Hi people!
Finally an issue worth de-cloaking for :

From: codewarrior@daemon.org (Andrew Brown)
>> From: Lars-Johan Liman
>>> From: mjacob@feral.com
>>> I wouldn't persuade anyone. I'd put it in one of the rc scripts.
>>> You install NetBSD, it will try and send some email back to netbsd.org.
>>
>>I have an attitude problem against programs that do these kind of
>>things behind your back. :-(
>
>perhaps something in the daily job that keeps track of how long the
>machine has been up and (hypothetically) after it's been up for more
>than 24 hours, sends the message in "/etc/registration" to root and
>unlinks the file...?  the idea being they don't get it after the first
>few reboots, but after it seems they've decided to stick with it for a
>while...

Does anyone remember when Micro$oft released a beta version of Win95
that (allegadly) tried to scan the hard disk for applications, compile a list
of what software was installed (esp competing software), and automatically
send it to MS when the user dialed in to MSN for the first time?

Frankly, I can't see much difference between the MS trick (which caused
MS media people to go into overdrive trying to play it down), and what
was proposed for NetBSD. The only situation where that sort of 'surveilance',
covert or not, is justified, is for very expensive commercial programs using
sophisticated liscence management software.

NetBSD would hardly be a secure OS if this happened. In my opinion it would
be a very retrograde step for NetBSD.

Regards,
Andrew

--
Andrew Robbie
ajrobb@cs.mu.oz.au