Re: [Monotone-devel] [RFC] M.T. phone home

[Nuno Lucas]

On 6/9/06, Nathaniel Smith <address@hidden> wrote:
> So you think that there should not even be a "I would like you to send
> my data automatically" button available for people to press?  (It's a
> reasonable position, just making sure I understand what you're
> saying.)

Yes. The thing is that after the data is sent, any bug about the
implementation of the feature (like later discovering it wasn't that
anonymous as desired) had already caused harm and can't be corrected.
All that can be done is minorate the problem, like urgently contacting
the project devs for removal of that info from the public eyes, but it
was already public and no one can know if it was compromised or not
(jut think of the cases where very big software companies later
discovered it's phoning home feature was transmiting more data than it
should).

So my point is that it's too much dangerous to have an automatic send
feature. It should always be a voluntary option, but I don't mind to
have some configuration option, not too publicised (only people who
know the risks involved should use it) that would make it automatic.

> > Without thinking too hard on it, I would implement that "mtn db
> > optimize" command and add a "--phone-home" sub-comand.
> > If the "--phone-home" option is not given, then a message could be
> > shown. Something like this (just to get an idea):
>
> Hrm, there is a minor problem with this approach, which is that
> needing an "optimize" command at all is a bug; a design goal is that
> we would be fast without requiring users bother with such things.
> (Compare how annoying it is to have to "defragment" on windows, while
> unix filesystems are generally smart enough to make it simply
> unnecessary.)

While I agree with you in theory, the thing is that if there was no
need of an optimize command then there would be no need of a phone
home feature (after all, everything was optimized already, so any
statistic would be just to confirm what we would already know, or to
send behaviour statistic that no one would care).


Best regards,
~Nuno Lucas


> -- Nathaniel
>
> --
> Details are all that matters; God dwells there, and you never get to
> see Him if you don't struggle to get them right. -- Stephen Jay Gould