popularity-contest

[Matthew Flaschen]

NoOp wrote:

> I'm surprised that someone (someone
> probably has, we just don't know it) hasn't used this program to gather
> other information and send it to some other redirected email address.

What do you mean someone?  The popcon script can't be modified without
root privileges.  If you're talking about distro maintainers, well, they
can do whatever they want to your machine.  Constant vigilance.

> Like I said before; I've uninstalled & removed popularity-contest
> *permanently* from all my systems. This seems to be another "what was I
> thinking" Ubuntu implementation... at least Bill Gates's call-home
> programs don't send emails from a root account (at least not that I'm
> aware of).

That's fine, but it's *DISABLED* by default.  See
/usr/share/popularity-contest/default.conf and
usr/share/popularity-contest .  It doesn't collect or send anything
unless you ask it to (changing this setting requires root privileges).
It's a valid question why it's /installed/ by default, but it's not a
backdoor.

Matthew Flaschen