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.

  • 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.

      • I said elsewhere, I hope this is just some way to track changes over time per user.

        But they need to take an anonymous hash of some non changing data or create an install id that is used for this and nothing else (e.g it identifies a unique user but not the person or hardware behind the user).

        Too much identifying info is just pushed around like we shouldn’t care, it’s become a real problem.

      • 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.

          • 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.

  • 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

  • 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.

  •  imalmo   ( @imalmo@lemmy.ml ) 
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    1219 days ago

    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.

      •  imalmo   ( @imalmo@lemmy.ml ) 
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        318 days ago

        I mostly used Ubuntu based desktop distros and frequently had issues with the 6 monthly update cycle. Problems with Fedora too. I have not had a single update issue with Manjaro. I often have different distros running in VM’s and whilst Arch has been the most reliable, most are not.

        I also setup loads of Linux servers in my I.T. job that I used to have, so I have plenty experience.

        The bottom line is Manjaro desktop has been ridiculously reliable for me. Therefore other peoples hate of it washes over me and is meaningless.

        • Yeah, besides some Nvidia driver problems, Manjaro was stable for me as well

          Have chosen it, because it was fast to setup and the base configuration wasn’t too of far off my liking

          But, by now I’m considering to switch

    • users can be identified
    • probably Opt-out (still in discussion)

    Two nogos combined makes nonogogos. Why do they need host name, MAC address and disk serial numbers? Why can’t people set how much they want to send in, like KDE Plasma does? Will the data be shown to the user before its send in? Steam does that perfectly (show data and its opt-in) and that is even a proprietary application. Telemetry is okay if its done right, without user identification, opt-in and not hiding whats sent, preferably in multiple levels of what is being send.

    I used Manjaro before and switched to EndeavorOS because I was not happy. Now I am. Manjaro can’t stop being stupid (not the users, I’m not attacking any user here, only the maintainers or developers of Manjaro).

    • The way I read it, the developer wanted opt-out but it’s likely it will be opt-in. I’m find with opt-in and vehemently against opt-out for telemetry.

      I would prefer the information was statistical only. Rather than hostname (making the assumption they only want hostname to be able to somehow separate the data to follow changes over time), a much better idea would be some kind of hash based on information unlikely to change, but enough information that it would be unlikely possible to brute-force the original data out of the hash. So all they know is, this data came from the same machine, but cannot ID the machine. Maybe some kind of unique but otherwise untrackable unique ID is created at install time and ONLY used for this purpose and no other.

  • I don’t get why someone would use Manjaro after so many fuckups… If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re either too new to Linux or don’t care. Just look for “manjaro certificates” or “manjaro drama” and you’ll find out for yourself.