[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#729783: network-manager: Add network connectivy test using http://network-test.debian.org/nm

[Javier Fernandez-Sanguino]

[ I'm sorry if this mail turns out just a little bit too long :) ]

On 1 April 2014 14:12, Michael Biebl <biebl at debian.org> wrote:

> Thanks a lot for getting this service setup.
> I'm a bit worried to enable such a feature by default though since this
> is some kind of privacy breach. This should be enabled explicitly by the
> administrator.
>

I understand your concerns. Although I don't see where privacy is breached
since no personal information is leaked by the use of this service. That
is, unless you consider (and some data protection directives, such as the
Spanish do) that the IP address is "personal information" that can only be
registered after the user's consent.

Currently this service logs requests, just like any other HTTP service in
Debian used (sometimes) automatically, such as the Debian mirror network.
But the only information logged there is the IP address.

If there are privacy concerns regarding this information we could just
remove the logs from the service and, even, put forward a privacy statement
in the website.

Please note, however, that, currently, the default configuration of
browsers in Debian makes them already connect to Debian-provided services
(i.e. default page is http://www.debian.org/, not a blank page). Those
connections are actually providing the same information than the
network-manager applet would.


I'm considering adding a short section to README.Debian about
> connectivity checking and/or add it to NetworkManager.conf but commented
> out.
>
> Would that suffice for you?
>

I would actually prefer if this was a debconf-configurable option. Similar
as how we currently handle other online-connecting services like popcon
(IIRC popcon is currently installed in the default installation, that's why
I'm comparing with it).

Unlike popcon, however, I suggest we currently define it with a medium
priority with the default being no'.

That way:

a) depending on their debconf-prompt level, users will actually see this
option on system installation. However, by default, on installation, users
will *not* see the prompt and will not enable the network-test service

a) administrators or knowledgeable users that want to enable it do not have
to read a document, they can just reconfigure the package (or define the
option when doing a mass-installation using d-i seed files).

If this option is just left as some information in the README.Debian file,
I'm afraid that the service will never be really used.

I certainly believe is a nice feature for users (specially mobile Desktop
users using all type of network connections), which is actually nowadays
enabled by default in many other Operating Systems (from mobile devices to
desktop systems). I have see no privacy outrage associated with these
services myself, but maybe it's just because people are not aware of this
happening.

Regards


Javier
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