From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1161118AbWGIUZl (ORCPT ); Sun, 9 Jul 2006 16:25:41 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1161122AbWGIUZl (ORCPT ); Sun, 9 Jul 2006 16:25:41 -0400 Received: from nf-out-0910.google.com ([64.233.182.185]:9777 "EHLO nf-out-0910.google.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1161118AbWGIUZk (ORCPT ); Sun, 9 Jul 2006 16:25:40 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=psgO2l2Swn7WN23mTjodeMUibz4UqfyL6t3NN7uMu679FrArvGJ5fOiKbCHrrVMRBz6tJanCjcgHMFpm4kYsO4zTQvZqMKSpfW47gfLpd+zSnN4/MeUraS2RNzbM2d6uSyy9vyioS7SJUCD5eQaVksto4e9xZLEFHn3SPvJzLZo= Message-ID: <9a8748490607091325q7c4bed0etffb15fda227c6232@mail.gmail.com> Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 22:25:38 +0200 From: "Jesper Juhl" To: "Daniel Bonekeeper" Subject: Re: Automatic Kernel Bug Report Cc: "Adrian Bunk" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <6bffcb0e0607090245t2dbcd394n86ce91eec661f215@mail.gmail.com> <20060709125805.GF13938@stusta.de> <20060709191107.GN13938@stusta.de> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On 09/07/06, Daniel Bonekeeper wrote: ... > > Hopefully, in some bugs where nothing is printed (i.e., syslog died, > is not running, or we are in kernel context and never get back to user > mode), having a notifier on the kernel may ensure that the bug report > is sent (since we don't need userspace interaction to get it working). > ... Have you considered the privacy implications of this? If you implement something like this it most definately needs to be configurable and default to *OFF* and need explicit user intervention to turn on. Also consider that any data transmitted should probably be encrypted during transmission - not something you want to start doing after you just Oops'ed. I for one certainly do *NOT* want my kernel to "phone home" and disclose information about my computer without my concent - that, in my book, is called spyware. Consider this : If my machine connects to some off-site location and submits an Oops at least the following information about me will (or may) be disclosed : - My IP address. - My OS. - Portions of memory on my machine that may contain sensitive info (encryption keys for instance or personal data). - Name(s) of applications I have running. - gcc version of the compiler I used to build the kernel. - Details of hardware I have in the box (architecture etc). and probably a lot more that I've forgotten to include. I consider the above info privileged and personal and something that requires my explicit concent to release. It's *NOT* something I want my computer to submit off-site without me knowing about it. Also consider that I may be using a labtop and be connected to a network where I may not be allowed to connect off-site except under a specific set of circumstances. This thing could make me violate such a policy without knowing about it. I may also be connected to a network where the firewall logs all my outgoing connections and I may not want people to know I'm running Linux. A Linux kernel Oops from my machine showing up in the firewall logs would certainly disclose that fact. There are more things to consider than just "would this be useful for kernel development" - privacy in this case is a major issue. -- Jesper Juhl Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html