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GNOME's Zeitgeist Engine Has Its First Release

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  • #21
    im pretty sure the zeitgeist developers will know of the urge for privacy many of the open source users have, so im pretty sure there will be an easy way to stop the history for a few minutes and then turn it on again...
    maybe someone can write a nice program that adds fake events for the time you are trying to do whatever it is you want to do...
    and if you dont like it just turn it off...
    im pretty sure the gnome project wont force this down your throat!

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    • #22
      Originally posted by sylware View Post
      1 - It's not a matter of data being available over the network. It's a matter to have a tool that will scrutinize you and write down all that nicely indexed.
      2 - ISP cannot log everything, I think it's far from everything (I work for a million access points ISP). Google keeps the IPs of searchs... hum maybe not all of them... This is so much data that it seems unrealistic. Worst case, they select the searchs to log based on specific criterias.
      3 - You missed the point, if you are rooted, it's not a good reason to provide nicely indexed data to the attacker.

      It's a trade off... but people should be aware what this tool does in the background.
      Soon "anonymous desktop" like "anonymous browsing" ?
      1 - amen! It's about time computers started doing that instead of users having to categorize everything by hand. What's the point of 'Documents', 'Pictures' and 'Videos' directories? The metadata is there, sort it out for me machine slave!

      Nicely indexed = the future.

      (Note: I'm not saying that Zeitgeist will do that, just that it's desirable).


      2 - The EU requires all ISPs to log *every single* connection for a period of 6 - 24 months (at the goverments' discretion). Google has managed to put its 'google analystics' tracker into half the web. Even with private browsing (no tracker cookies) it can log both your short- and long-term browsing habits, even if you don't use google search, youtube or gmail.

      A lot of data? Yes. Unrealistic? No.

      What's worse, this data tells more than enough about your personality and it's already logged (no need to even touch the 'social networking' craze of late.)

      Paranoia? Yes! Warranted? Probably. (This is an open source community we are talking about, anyway, we all care about privacy).

      My point is that a desktop indexing/tracking tool is hardly an invasion of privacy. It's there for your *own* use. Its data is not stored on some third-party server (I fucking hope!) - it's on your disk to use or delete as you like.


      3 - sorry, but if you are rooted you are fucked no matter what. It doesn't matter if your data is indexed or not - it's there in plain view (including your passwords and everything else you'd wish to hide). Hell, the attacker could run an indexer on the spot if he wished.

      Frankly, there's only one way to protect your privacy 100%: pull an RMS and disconnect from the internet. Afterwards, get rid of your credit cards, bank accounts, car, house, fake a death and go live on some rock. :P

      A tool like Zeitgeist... simply doesn't matter to your privacy. It's like optimizing a bubblesort with SSE - pointless.
      Last edited by BlackStar; 16 July 2009, 07:22 AM.

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      • #23
        Originally posted by Pfanne View Post
        im pretty sure the gnome project wont force this down your throat!
        YEAH! Like the mono kludge?

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        • #24
          Originally posted by BlackStar View Post
          1 - amen! It's about time computers started doing that instead of users having to categorize everything by hand. What's the point of 'Documents', 'Pictures' and 'Videos' directories? The metadata is there, sort it out for me machine slave!

          Nicely indexed = the future.

          (Note: I'm not saying that Zeitgeist will do that, just that it's desirable).


          2 - The EU requires all ISPs to log *every single* connection for a period of 6 - 24 months (at the goverments' discretion). Google has managed to put its 'google analystics' tracker into half the web. Even with private browsing (no tracker cookies) it can log both your short- and long-term browsing habits, even if you don't use google search, youtube or gmail.

          A lot of data? Yes. Unrealistic? No.

          What's worse, this data tells more than enough about your personality and it's already logged (no need to even touch the 'social networking' craze of late.)

          Paranoia? Yes! Warranted? Probably. (This is an open source community we are talking about, anyway, we all care about privacy).

          My point is that a desktop indexing/tracking tool is hardly an invasion of privacy. It's there for your *own* use. Its data is not stored on some third-party server (I fucking hope!) - it's on your disk to use or delete as you like.


          3 - sorry, but if you are rooted you are fucked no matter what. It doesn't matter if your data is indexed or not - it's there in plain view (including your passwords and everything else you'd wish to hide). Hell, the attacker could run an indexer on the spot if he wished.

