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"Audacity 3.0 called spyware over data collection changes by new owner"
- Thread starter lyonaudio
- Start date
I saw the same article this morning. Dang, I have used prior versions of Audacity for simple editing tasks, never as a DAW, and have liked it.
I had some 2.xx version before and downloaded v.3 when someone posted about it here a few weeks ago. If what is being said about IP addresses and other info being retained is true, I will not use it anymore. A shame really.
Most Linux distros will probably purge the telemetry code when packaging the program for their repos. Then there are mitigations via sandboxing, firewalls, etc…, as discussed (edit: on Reddit, but I can’t link to it without TB forcing a crappy preview of the GD post instead of a link).
That’s assuming that users who are concerned about this development will want to keep using the “tainted” version in the first place, instead of supporting a fork. There already are existing forks, but it remains to be seen which one of them the privacy-minded users will coalesce around, if any.
I don’t use Audacity, so it’s academic to me. It could be boiler-plate legal CYA, but it’s probably safe to assume it’s not been done in the interests of the users, anyway.
That’s assuming that users who are concerned about this development will want to keep using the “tainted” version in the first place, instead of supporting a fork. There already are existing forks, but it remains to be seen which one of them the privacy-minded users will coalesce around, if any.
I don’t use Audacity, so it’s academic to me. It could be boiler-plate legal CYA, but it’s probably safe to assume it’s not been done in the interests of the users, anyway.
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but TB has no connection to Russia AFAIKThanks for giving me the heads up on this! I just did a quick check, and I'm on Audacity 2.x, so does that mean, this doesn't apply to me? Or do we need to "look back" to older versions just in case?
TalkBass is tracking our IP addresses, too. Just sayin'.
Just to get some closure on this, here are the facts as I understand them after a bit of research:
The controversy was caused by a pull request to Audacity's privacy policy. Many users were alarmed by this proposed change to the wording of the privacy policy, feeling that perhaps it opened the door to something nefarious in the future. Audacity's developers went on record as, the reason they made this change, was 'CYA' to make their lawyers happy. Due to the outrage, they rolled back the pull request, and they are working to come up with a new privacy policy that addresses people's concerns.
The change was only to the "legalese" text of their privacy policy, and was not a change to the actual code of the software. The Audacity application itself didn't change! It works the same as it always has. And because it's open source software, any future changes that will happen, can be inspected and vetted by the user community.
Here is the developers' response: Clarification of Privacy Policy · Discussion #1225 · audacity/audacity
(Edit: If you are a techie person, check out the answers from user 'shoogle' down in the comments section. All of Audacity's networking features can be disabled with cflags when you compile it, to make Audacity into a totally "offline" application. The only networking feature that is enabled by default cflag, is to check for updates. Back when I worked as a sys admin, it was my standard operating procedure with any application, to disable check-for-updates, so that I could push updates to the whole organization with Munki, instead of individual users upgrading willy-nilly. All other networking features are "opt in" and are basically intended for advanced users who want to give back to the developers by providing error reports for debugging.)
The controversy was caused by a pull request to Audacity's privacy policy. Many users were alarmed by this proposed change to the wording of the privacy policy, feeling that perhaps it opened the door to something nefarious in the future. Audacity's developers went on record as, the reason they made this change, was 'CYA' to make their lawyers happy. Due to the outrage, they rolled back the pull request, and they are working to come up with a new privacy policy that addresses people's concerns.
The change was only to the "legalese" text of their privacy policy, and was not a change to the actual code of the software. The Audacity application itself didn't change! It works the same as it always has. And because it's open source software, any future changes that will happen, can be inspected and vetted by the user community.
Here is the developers' response: Clarification of Privacy Policy · Discussion #1225 · audacity/audacity
(Edit: If you are a techie person, check out the answers from user 'shoogle' down in the comments section. All of Audacity's networking features can be disabled with cflags when you compile it, to make Audacity into a totally "offline" application. The only networking feature that is enabled by default cflag, is to check for updates. Back when I worked as a sys admin, it was my standard operating procedure with any application, to disable check-for-updates, so that I could push updates to the whole organization with Munki, instead of individual users upgrading willy-nilly. All other networking features are "opt in" and are basically intended for advanced users who want to give back to the developers by providing error reports for debugging.)
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Evidently that would be the "говорить бас" forum...but TB has no connection to Russia AFAIK
I did not take a position either way on this subject, I was just interested in what others here thought about it. Other than basic notions of info privacy, I'm not terribly worried about software that calls home ... so much of it does these days.
You did qualify your last comments by starting with "if your a techie person ...." but I'm guessing there are very few regular users who have any idea about how to compile the Audacity code and rem out certain telemetry calls. Ars Technica did a piece on this as well with its usual very techie comment section. They also pointed to a few Audacity options, including a few that are based on the Audacity code set .... Dark Audacity and OceanAudio, that do not include the call home code.
I just checked my install, and as I thought I never got around to upgrading (still on v2.1.2). I consider myself reasonably tech-centric and definitely have reasonable concerns regarding freeware. My basic instinct tells me that software development requires time and investment, so when it's free, it's usually not actually "free". There is usually some exchange, whether it's advertising based, email sharing, something that generates revenue for the creator. That said, it's up to the user to determine if the product is "safe" in quotes. Not saying that a product is malware or a virus delivery device, but if the benefit is worth the spam that may be generated from your contact info being shared. I've been using Audacity for at least 6 or 7 years now, and it always seemed to be a fairly "safe" product. Hopefully the updates in v3.x are CYA language only, or it may be time to look at other options. There's no way that I'm going to take the time to learn how to recompile freeware.
