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.

  • calm.like.a.bomb
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    416 minutes ago

    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.

  • @[email protected]
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    17 minutes ago

    Manjaro is already less stable than arch, now it collects your data involuntarily? Fucking wild how anyone can use it.

  • LiveLM
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    2 hours ago

    Opt-out? I see it’s time for the seasonal Manjaro fuck up.

    • @seaQueue
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      32 hours ago

      They’ll find some way to make this change break the AUR again

    • @seaQueue
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      52 hours ago

      Friends don’t let friends use Manjaro

  • @[email protected]
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    123 hours ago

    I get the usefulness of technical telemetry such as kernel version, RAM, disk space, processor type, etc… but NIC MAC? HDD serial? WTF?

      • r00ty
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        127 minutes ago

        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.

  • @[email protected]
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    214 hours ago

    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

  • SavvyWolf
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    265 hours ago

    Why do they need information about the hostname? Is it really valuable for them to know how many systems are named daves-pc?

  • @[email protected]
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    5 hours ago

    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.

    • @rtxn
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      145 hours ago

      It’s all about trust. Manjaro has given me reasons to distrust them.

      • exu
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        2 hours ago

        When?

        Edit: I misread, though it said “trust” instead of “distrust”

        • @rtxn
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          105 hours ago

          They’ve let TLS certs expire on multiple occasions. They’ve made the decision to enable the AUR in the default installation, which can cause conflicts with out-of-date dependencies because of the delayed release schedule compared to Arch. They’ve shipped software on their stable branch that included unmerged upstream code. One of their developers temporarily broke Asahi Linux.

          I don’t hate the project, but I can’t trust the developers and management.

          • @[email protected]
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            44 hours ago

            They’ve let TLS certs expire on multiple occasions.

            And they told their community to set their clocks back. As a workaround, it will work but all your created and modified data will have the wrong timestamps.

          • @seaQueue
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            22 hours ago

            They’ve done it more than once now

    • @auzy
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      4 hours ago

      deleted by creator

      • @[email protected]
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        54 hours ago

        Why?

        Let me put the question back to you. How do think the uniquely identifiable information will help them improve Manjaro?

        Do you think they’ve got a Russian satellite and will track down your HDD serial number from space?

        No.

        There’s lots of benefits to telemetry.

        As I basically said, if you bothered to read my comment.

        • @auzy
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          3 hours ago

          deleted by creator

  • @[email protected]
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    336 hours ago

    network device MAC addresses, disk serial numbers

    That’s enough. I’m calling it evil from now on.

    • Bezier
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      165 hours ago

      Thought it’s probably fine after reading the title, but this shit isn’t fine. What the fuck.

    • @Buffalox
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      -35 hours ago

      The MAC address is anonymized with sha256, and IP adresses aren’t stored.
      So this seems to me to be perfectly anonymous.

      • @[email protected]
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        83 hours ago

        MAC addresses are 48 bit, and half of that is just the manufacturer. So 24 bits really, and those bits aren’t random, I think manufacturers just assign these based on some scheme, like a serial number. Point is you could easily reverse the SHA by brute force.

        You can’t calculate any useful statistic from a hash so literally the only use this would have is some sort of tracking.

        • @Buffalox
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          12 hours ago

          this would have is some sort of tracking.

          It’s right at the top of the announcement, that it’s mainly for more accurate stats on unique users.
          It’s not that I think this is a good idea, because I don’t, but some people are blowing it out of proportions. Especially since this isn’t at all decided. Which I seriously doubt it will.

          • @[email protected]
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            1 hour ago

            You don’t need this to count unique users. You could just assign a random number on install or whatever. Or even more simply, just run the thing once per month, should be accurate enough. Do they expect the software to just randomly spam duplicate reports? Don’t write it that way.

            Best case they don’t care about collecting minimal data and don’t understand that hashed MACs are easily reversible. So incompetent fools with no sensitivity to privacy.

            Maybe this should be Manjaro’s tagline: Not purposely malicious, just grossly negligent and ignorant.

            • @Buffalox
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              150 minutes ago

              You could just assign a random number on install or whatever.

              Funny, I thought the exact same thing.

      • @[email protected]
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        145 hours ago

        Why collect such data though? And you can call some Big Tech telemetry completely anonymous too if you trust their explanations.

        • @Buffalox
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          15 hours ago

          You can see the code of what is send.
          I’m not aware that Google claims they collect data anonymously, on everything where you are logged in.
          So that’s a false equivalence.

          • @[email protected]
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            15 hours ago

            I’m not aware that Google claims they collect data anonymously, on everything where you are logged in.

            I meant other companies but ok.

  • Destide
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    136 hours ago

    It amazes me it’s still as popular as it is and still own goaling at least once a year.

  • @Buffalox
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    5 hours ago

    This may be illegal in EU if they don’t use opt in. Even then it may be illegal for under 18 year olds to collect MAC addresses and disk serial numbers, as those can potentially be used for identification.

    The data is anonymized, and the IP is NOT stored. So I’m not sure this violates GDPR?

    From the code we can see the machine ID is anonymized, sending only a SHA256 checksum.

    def get_hashed_device_id():
        # Read the machine ID
        with open("/etc/machine-id", "r") as f:
            machine_id = f.read().strip()
    
        # Hash the machine ID using SHA-256 to anonymize it
        hashed_id = hashlib.sha256(machine_id.encode()).digest()
    
        # Convert the first 16 bytes of the hash to a UUID (version 5 UUID format)
        return str(uuid.UUID(bytes=hashed_id[:16], version=5))
    
    

    This makes it somewhat a nothingburger IMO.

    • @[email protected]
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      16 minutes ago

      That’s not anonymous, that’s pseudonymous.

      What is the point of this? The machine-id already looks to be some unique random number, so you’re calculating another unique random-looking number from that, might as well use the original number.

      You can’t glean any useful information from a unique random-looking number that would help with developing Manjaro. You can’t calculate any statistics from that. The only use is tracking.

      Edit: And as mentioned in my other comment, reversing the MAC SHA by brute force is trivial, so that one at least (and possibly the other hardware serial numbers they collect) shouldn’t even be considered pseudonymous.

    • @ouch
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      12 minutes ago

      Nah, it’s still considered Personal Data under GDPR, because it’s possible to connect to natural persons. So GDPR applies. And this is illegal, there is no legal basis for processing this data.

  • @ShittyBeatlesFCPres
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    95 hours ago

    Why do they need half that data for a derivative of a distro? Fuck off. I don’t care if someone collects the model number of my GPU or whatever but that sounds like personally identifiable tracking data, not basic “telemetry” data to set development priorities or whatever.