          Frankly, there's only one way to protect your privacy 100%: pull an RMS and disconnect from the internet. Afterwards, get rid of your credit cards, bank accounts, car, house, fake a death and go live on some rock. :P

          A tool like Zeitgeist... simply doesn't matter to your privacy. It's like optimizing a bubblesort with SSE - pointless.
          It's a matter of choice. I'm not the only one concerned about it, then the polite thing to do would be to let the user choose. Namely, not installed by default.
          EU requires many unreasonable things which go way beyond the technical challenge/cost. Usually, logging is done where it's reasonable. BTW, I wonder what will be reasonnable when we will have the FTTH (Fiber To The Home) and dark nets everywhere...
          Come on... it's perfectly fair to be uncomfortable with such a tool. The most important is to let the user choose if we wants to be scrutunised by this tool.
          As I said earlier, and we agreed, if your system is breached, your are screwed, but at least let the attacker do the indexing

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          • #25
            Originally posted by sylware View Post
            It's a matter of choice. I'm not the only one concerned about it, then the polite thing to do would be to let the user choose. Namely, not installed by default.
            EU requires many unreasonable things which go way beyond the technical challenge/cost. Usually, logging is done where it's reasonable. BTW, I wonder what will be reasonnable when we will have the FTTH (Fiber To The Home) and dark nets everywhere...
            Come on... it's perfectly fair to be uncomfortable with such a tool. The most important is to let the user choose if we wants to be scrutunised by this tool.
            As I said earlier, and we agreed, if your system is breached, your are screwed, but at least let the attacker do the indexing
            Fair enough.

            Personally, I trust the Gnome developers to not screw up usability or privacy intentionally. Even if they somehow manage to screw this up, the package will have to filter through usability testing and distro developers before it becomes enabled by default - if ever. (See Empathy client for example).

            Gnome have decided to take a pretty bold step with version 3.0. Let them go the whole way - as long as they keep their core tenet in mind (usability!), chances are the result will be worth it. Besides, their track record is pretty much flawless so far (the only "serious" usability regression I can think of is the removal of the fonts:/// url in nautilus).

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            • #26
              sqlite

              I'm glad to see that Gnome could make due with Sqlite unlike KDE4 which actually depends on MySQL.

              They really should use some DB abstraction like sqlalchemy or just use standard SQL so that any db could be used.

              SQLite is the only DB I am okay with programs hard coding for since it is public domain.

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              • #27
                Originally posted by eric.frederich View Post
                I'm glad to see that Gnome could make due with Sqlite unlike KDE4 which actually depends on MySQL.

                They really should use some DB abstraction like sqlalchemy or just use standard SQL so that any db could be used.
                Why? Do you think it's really that valuable that people have a choice between various multi-user server databases that it warrents even caring about?


                SQLite is the only DB I am okay with programs hard coding for since it is public domain.
                Well two points:

                A: The Gnome project is already all GPL or LGPL. Picking a database based on licensing at this point is utterly irrelevant to any sort of possible use cases.

                B: SQL sucks for storage. It does. Any SQL. Oracle, MySQL, SleepyDB, etc I hate it when application developers use it and depend on it. It's a web-based thing were people think that SQL is nice... When it's not really. It's wrong. SQL is slow, and backwards, old fasioned thinking, and people treat it like it's own programming language.. (stored triggers and that sort of crap) which is just retarded. I'll have my application logic in the application, thank you very much. Flat files are superior for 90% of the stuff people use MySQL/Postgresql/etc etc. Much faster, much simpler.

                What is wrong with using something like Haadoop? At least you'd have something that scales properly. :P Or CouchDB?

                Bah.

                I don't have anything against people using SQL properly.. but goddammit people need to learn to use a bit more imagination. SQL-for-everything is so blinkeringly wrong-headed and leads to all sorts of horrible performance and reliability issues.

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                • #28
                  Originally posted by drag View Post
                  Why? Do you think it's really that valuable that people have a choice between various multi-user server databases that it warrents even caring about?
                  Yes actually. Not because one might be better than the other. It would be nice if I didn't a different database server for each application that decided to target a specific one.

                  Both MythTV and KDE go after MySQL and nothing else.

                  What if I'm on an obscure platform where I can only get PostgreSQL running or what if I already have 5 databases in Postgre... wouldn't it be nice just to add a 6th rather than start up MySQL to host one small DB?

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                  • #29
                    zeitgeistmovie.com

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                    • #30
                      Originally posted by portets43 View Post
                      zeitgeistmovie.com
                      Ugh - my brain needs a thorough washing and sanitizing after that drivel.

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