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Re: having public irc logs?

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  Re: having public irc logs? Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org> - 2017-04-07 16:40 +0200
    Re: having public irc logs? Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org> - 2017-04-08 09:30 +0200
      Re: having public irc logs? Holger Levsen <holger@layer-acht.org> - 2017-04-08 11:50 +0200
      Re: having public irc logs? Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org> - 2017-04-08 12:40 +0200
        Re: having public irc logs? u <u@451f.org> - 2017-04-08 14:00 +0200
        Re: having public irc logs? Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2017-04-08 19:50 +0200
    Re: having public irc logs? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-04-08 10:00 +0200
    Re: having public irc logs? Mehdi Dogguy <mehdi@dogguy.org> - 2017-04-08 10:00 +0200

#9101 — Re: having public irc logs?

(this question was on debian-vote by purpose, and was directed to DPL,
I'll drop -vote on the next email)

>(Replies redirected to debian-project, since this has nothing to do
>with the DPL election anymore.)


sigh, I agree
(I would have used -devel to have a public discussion, this wasn't
the case, but meh, it is nice to discuss such things anyway)

>I guestion the usefulness of IRC logs for that kind of thing. The log
>shows that, say, a package was discussed three hours ago. Has the
>situation changed? It might have, but without anyone mentioning it on
>IRC, and therefor in the log. The kinds of things that are discussed
>on IRC tend be quickly changing. Logs are not useful for those. In my
>opinion and experience.


I had many times written something just some minutes after somebody else.
You might question it, I might agree with you, but in my life I have a lot
of use-cases of this being useful
(e.g. my uploads not being accepted, a quick look on -ftp channel logs
can show signs of dak sadness).

But anyway, I don't see any added value of discussing what I find useful
and what you find useful :)
>This does not match my observations of reality. People seem happy to
>behave quite badly using their own names in public fora as it is.
>Making IRC channels public is unlikely to have much effect on
>behaviour.


completely correct, this was an answer to some "hey we can't public
logs because people are using bad words here".
>If it did, nobody would be an ass on Facebook, Google+, or Twitter
>unless they've taken care to hide their identity well. Yet people are
>posting, using their real names, sexist and racist slurs, even death
>threats. Not to mention newspapers and TV.


sigh, true, unfortunately nobody seems responsible anymore for
his behaviour.

>If there's a problem with how people behave on IRC, that should be
>addressed directly.


sure, but this is not something I have to discuss, I don't have such
problem, I just think logs are useful :)

>> You want to protect privacy but you know privacy doesn't exist on
>> public places.
>I disgree strongly.
>
>If I sit on a park bench with a friend and we discuss something, we
>have an expectation of privacy. If you record our conversation and
>play it on the radio, you've violated our privacy.


true
>> (it would be nice if some removed developer going away after some
>> bad flame war over Debian would publish *all* the logs just for fun)
>> How will you protect the privacy then?
>
>You're suggesting that someone publish non-public discussions? Becuase
>it would be fun? Seriously?


I didn't suggest that, but privacy online is seriously something that
*doesn't* exist, and people not understanding that are simply wrong.
you can have some false idea of privacy online, the website gets
hacked, or a bug shows logs on the server, or somebody else hacks
your pc.
In a park the damage you can do is limited, online is really worse the situation

(I remember some leaks of some websites for adults, leaking real email addresses
and real passwords)


so, saying "somebody violating my privacy is wrong", when "somebody" can be "null" or
"really difficult to track because vpn/tor", doesn't protect you much more.
>> People should be responsible for what they say, regardless where
>> they say. We are not kids anymore.
>I'll be sending a handyman to install a webcam and microphone in your
>bathroom and bedroom. I've also engaged a private investigator firm to
>follow you and record all discussions you have with friends. The ones
>that mention or refer to Debian will be posted to
>meetings-archive.debian.net. A team of volunteers will transcribe them
>and post them to identi.ca. After all, ýou need to be responsible for
>anything you say, at any time, in any place, in any context.


well, bathroom and bedroom are more private than irc I would say, but
sometimes even the context has to be considered when saying something

>More constructively... if you have a point that specific disucssions
>about, say, release management should be made more public, then make a
>specific suggestion about that, with justificiations why it's a good
>idea. Saying that all Debian IRC channels should be logged publically
>is too broad to be acceptable to a large number of people.


