FreeNAS capturing private information

[Yusuf Limalia]

I've done an article on 10 Reasons you need FreeNAS in your life:
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/reasons-storing-data-freenas

Just got a comment from someone:

Just curious to know, is this a troll? I'd like to put an official response against it.
I don't think there's anything wrong in someone opting in to send analytics data to devs, especially on a free system.

I know there's a daily telemetry option under System > advanced but:

1) I'm not sure about the private information / Public IP part
2) Does it really need a firewall rule to stop?

Thanks :)

 

[BigDave]

This setting is enabled by default and there has been some discussions in the past about making off by default.
I turn options off on alot of the browsersettings and OS default settings that I'm aware of, but don't really feel paranoid about this any longer. Big Brother has been watching me for decades and I just don't care any more.
If you are super sensitive about YOUR server communicating with iX's servers
you will need to turn off the auto checking for updates setting as well.
Afaik those two settings changes will stop FreeNAS from communicating with
iX company servers.

IMHO there is nothing "private" about the information gathered by iX and your comment received should be ignored. Anyone truly concerned about their privacy is aware of these types of settings in software programs and sets these options accordingly.

 

[Ericloewe]

It's far from hidden, it's explained in the manual:
http://doc.freenas.org/11/system.html?highlight=telemetry#advanced

 

[Ericloewe]

Gripe with the blog post: FreeBSD, and by extension FreeNAS, is not Linux!

FreeBSD traces its lineage back to the hippies at Bell Labs. Meanwhile, Linux was written by the angriest person in open source.

 

[danb35]

Gripe with the blog post: FreeBSD, and by extension FreeNAS, is not Linux!

Where does the post say otherwise?

My gripe would be that it perpetuates the "run it on the old 386 that you've been using as a doorstop for the last 15 years" idea.

 

[Ericloewe]

My gripe would be that it perpetuates the "run it on the old 386 that you've been using as a doorstop for the last 15 years" idea.

That too.

Where does the post say otherwise?

There's a "Linux Community" line in the last paragraph or so.

 

[Yusuf Limalia]

Where does the post say otherwise?

My gripe would be that it perpetuates the "run it on the old 386 that you've been using as a doorstop for the last 15 years" idea.

Retrospectively, I should have linked the hardware guide in the article as opposed to in the comments. This was the first article is ever done, and I realised that common sense should be discounted when writing about tech. Some people may actually whip out a bbc micro and try to install FreeNAS on it.

When I spoke to some of my friends their doorstop PC’s were early i3 Gens or HP micro servers which are like 7 years old. I may have got the demographic wrong slightly in the article :) but the hardware guide is there and the vast majority of people who will have the capability to FreeNAS will do some research. I know there are probably cases where someone tried to install FreeNAS on a vacuum cleaner and now you guys have to firefight because they can’t get RAIDz2 to work. So I know where you’re coming from! Apologies

 

[Yusuf Limalia]

Gripe with the blog post: FreeBSD, and by extension FreeNAS, is not Linux!

FreeBSD traces its lineage back to the hippies at Bell Labs. Meanwhile, Linux was written by the angriest person in open source.

I know @Ericloewe and you’re 100% correct. We have to try and simplify things slightly and this Linux semantics question pops up all the time. Personally I hate having to put Linux and FreeBSD in the same melting pot but if it makes things less intimidating, I sometimes opt for it.

If we had to use GNU + Linux all the time when referring to Linux based OS’s id have many people confused. I know it’s just a kernel but many people see Linux as the OS as well. Lunduke has a good point on this.

But you’re right, I think we need to start separating them and educating people on the difference.

I appreciate all Your feedback guys :)

@Chris Moore thank you so much for replying on the article directly!

 

[garm]

IMHO there is nothing "private" about the information gathered by iX and your comment received should be ignored.

Well actually...

At the moment we are struggling to implement GDRP here in Europe and the kicker with this is that you are responsible for the actions of your suppliers as well. So if iX isn’t handling this according to the EU regulation, FreeNAS cannot be used by any legal entity in EU come Q3 2018.

This is a short list of what constitutes personal information. Our corporet lawyer gave us another short list.. that one was a full page of metadata..

https://www.eugdpr.org/gdpr-faqs.html

What constitutes personal data?
Any information related to a natural person or ‘Data Subject’, that can be used to directly or indirectly identify the person. It can be anything from a name, a photo, an email address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer IP address.

 

[dlavigne]

Well actually...

At the moment we are struggling to implement GDRP here in Europe and the kicker with this is that you are responsible for the actions of your suppliers as well. So if iX isn’t handling this according to the EU regulation, FreeNAS cannot be used by any legal entity in EU come Q3 2018.

This is a short list of what constitutes personal information. Our corporet lawyer gave us another short list.. that one was a full page of metadata..

https://www.eugdpr.org/gdpr-faqs.html

Please create a feature request at bugs.freenas.org that includes that link and post the issue number here.

 

[Ericloewe]

Haven't looked into that yet, but the telemetry is unlikely to have anything that will personally identify your customers - the biggest exception being if the ZFS structure leaks that information via dataset names.

In any case, it's easily turned off.

 

[garm]

@dlavigne will do

@Ericloewe your probably right, but I don’t know. At the moment we are walking through anything that could remotely be considered a database, with a fine toothed legal comb.

 

[fracai]

Is it documented anywhere what data is sent to iX? It's my opinion that this sort of thing should always be opt in. At the least there should be an alert to the user when it is first turned on to notify the user what is being turned on and what will be sent.

The documentation page lists some items, but it's far from complete. For starters, what system stats? What RRD metrics? Which syslog messages? And what else is collected that isn't already part of that list.

BRB: disabling telemetry

 

[Ericloewe]

It is documented somewhere, but I forget where. Definitely should be in the manual, though. If anyone finds the source, please file a bug report for the information to be added to the manual.

 

[acp]

Meanwhile, Linux was written by the angriest person in open source.

This comment made me smile, so I guess that excludes me. He managed to out swear everyone else. If only that was something to be proud about...


Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Yusuf Limalia]

This comment made me smile, so I guess that excludes me. He managed to out swear everyone else. If only that was something to be proud about...


Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

I loved his response to Nvidia though :)

 

[garm]

Created the feature request #27741 as promised

 

[freenasisbest]

Anyone know where the option to disable telemetry data is in 11.2? The option in System > Advanced is no longer there.

 

[dlavigne]

It hadn't been used in ages, see https://redmine.ixsystems.com/issues/41172.

 

[Chris Moore]

Anyone know where the option to disable telemetry data is in 11.2? The option in System > Advanced is no longer there.

Why are you looking?