[ubuntu-studio-devel] How wide spread is Linux spyware?

Sun Jul 12 11:28:55 UTC 2015

On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 12:11:37 +0200, Jimmy Sjölund wrote:
> However a good guideline or tutorial on how to set up your system
> like for instance with Luke's experience would be great.

A Wiki is a good idea, OTOH there is already much information
available. Users need to consider if a secure computer makes sense
when they "Add to an Amzone Cart" and publish their diary at Facebook
and they 24/365 carry a turned on mobile.
To become a rocket scientists, we can't simply switch from watching
"The Bold And The Beautiful" to watching "Into the Universe with
Stephen Hawking". We need to dig deeper and perhaps change our
lifestyle.

Oops, I should subscribe with several email accounts and set up mailman
to send list mail to just one account.

Begin forwarded message:

Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2015 12:50:43 +0200
From: Ralf Mardorf <... at rocketmail.com>
To: ubuntu-studio-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
Subject: Re: [ubuntu-studio-devel] How wide spread is Linux spyware?

On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 10:21:34 +0200, Set Hallstrom wrote:
>Perhaps Ralf and lukefromdc wants to search through the packages to
>establish a list of homecry software, vs. cool software?

No-go: Apport, Whoopsie, all that stuff from Canonical that recommends
Amazone or similar https://stallman.org/amazon.html, that spies if a
user runs desktop searches etc..

Within the next days or weeks I plan to tidy up my hard disk drives [1],
to replace my Arch Linux's VirtualBox Win XP with a KVM, QEMU,
virt-manager Win 7 and then to install an Ubuntu Studio 15.10 (Wily
Werewolf) Daily Build [2], perhaps Alpha 2 on July 30th [3].

However, regarding the default browser I wonder if Firefox should be
replaced.

Most of the times I'm using Firefox, Pale Moon and QupZilla. I can't
say much about differences regarding security, but all three are a
PITA because they ignore environment font sizes, the menu fonts are much
to small, only QupZilla has a usable history, but regarding security
users perhaps don't want a history at all and QupZilla can't use Firefox
add-on. Most important seems to be the user's browser preferences.

I wonder that Firefox still is that much used, since QupZill and Pale
Moon likely perform better than Firefox. Perhaps QupZilla less often
gets unresponsive when waiting for action of a website, than Firefox
and Pale Moon do, but I didn't really test this.

Since Paul Davis calls me names, for claims that were not made by me,
but e.g. by Len and others or when Paul Davis simply is mistaken and
because he bans my mails, just sometimes replies without reading them,
it's hard for me to e.g. find out how risky Ardour update checks are.
Since Len was mentioned at the last Ardour release's "special thanx
too"-list he might could find out easier, if Ardour is an app that could
be recommended regarding security needs.

Personally I seldom care about security for my computer usage, I just
dislike myth about security.

Btw. some links that were posted in a FreeBSD mailing list within the
last days:

OpenSSH

http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20150708134520&mode=expanded&count=27
http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20150603090420

And this one

http://slashdot.org/story/10/12/15/004235/FBI-Alleged-To-Have-Backdoored-OpenBSDs-IPSEC-Stack

Regards,
Ralf

[1]
$ grep menuentry /mnt/debi386/boot/grub/grub.cfg | cut -f2 -d"'"
Debian,                Linux 3.8.13-rt14-pae-rocketmouse-2
Debian,                Linux 3.12-0.bpo.1-rt-686-pae
Debian,                Linux 3.8.13.14-rt30-pae-rocketmouse-1
Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux 3.2.0-4-rt-686-pae
Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux 3.2.0-4-rt-686-pae (recovery mode)
Kubuntu Saucy,         kernel 3.8.13-rt14-1-rt
Kubuntu Saucy,         kernel 3.6.5-rt14
Kubuntu Saucy,         kernel 3.11.0-19-lowlatency threadirqs
Kubuntu Saucy,         kernel 3.11.0-14-lowlatency threadirqs
Kubuntu Saucy,         kernel 3.11.0-14-lowlatency single
Arch Linux Rt
Arch Linux Rt LTS
Arch Linux Rt nohz=off
Arch Linux
Arch Linux threadirqs
Arch Linux Fallback
openSUSE 11.2,         Kernel 2.6.31.6-rt19
menuentry "FreeBSD"{
menuentry "XP"{
Ubuntu Quantal,        kernel 3.6.5-rt14
Ubuntu Quantal,        kernel 3.10.9-rt5 experimental
Ubuntu Quantal,        kernel 3.5.0-18-lowlatency threadirqs
Ubuntu Quantal,        kernel 3.5.0-18-lowlatency (recovery mode)
Ubuntu Studio Quantal, Kernel 3.6.5-rt14
Ubuntu Studio Quantal, Kernel 3.5.0-18-lowlatency threadirqs
Ubuntu Studio Precise, Kernel 3.0.30 threadirqs
Ubuntu Studio Precise, Kernel 3.2.0-23-lowlatency threadirqs
Edubuntu 10.10,        Kernel 2.6.33.9-rt31
Ubuntu Studio Oz,      Kernel 3.0.0-17-generic
Ubuntu Studio Oz,      Kernel 3.0.0-20-generic

[2]
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/dvd/pending/

[3]
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WilyWerewolf/ReleaseSchedule