The developers of the Manjaro Linux distribution, built on the basis of Arch Linux and aimed at beginners, announced the beginning of testing a new service MDD (Manjaro Data Donor), designed to collect statistics about the system and send it to the external server of the project. The author of the MDD intended to enable telemetry by default (opt-out), but the decision has not yet been approved and, judging by the objections of some developers and users, it is likely that telemetry will be offered as an option requiring prior consent of the user (a request to enable telemetry is proposed to be added to the greeting interface after the first download).
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.
The sent data is stored on the project server in the ClickHouse database and visualized using the Grafana platform. The IP addresses of users are not stored, and the hash from the /etc/machine-id file is used as the system identifier.
Аccording to the code https://github.com/manjaro/mdd/blob/master/mdd.py#L40 sends everything.
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.
That list about which data they’re collecting is longer than my highschool essay
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.
It’s all about trust. Manjaro has given me reasons to distrust them.
network device MAC addresses, disk serial numbers
That’s enough. I’m calling it evil from now on.
The MAC address is anonymized with sha256, and IP adresses aren’t stored.
So this seems to me to be perfectly anonymous.Why collect such data though? And you can call some Big Tech telemetry completely anonymous too if you trust their explanations.
I get the usefulness of technical telemetry such as kernel version, RAM, disk space, processor type, etc… but NIC MAC? HDD serial? WTF?
Yeah that makes no sense lol. Who needs MAC addresses to debug and fix bugs? No one.
The first three octets of a MAC specify the manufacturer of a NIC chipset. That could come in handy for driver debugging.
Manufacturers and firmware versions of storage devices? You can make the argument; perhaps it would have helped figure out the SSD firmware bugs years ago.
But stuff like whether or not you have video capture card or your current system temperature stats? Nah… that’s getting into “identifiable information as toxic waste” territory.
Yeah, so take the vendor and device id and be done?
Why should they need my unique ID/MAC?
A MAC address isn’t really unique. Each has six octets, of which three refer to the manufacturer. The other three octets have at most 16,777,216 possible values. That seems like a lot but it really isn’t; a MAC is supposed to be unique on a LAN, not globally. Rollovers during manufacturing happen, and collisions are rare but happen once in a while.
Unique enough with the other hardware IDs
And still, absolutely no reason to go further then the first octets, to have the vendor and device
Or am I missing something?
And I’m currently a happy user of Manjaro since years. But this stuff really isn’t what I want to have on my system …
Just defining the threat model of hardware addressing, as it stands.
I don’t agree with them sending more than the first half either.
All good, just wanted to clarify what I meant
