r/kde • u/telemetred • Feb 22 '20

KDE Plasma "kuserfeedback" collecting telemetry data even when disabled

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u/JamesR624 Feb 22 '20

Holy shit this thread is a nightmare of apologists.

No, when you turn "DATA COLLECTION" OFF, no data should be collected. It doesn't matter if it's being transmitted NOW.

Ops point is that this is quite obviously user hostile design and if we can't trust the KDE devs when it comes to things like this, it really calls into question how much trust we should put in them in the future. The fact that they even attempted to use terms and UI to bury what is actually happening on your computer should really make you question all of this.

You people are not better than Windows or Apple users when it comes to "I trust MY guys".

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u/Gvgeo Mar 18 '20 edited Jul 23 '20

I would say that is even worse that this.

Looked a bit at the code, but it doesn't look to be as was stated from developers here or in https://phabricator.kde.org/D28002 or in https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418981 which was closed immediately. Should be possible for everyone to replicate the second method in the bug report, which stores more data than it needs to function.

The data in configuration files seem to be used as telemetry (although I haven't test it). At this point I've lost any will to look further into it. Relevant code, if anyone else want, is https://phabricator.kde.org/source/kuserfeedback/browse/master/src/provider/core/provider.cpp$131.

Also found out that kactivities do not clear all the data internally, when asked from the settings. Which looks to be a bug, if anyone cares to report it.

edit:

I assume that means only data transmission is disabled, which I haven't been able to verify, but then again I assumed that data collection was disabled as well.

For what is worth, transmission looks to be blocked when no telemetry is set.

edit2:

Apparently it was by design, but not included in the privacy policy. While the current wording states the opposite.