Hi, Original author of Lynis here.
If you don't want to use the update check, then instead of changing the code, just enable the relevant section in the default profile (default.prf): # Skip Lynis upgrade availability test (default: no) #skip-upgrade-test=yes Remove the # of the second line to tell Lynis to skip the upgrade check. Although I can understand the sentiment of disabling "phoning home" functionality, it is there with a good reason. It helps people to learn when their software is (very) outdated, especially when it comes to doing a security audit. Using old software to perform an audit has its own risks. And most likely it won't matter, but let me share it anyway: we (me as original author + CISOfy), don't look at the DNS traffic of that TXT record. We believe in privacy. See also our website: no tracking code, no Google analytics, no marketing services. Hope this helps at least with improving the Debian package, Michael Boelen
