will be much harder (but there may
> 
> If the report in has any kind of serial numbers (hashed or unhashed) 
> included, I'm definitely opting out.

Certainly that is your choice, but many people wouldn't have an issue
with hashed serial numbers as the kinds of problems caused by providing
them either would be very minor or very low probability.

> I suppose, is meant to be unique. A large enough random string would 
> adequately serve the purpose.

Not for the purpose that was stated, which was noting multiple installs
from the same machine. For that you need to get the same string for each
install attempt, which rules out random numbers. Randomn strings would
work for correlating events (such as updates) that happen after an install
back to a particular install event.