[mythtv-users] What are these connections?

Eyal Lebedinsky eyal at eyal.emu.id.au
Fri Nov 10 02:02:47 UTC 2017


On 10/11/17 11:50, Stephen Worthington wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Nov 2017 11:17:07 +1100, you wrote:
> 
>> On 09/11/17 00:44, Stephen Worthington wrote:
>>> On Wed, 8 Nov 2017 22:19:23 +1100, you wrote:
>>
>> [trimmed discussion on mythtv contacting alcor.mythtv.org twice daily]
>>
>>> I expect that the main reason for doing it this way is so that you can
>>> see the visual styles of all the themes when you are selecting one. If
>>> the themes were in packages, you would need to hunt down all the theme
>>> packages and probably install them before you could find out how they
>>> look.  That would not work well and most people would never bother to
>>> change from the default theme, and would be missing out on using a
>>> theme that suits them better.
>>
>> I am not clear here. Would it not be as simple as fetching the themes
>> in the post-install script of the package during an update? Nothing
>> should change between updates, but if I really want to refresh my
>> themes then I should be able to do so when I use the chooser.
>>
>> Personally, I do not see how selecting a theme is such a high frequency
>> activity that justifies a twice daily refresh.
>>
>> cheers
> 
> Not being the author of this, I do not know the logic behind how it
> works, but my guess would be that it just checks for any changes
> rather than downloading anything - a very quick transaction with very
> few bytes involved.  If it detects a change, only then would it
> download the new theme metadata file.  I think it may be modeled on
> how apt works to check for new packages.  That checks daily for
> changes, and automatically downloads the new package list files if
> they have changed.  I am not sure why the themes check would be twice
> daily instead of only once daily though.
> 
> Have you ever checked your Internet traffic to see what is actually
> going on?

Yes, periodically, and I stopped all unnecessary probes. I do not
allow apt (dnf for me) to do this. I do updates when the time is
suitable for me.

> There are all sorts of software that does this sort of
> checking, especially on Windows where there is no package manager.

So guess which system I hardly ever use?

> MythTV runs on systems that do not use packaging as well as more
> normally on ones that do, so putting the check into the packaging is
> not really an option.  And there are plenty of people who run MythTV
> from compiled source, especially those testing the development
> version.

I am not suggesting that this feature should be disabled, but rather
that it should be optional (opt-in or opt-out).

> Unless you are paranoid about your IP address being logged by a site,

Maybe I am? And it is not just the IP, it also announces the fact that
I run mythtv. I actually have a general dislike to ALL calls home, and
it is much safer that allowing them all and maybe, sometime, investigate
a specific one and disable it.

> this sort of checking is simply not a problem.

Not to you, fair enough. Though it is to me.

> If you are that paranoid, then you need to be connecting via an
> anonymising VPN at all times, and changing the IP address used
> by the VPN regularly.

There are more levels of "paranoid" than full-on and full-off - a bit
of subtlety goes a long way here. Why not let the user decide?

Anyway, I am not discussing (arguing?) the necessity of this probe
(though twice daily seems excessive to me) but the requirement to
force it on all users.

cheers

-- 
Eyal at Home (eyal at eyal.emu.id.au)


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