Opt-out? Seriously? What are the Manjaro devs smoking?

enable telemetry by default … MAC addresses, disk serial numbers

Another reason to not use Manjaro. Just use Endeavour instead.

Edit: I’m not against telemetry pre se. I have the KDE feedback enabled for example but that was opt in and sends no unique data.

network device MAC addresses, disk serial numbers

That’s enough. I’m calling it evil from now on.

Opt-out? I see it’s time for the seasonal Manjaro fuck up.

Why do they need information about the hostname? Is it really valuable for them to know how many systems are named daves-pc?

The report includes data such as host name, kernel version, desktop component versions, detailed information about hardware and drivers involved, screen size and resolution information, network device MAC addresses, disk serial numbers, disk partition data, information about the number of running processes and installed packages, versions of basic packages such as systemd, gcc, bash and PipeWire.

That’s insane

I get the usefulness of technical telemetry such as kernel version, RAM, disk space, processor type, etc… but NIC MAC? HDD serial? WTF?

Why on earth do they need to know hostname? MAC addresses?

data such as host name,

Okay why do they need to know that? Why do they need to know if the computer is called “Melissa’s Laptop” or “Workstation 15, Internal security division”? Seems like this kind of data could if stolen be misused and it has minimal legitimate purpose IMO as anyone can put anything as host name and while in organizations it often corresponds to use it doesn’t have to for individuals. Someone could call their machine “Mack’s Porn Rig” and they only use it for doing banking and a little coding.

kernel version, desktop component versions, detailed information about hardware and drivers involved, screen size and resolution information,

This all seems legitimate enough, this would be helpful for understanding the hardware their users run on and targeting features or bug fixes.

network device MAC addresses,

Not great but there is an argument for it, they could just grab and send the first 3-4 octets which would give them the info they need on manufacturers without getting uniquely identifiable data that along with some of this other stuff is concerning for fingerprinting.

disk serial numbers,

Okay, what the fuck. Why do they need disk serial numbers? What possible use is there for that. Those are used for warranty claims and could be used as part of uniquely fingerprinting a computer and person. Not cool.

disk partition data,

This is vague enough. I guess one could choose to see this as just info about partitions in use say if there’s also an NTFS partition that looks like a Windows install that would be useful but on the other hand data encompassed within a partition could also nefariously be read as allowing them access to all your data. Partition layout, partition labels, and file systems used on disks available to the system would be a clearer way to put this and erase any doubt.

information about the number of running processes and installed packages, versions of basic packages such as systemd, gcc, bash and PipeWire.

All this is also fine just technical data stuff.

I just don’t see a good reason to use Manjaro and many reasons not to.

It amazes me it’s still as popular as it is and still own goaling at least once a year.

Manjaro is already less stable than arch, now it collects your data involuntarily? Fucking wild how anyone can use it.

I’ve defended Manjaro many a time, despite the mistakes they’ve made. The main reason for this, Manjaro is the most stable Linux distro I’ve used.

However, the main reason I ditched Windows as my primary OS was telemetry (and bloat). If Manjaro introduce this, it absolutely must be opt-in.

I actually contribute to the Steam hardware survey as I want to ensure Valve, but more so hardware manufacturers, are aware desktop Linux systems for gaming and creative work are viable. But it’s my choice to contribute.

If Manjaro don’t implement this as an opt-in then I’ll be installing Arch. It will be a pain to configure my software again but needs must.

This may be illegal in EU if they don’t use opt in. Even then it may be illegal for under 18 year olds to collect MAC addresses and disk serial numbers, as those can potentially be used for identification.

The data is anonymized, and the IP is NOT stored. So I’m not sure this violates GDPR?

From the code we can see the machine ID is anonymized, sending only a SHA256 checksum.

def get_hashed_device_id():
    # Read the machine ID
    with open("/etc/machine-id", "r") as f:
        machine_id = f.read().strip()

    # Hash the machine ID using SHA-256 to anonymize it
    hashed_id = hashlib.sha256(machine_id.encode()).digest()

    # Convert the first 16 bytes of the hash to a UUID (version 5 UUID format)
    return str(uuid.UUID(bytes=hashed_id[:16], version=5))

This makes it somewhat a nothingburger IMO.

That list about which data they’re collecting is longer than my highschool essay