Fedora Planning A Per-System Unique Identifier For DNF To Count Users

[Danielsan]

We don’t want to track users, just count systems. But if it happens friends as ever!

[Danny3]

WTF? Spyware coming from Fedora now ?
Who said I want to have a unique identifier assigned to my computer that follows and track me anywhere?
God, I hate this US/UK "The user doesn't deserve any privacy!"

Why don't they put an online download counter ?

[uxmkt]

Hehe. Imagine if Canonical made a announcement like this, using the exact same words...

If the user response depends solely on the product owner rather than the product, that would mean Canonical has grumpy users.
Which is a bit puzzling: Any sane system owner(*) ought to replace a hated installation with a more fun one, lest they be some kind of masochist.

(*) I put that there since some users are not owners/root and not in a position to reinstall.

[skeevy420]

WTF? Spyware coming from Fedora now ?
Who said I want to have a unique identifier assigned to my computer that follows and track me anywhere?
God, I hate this US/UK "The user doesn't deserve any privacy!"

Why don't they put an online download counter ?

Because, for example, I can download a single Antergos iso and install it on 8 computers. 8 users/machines, one download, inaccurate for stat counting.

Tracking things like security updates, etc doesn't help because of chroots, VMs, and whatnot. An Arch user would appear to be as two or more Arch users if they build packages in clean chroots since they'd download the security update with each clean chroot build.

[Britoid]

WTF? Spyware coming from Fedora now ?
Who said I want to have a unique identifier assigned to my computer that follows and track me anywhere?
God, I hate this US/UK "The user doesn't deserve any privacy!"

Why don't they put an online download counter ?

Did you not read the linked wiki page?


Funny how people are complaining on a site that uses unique trackers.

[cynical]

So rather than using IP addresses which is personal, they want to use a unique UUID that isn't personal and you can change/remove as needed?

Seems good to me.

How is a UUID less personal than an IP address? I can use a VPN or just put my computer behind a router with other computers and you don't necessarily know who I am, whereas the UUID is going to be recognizeable no matter how I decide to connect to your servers. In fact, the whole reason for this proposal is to better identify unique users, which implies that IP addresses don't do that nearly as well.

[kpedersen]

Its a flawed idea and they know it. Quick disposable VMs / containers are going to generate a new UUID and false count a new user.

But RedHat know this, they want to start exerting control like all the other crooks.

At most, debians opt-in Pop-con (Popularity Contest) is as far as I will ever trust. And even then I always opt out.

Will be fun watching Fedora fizzle out (Like Ubuntu) whilst blaming "user-interest" rather than their own arrogance.

[Farmer]

Hehe. Imagine if Canonical made a announcement like this, using the exact same words...

Can you imagine announcing a 72oz steak at a vegan restaurant. People would be up in arms.
Should we thus expect people down at the steak house to be up in arms about the addition of a 72oz steak there too?

Different crowds. Different desires.

What people think about his is really less important than "what actual Fedora users think about this." Now one could argue that it might prevent additional users from using it, and that at least has some merit (how much is debatable), but Ubuntu users getting up in arms over what Fedora is doing makes little sense.

Fedora user. Knock yourselves out. I really don't need an "opt in" either if you're just counting users. Count location too. Version. In fact knock yourselves out. Just don't use the data to target me with ads.

[ssokolow]

How is a UUID less personal than an IP address? I can use a VPN or just put my computer behind a router with other computers and you don't necessarily know who I am, whereas the UUID is going to be recognizeable no matter how I decide to connect to your servers. In fact, the whole reason for this proposal is to better identify unique users, which implies that IP addresses don't do that nearly as well.

Because the UUID is like a Bitcoin wallet ID. It has no inherent connection to any personally identifiable information, you can have any number of them behind a NAT router, and it's easy to swap to a new one.

[Danny3]

Because, for example, I can download a single Antergos iso and install it on 8 computers. 8 users/machines, one download, inaccurate for stat counting.

Tracking things like security updates, etc doesn't help because of chroots, VMs, and whatnot. An Arch user would appear to be as two or more Arch users if they build packages in clean chroots since they'd download the security update with each clean chroot build.

So what ?
If I don't want to be tracked, of course I don't want to be accurately tracked either.
If I lend a book or a car that I bought to a friend, it's not the manufacturer business to know to whom or how many people I'm lending that thing.
Just because it's a sofware product, it doesn't mean that me and my friend need to be tracked on every usage of that product.
What's left to do, put tracking code in every source code available because we don't know who and how many compiles it ?

I see that a lot of companies made good software without any tracking, but now no, you can't even write 'Hello world!' without some user tracking.
Every bullshit company is jumping on the tracking and datacollection bandwagon.
I'm waiting now on the GDPR v2 to cut this crap.