And finally the point is there.
If you look closely to my first email I never said "all", and specially
I don't care about many channels (even -devel or -mentors might be useless
when not connected to the internet).
I even provided a list, -release, -ftp, -buildd.

so, the question still stands.
Dear DPL candidate, how do you feel about having *some* irc channels of public
interest being available for offline users?

Gianfranco

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#9104

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Fri, Apr 07, 2017 at 02:21:10PM +0000, Gianfranco Costamagna wrote:
> I didn't suggest that, but privacy online is seriously something that
> *doesn't* exist, and people not understanding that are simply wrong.

I disagree strongly with this statement.

Privacy isn't a boolean thing. It's not something that's "on" or "off".
It is, instead, something that has many facets; you can have more
privacy and less privacy relative to another forum at the same time.

For example, when I send an email to another developer's personal email,
my expectation of privacy is not the same as when I send it to
debian-private, whose privacy is different from when I send it to a
publically-archived mailinglist of a particular team that I'm part of,
which in turn has different privacy levels from debian-devel, and that
in turn is different from the very public forum of
debian-devel-announce.

It is true that privacy on the Internet is generally at a low level;
when I say something online, there is always the chance that someone
records that statement without my knowledge, and publishes it somewhere
else. In that sense, you are correct that the general level of privacy
online is lower than it is in life in general. But to go from there to
say that there is absolutely no privacy online is a bridge too far.

When I make a statement on IRC, I do it in the understanding that I'm,
generally, talking to the people who are on IRC at that point in time.
I'm not talking to the Internet as a whole. Yes, I do understand that
sometimes people might log IRC channels (if nothing else, because I do
so myself), and yes, if meetbot (or some similar program) is active,
that does mean that logs will be publically archived. However, even so,
it is reasonable to assume that what you say on IRC usually stays on
IRC.

Your argument that some information on IRC might be useful does hold
some merit, however, but then going from there to "let's publically
archive all IRC channels" is overdoing it, IMO. Instead, I would suggest
that one of the following is done:

- Encourage people to not make information public exclusively on IRC.
  Debian does mailinglists as its primary mode of communication, so
  everything that really matters is done on mailinglists.
- If some team prefers to use IRC over mailinglists, then rather than
  going "let's make everything public because there might be something
  useful in there, see xyz", just make those team's channels be public.

Thanks,

-- 
< ron> I mean, the main *practical* problem with C++, is there's like a dozen
       people in the world who think they really understand all of its rules,
       and pretty much all of them are just lying to themselves too.
 -- #debian-devel, OFTC, 2016-02-12

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#9108

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Sat, Apr 08, 2017 at 09:08:55AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 07, 2017 at 02:21:10PM +0000, Gianfranco Costamagna wrote:
> > I didn't suggest that, but privacy online is seriously something that
> > *doesn't* exist, and people not understanding that are simply wrong.
> 
> I disagree strongly with this statement.
> 
> Privacy isn't a boolean thing. It's not something that's "on" or "off".
> It is, instead, something that has many facets; you can have more
> privacy and less privacy relative to another forum at the same time.
 
thanks for this mail, Wouter. I completly agree, also with the non quoted parts.


-- 
cheers,
	Holger

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#9109

Hello Wouter!

