Maybe i sound naive but i can not comprehend why tools such as geoip* happen to be sneaked into this "super private" distro? another point-- javascript
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Maybe i sound naive but i can not comprehend why tools such as geoip* happen to be sneaked into this "super private" distro? another point-- javascript
I don't think that lack of knowledge and lack of will/time/skills to learn have anything to do with being naive. Pointers:
apt-cache rdependsandaptitude why. Oh, and perhaps you actually want to read the description of thesegeoip*packages: you might be shocked to learn how innocuous they actually are.This is the one top FAQ here, so please do use the search feature.
@ "Tails":
Are you referring to executables provided by the geoip-database package in Debian stable?
I want to be sure, because packages related to Geoclue may be worrisome to users who run Tails from a laptop, due to the danger of unwittingly providing GPS information to "location-aware apps" as one surfs (a potentially dangerous privacy violation to which Windows users are known to be subject, although this concern may be diminished for Linux users):
As I recall, it is public knowledge that this or a similar utility (installed by the owner of a laptop, as part of a standard installation) has already been hijacked by "the authorities" in order to arrest at least one political dissident (an Occupy activist), in a highly publicized case which occurred recently in the USA.
As I recall, it is also known (for example, from papers in the freenode archive) that under certain circumstances, dbus vulnerabilities can be abused by our adversaries. This could be particularly relevant for users who boot Tails from a USB stick.
One recalls that Google, which has just been fined 7 million dollars for illegally snagging
One recalls further that a Google patent application laid out pretty clearly Google's interest in collecting such data: it wants to identify by MAC address to map by geolocation all the home and office electronic equipment in the world, to within one metre accuracy, in three dimensions. Pretty amazing, but the patent application is quite clear, and it is easy to see what kinds of organizations Google planned to sell this data. (Alas, other organizations are hard at work on similar projects, mostly with less secrecy than has been adopted by Google.)
I can dig up some links if anyone is interested.
No time for delving into dpkg right now.
However, I thank the original poster for raising this issue.
If anybody is telling us we ought to trust Google, than those people should cover their faces with their ears and shut up.
It's the monopoly world search engine, and it's the top collaborator with secret services of most any world government, with not much more than a façade of honesty, possibly when the cumpuction moves in into the hearts of the owners of such a great share of the world fortune, Larry and the other Russian Jew, who seem not to have started as such hypocrites which they have turned into by now.
(pls. not for one of them being a Jew do I criticize them, I'm not racial in any way, it's just that I don't remember the guy's name).
It the original poster is around, pls. let us have those links! Thanks!
OTOH, which geo-whatever packages are actually installed in Tails, if any?
Not all of us have the time galore to pore over all of that minutiusly.
Thanks!
On a conciliatory note, it is nevertheless good that this topic has been started, whether those packages be in Tails installation or not, because it does draw readers attention to things inmortant for those who use Tails for honest purposes, and I mean people who need privacy to live and communicate freely without supervision, exacly like Occupy people, mentioned above, who I admire most!