EFF: Privacy in Ubuntu 12.10: Amazon Ads and Data Leaks [LWN.net]

EFF: Privacy in Ubuntu 12.10: Amazon Ads and Data Leaks

Posted Oct 31, 2012 17:22 UTC (Wed) by mabradford (guest, #87556)
Parent article: EFF: Privacy in Ubuntu 12.10: Amazon Ads and Data Leaks

I wrote a article some years ago about Microsoft having little small programs installed that not only searches your entire system for things to get drivers for -- but, in fact -- those 3 little programs send back tiny snapshots of your hard disk back to Microsoft to be most likely reassembled to see what you are running in terms of programs. Microsoft's answer was that "It makes no difference what machine is loaded with Microsoft's OS's or other program apps -- it is totally legal to see this information that it gets from your computer or other equipment because any and all data created with Microsoft's property such as it's OS's and applications such as the Office Suites -- belongs to the Microsoft Corporation. Those 3 little programs are still the main search applications written for DOS3 back in the day. Back then the information wouldn't get back to Microsoft unless there was indeed a phone line hooked in and active. Even if there was no activity from you on the modem, the 3 little programs would initialize the modem and send the information collected back to the Microsoft servers for inspection. Even after that article and Microsoft fessing up -- there was never a government complaint or any complaints from the private sector. Geesh -- after 25 years of Microsoft collecting information on your computers and the programs you run that might be or might not be Microsoft's -- why is there all this hysteria now. OMG people...if not's like you have any privacy anymore...which you don't. I think it's just one more worm to squawk about.

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EFF: Privacy in Ubuntu 12.10: Amazon Ads and Data Leaks

Posted Oct 31, 2012 17:38 UTC (Wed) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link]

Which binaries in, say, MS-DOS 3.30 install would those be? I very strongly suspect that you are spouting bullshit, but I'm willing to apologize if you can supply a verifiable information. Pathnames, please.

EFF: Privacy in Ubuntu 12.10: Amazon Ads and Data Leaks

Posted Oct 31, 2012 18:50 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

It may be a misremembering of the scares over just what info Windows Update was sending back to MS (which did include weird stuff like the BIOS serial number which it is hard to imagine a legitimate use for).

However, much of the rest is either bizarre (the only case where MS has ever claimed that stuff you generate with their tools is their property is some output of their own compilers, I think: they are not legal ignoramuses, juwt typically prone to corporate overreach). As for claiming that DOS 3 *had* any 'search applications', let alone claiming that anything could connect to the Internet without your permission, given the wild variety of distinct dialler programs in use in the DOS 3 days... well, there's no way that mabradford is remembering accurately. Even if you wanted to programmatically connect to the Internet in the DOS 5 days, you had to specialize it for one dialer: back in the DOS 3 days, DOS and the Internet had pretty much not heard of each other outside very specialist communities indeed. Naturally DOS never came with any sort of standard TCP/IP stack, which would make a search tool sending anything anywhere a hard proposition indeed.

I wonder if mabradford is just too young to remember those days? It's quite possible: someone born when DOS 3.3 was released is a quarter of a century old now...

I commend you on your scientifically accurate use of the term 'bullshit'. It's rare to see someone using the term according to Frankfurt's definition, despite the prevalence of bullshit in that sense all around us.