Public bug reported:
After a failed attempt at upgrading from Feisty (which broke XOrg), I've
just installed 7.10 (Gutsy) and started using a few programs. Among
these was Exaile and Rythmbox both of which started showing me cover art
which they had "automagically" fetched from Amazon.
Sorry but I do not want programs running on my computer randomly going
off to merchants on the internet providing them with data on, in this
case, my listening habits. In fact I do not want programs silently
reporting anything about me to anyone whatsoever. Unless I have
explicitly allowed it I do not want programs to be able to access either
the local network or the internet full stop. (Obviously I would not
include software such as "wget" in this category as it's whole purpose
is to access remote resources !)
I would therefore like to see a system wide facility available in Ubuntu
similar to the Zone Alarm program on Windows whereby no program is
allowed to access either the local network or the internet without the
user first being asked if this is acceptable. The default policy should
be "deny all".
Failling this I would like Ubuntu to require a programming standard
whereby a program will not send any data over the internet unless it has
asked the user first. In other words the first time it is run it should
present the user with a dialogue indicating what data it will be sending
and to whom..
To allow such data to be sent the user should have to explicitly "tick"
a checkbox to indicate that this is acceptable - one checkbox per type
of information used (i.e. If it sends data to Amazon and also reads from
CDDB that would require two checkboxes. If it both reads and writes to
CDDB that would be three checkboxes etc. etc.) In all cases the default
setting should be "no" (i.e. this should be an opt in scheme)
It should not be down to the user to look into each individual program
to see how to turn off such things and under no circumstances should a
program decide "oh it's only $SOME_TRIVIAL_DATA this doesn't matter".
Allowing any old random program to access the internet is a *bad idea*
(not to mention a security risk) and is one of the main reasons the
Windows world is so full of trojans, viruses and spyware etc. etc.
Ubuntu needs to learn from these past mistakes and prevent the same sort
of problems happening on Linux.
I also realise that a user already has multiple tools to allow them to
view and control internet access from their machines (iptables, ethereal
etc.) but these are not really suitable for "average" users.
Worldwide societies are already seeing a vast erosion of the individuals
privacy and I believe it is against the entire philosophy of Ubuntu to
be part of this problem.
Please give this serious consideration as the current situation is, to
me, frankly unacceptable*
*Unacceptable being defined as Zone Alarm on Windows currently provides
a superior solution !
** Affects: ubuntu
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
** Visibility changed to: Public
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All programs in Ubuntu need to do more to respect users privacy
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/155347
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