>> I didn't suggest that, but privacy online is seriously something that
>> *doesn't* exist, and people not understanding that are simply wrong.
>
>I disagree strongly with this statement.


the main sadness comes to a lot of friends, sharing on "private/semi public places"
a lots of private pictures, without understanding the damage that they might
receive in case of leaks.

saying "I told you" doesn't help fixing the problem, after a leak has been done
there is nothing left to do to repair it.

being aware of that is the most important thing, and there is nothing to leak when
something is public :)


[ interesting privacy definition ]

>Your argument that some information on IRC might be useful does hold
>some merit, however, but then going from there to "let's publically
>archive all IRC channels" is overdoing it, IMO. Instead, I would suggest
>that one of the following is done:
>
>- Encourage people to not make information public exclusively on IRC.
>  Debian does mailinglists as its primary mode of communication, so
>  everything that really matters is done on mailinglists.
>- If some team prefers to use IRC over mailinglists, then rather than
>  going "let's make everything public because there might be something
>  useful in there, see xyz", just make those team's channels be public.


I don't think I ever requested to have everything public, as said many
times, 3-4 channes should be enough.
I might add #-mentors, where a lot of nice packaging stuff is said,
and should probably made available to google search engine
(as -mentors mail list does).

Newcomers questions/answers are a great value for other people facing
same issues, would be nice to not loose all the answers there.

G.

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#9110

Hi!

Gianfranco Costamagna:
>>> I didn't suggest that, but privacy online is seriously something that
>>> *doesn't* exist, and people not understanding that are simply wrong.

I completely agree with Wouter. Well said.

>> Your argument that some information on IRC might be useful does hold
>> some merit, however, but then going from there to "let's publically
>> archive all IRC channels" is overdoing it, IMO. Instead, I would suggest
>> that one of the following is done:
>>
>> - Encourage people to not make information public exclusively on IRC.
>>  Debian does mailinglists as its primary mode of communication, so
>>  everything that really matters is done on mailinglists.

Ack.

>> - If some team prefers to use IRC over mailinglists, then rather than
>>  going "let's make everything public because there might be something
>>  useful in there, see xyz", just make those team's channels be public.

> I don't think I ever requested to have everything public, as said many
> times, 3-4 channes should be enough.
> I might add #-mentors, where a lot of nice packaging stuff is said,
> and should probably made available to google search engine
> (as -mentors mail list does).
> 
> Newcomers questions/answers are a great value for other people facing
> same issues, would be nice to not loose all the answers there.

I think that your idea to make such information public is praiseworthy.

However, are raw logs really the right way to do so? IMO, the signal to
noise ratio is much too low (see links provided by pabs) and it would be
a better idea to work on improving the Debian wiki pages instead. This
would also allow for a constant and collective improvement of such
information.

Debian certainly lacks such documentation, but it's definitely not by
throwing all kinds of unordered textual data into a search engine that
we will improve this situation on the long term. (Let alone privacy
concerns.)

I think we|you|me|everybody should instead sit down one afternoon and
get important information out of our brains or IRC channels into a human
readable format on the Debian wiki. That would be a true service and
help get more people to contribute to Debian.

Cheers,
ulrike

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#9111

Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org> writes:

> the main sadness comes to a lot of friends, sharing on "private/semi
> public places" a lots of private pictures, without understanding the
> damage that they might receive in case of leaks.

> saying "I told you" doesn't help fixing the problem, after a leak has
> been done there is nothing left to do to repair it.

> being aware of that is the most important thing, and there is nothing to
> leak when something is public :)

This is indeed a real problem, but the solution to this problem is not to
further erode what remaining privacy we have.  It's to find ways to
rebuild privacy using technical and social means, because privacy is a
necessary human right, while continuing to give people pragmatic and
cautionary information about the frequent violations of that right.

I'm frustrated by how we occasionally seem willing to give up on privacy
just because it's hard and is currently under attack.  We don't do that
with other human rights, and we shouldn't do that with this one.  For
example, it's equally true that criminal justice is hard, and often people
only get the justice that they can pay for, but we don't then conclude
that we should teach people to assume the police are useless and should
never be contacted, that crimes should not be reported because it's
pointless, and we should instead take private revenge against criminals.
Instead, we try to mix pragmatic cautions with an attempt to fix the
system and blunt its worst abuses, with an understanding that we *need* a
functional criminal justice system to be a civilized society.

