Re:Refund of pre-installed Windows: Lenovo must pay 20k euro...
by m463 on Sunday March 14, 2021 @05:36PM
(#26459525)
I think you should try this:
- set up a ubuntu system
- see what traffic it generates
- get it to stop
You will get pretty proficient at how apt and systemd work, especially after a couple release cycles and things get re-activated, re-enabled or re-installed.
> does plenty of telemetry,
The telemetry that is sent on install does ask your permission to share and shares very innocuous data to boot
>The data includes information about your PC’s hardware, including the manufacturer, BIOS version, and the model of your CPU. It also includes information about your software, such as the version of Ubuntu you installed, your chosen desktop environment, whether you’re using the Xorg or Wayland display server, and the options you chose while installing Ubuntu. Other information, such as your time zone, information about your partitions, and your display’s resolution is also sent.
The other major source of leaks is the crash reporting tool which . Note that with open source software you don't have to trust the vendor you can actually see the source to the the tools that are communicating and convince yourself that they are serving legitimate needs that don't violate your privacy.
> forces updates
You can absolutely control updates of normal packages. Snap is indeed defective in that regard but nothing is forcing you to use it.
> Unless you are very technically proficient it is very hard to disable all of it
Packages are removable in band with the same tools used to manage all packages on the system. This isn't an example of extreme competence its basic understanding of the tools needed to use the system.
> motd
Not a data leak
> snap
a shitty tool but not one that harms your privacy or inherently does anything to you by existing just don't install snaps.
> ubuntu-report
This is the tool that reports basic info about your system after asking you once on initial install removing it... does nothing. If you don't want crash reporting its a checkbox in settings.
> ubuntu-advantage
This is something you have to sign up for having the package on your system isn't leaking your data
> Apport
This is disabled by default in stable releases. To disable sudo systemctl disable apport.service like every other service this is once again basic usage. It also doesn't leak your info without you allowing it even if enabled. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Apport