Privacy issues in Ubuntu's IRC channels and Launchpad

[Alan Bell]

Hi Long-time Ubuntu community member,

what you have observed is accurate, and has always been the case. We do 
make efforts to point out in our IRC channels that they are logged, it 
features in our guidance on creating new channels 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IRC/CreatingChannels?highlight=channel%20is%20logged 
so people should be aware that what they say is in a public space and 
forms part of the public record. We don't remove or edit logs except 
under very exceptional circumstances - and people having stupid 
conversations is closer to the norm than the exception :) There are some 
channels that we don't bother to log, #ubuntu-offtopic would be one 
example of this. As for the launchpad bugs, yes, you are publicly and 
permanently credited with your contributions to making Ubuntu better. It 
would be a disservice to you and everyone else involved to remove just 
your portion of a conversation as it would destroy the work you put in, 
and replies to you would no longer make sense, possibly making other 
people appear to be nonsensical. It is possible to contribute to Ubuntu 
under a pseudonym, but erasing the historical record of your 
contributions isn't really something we are set up to support and I 
don't really see the benefit to the project of doing so.

Alan.


On 21/09/13 01:10, hatearchives at openmailbox.org wrote:
> Dear community!
>
> I would like to draw your attention to a very important problem.
> Both Launchpad and Ubuntu's IRC channel logs does not have any tools 
> to request content removal because of privacy reasons.
> Problem with Launchpad is that every action you make(adding comment, 
> changing bug status) is broadcasted to mailing lists with your private 
> e-mail address that is set in your Launchpad account.
> Then these 'broadcasts' are Google indexed, mirrored in like 15 other 
> mailing archives(some with e-mail in plaintext), but the official one 
> *is the only one* without content removal request tool!
> When I created my account on Launchpad few years ago, I used my 
> private e-mail and my real name. After few years of being active 
> member of Launchpad and Ubuntu community, I decided to 'clean my 
> profile' a little bit. Googling either my private email/nickname or 
> even real name resulted in launchpad email archives and my *really 
> really stupid* conversations from IRC logs on first or second page.
> I managed to delete my Launchpad 'emails' from nearly every mail 
> archive, just not the official one!
> Even deleted every single removed link from Google cache.
>
> I tried to contact Canonical employees, unfortunately it looks like 
> their @canonical.com e-mails are null-routed or they just don't care.
>
> I am asking for removal request page for Ubuntu archives, and ability 
> to delete all your private data that was archived in official e-mail 
> archives.
>
> Back to IRC logs; I would like to request that on server containing 
> IRC logs archives, robots.txt should be put to block search engines 
> from indexing these.
> Just like you respect users privacy at paste.ubuntu.com which is NOT 
> indexed by search engines, I would like you to respect privacy of 
> Ubuntu IRC channels users and mail archives!
> Additionally, anyone who can prove that he is an owner of his Freenode 
> IRC account should be able to request *complete removal* of everything 
> he said on IRC from official Ubuntu logs, including join/leave 
> messages...
> And yes, there are still users with hostnames like 'JohnDoe-Laptop' or 
> their local computer accounts named after their real names!
> And a simple join to #ubuntu is enough to get their hostname, ip 
> address and real name make into Google-indexed IRC logs forever.
>
> Sincerely,
> Long-time Ubuntu community member.
>


-- 
I work at http://libertus.co.uk

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