This means we live in a world of complicated tradeoffs and cautious,
fraught decisions rather than in a world of clear black-and-white options.
But, well, that's reality.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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#9105

On Fri, Apr 7, 2017 at 10:21 PM, Gianfranco Costamagna wrote:

> having *some* irc channels of public interest being available for offline users?

FYI, #debian on both OFTC and freenode are publicly logged:

http://ibot.rikers.org/%23debian/
http://irclogs.thegrebs.com/debian/

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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#9106

On 07/04/2017 16:21, Gianfranco Costamagna wrote:
> (this question was on debian-vote by purpose, and was directed to DPL,
> I'll drop -vote on the next email)
> 
>> (Replies redirected to debian-project, since this has nothing to do
>> with the DPL election anymore.)
> 
> 
> sigh, I agree
> (I would have used -devel to have a public discussion, this wasn't
> the case, but meh, it is nice to discuss such things anyway)
> 
>> I guestion the usefulness of IRC logs for that kind of thing. The log
>> shows that, say, a package was discussed three hours ago. Has the
>> situation changed? It might have, but without anyone mentioning it on
>> IRC, and therefor in the log. The kinds of things that are discussed
>> on IRC tend be quickly changing. Logs are not useful for those. In my
>> opinion and experience.
> 
> 
> I had many times written something just some minutes after somebody else.
> You might question it, I might agree with you, but in my life I have a lot
> of use-cases of this being useful
> (e.g. my uploads not being accepted, a quick look on -ftp channel logs
> can show signs of dak sadness).
> 
> But anyway, I don't see any added value of discussing what I find useful
> and what you find useful :)
>> This does not match my observations of reality. People seem happy to
>> behave quite badly using their own names in public fora as it is.
>> Making IRC channels public is unlikely to have much effect on
>> behaviour.
> 
> 
> completely correct, this was an answer to some "hey we can't public
> logs because people are using bad words here".
>> If it did, nobody would be an ass on Facebook, Google+, or Twitter
>> unless they've taken care to hide their identity well. Yet people are
>> posting, using their real names, sexist and racist slurs, even death
>> threats. Not to mention newspapers and TV.
> 
> 
> sigh, true, unfortunately nobody seems responsible anymore for
> his behaviour.
> 
>> If there's a problem with how people behave on IRC, that should be
>> addressed directly.
> 
> 
> sure, but this is not something I have to discuss, I don't have such
> problem, I just think logs are useful :)
> 
>>> You want to protect privacy but you know privacy doesn't exist on
>>> public places.
>> I disgree strongly.
>>
>> If I sit on a park bench with a friend and we discuss something, we
>> have an expectation of privacy. If you record our conversation and
>> play it on the radio, you've violated our privacy.
> 
> 
> true
>>> (it would be nice if some removed developer going away after some
>>> bad flame war over Debian would publish *all* the logs just for fun)
>>> How will you protect the privacy then?
>>
>> You're suggesting that someone publish non-public discussions? Becuase
>> it would be fun? Seriously?
> 
> 
> I didn't suggest that, but privacy online is seriously something that
> *doesn't* exist, and people not understanding that are simply wrong.
> you can have some false idea of privacy online, the website gets
> hacked, or a bug shows logs on the server, or somebody else hacks
> your pc.
> In a park the damage you can do is limited, online is really worse the situation
> 
> (I remember some leaks of some websites for adults, leaking real email addresses
> and real passwords)
> 
> 
> so, saying "somebody violating my privacy is wrong", when "somebody" can be "null" or
> "really difficult to track because vpn/tor", doesn't protect you much more.
>>> People should be responsible for what they say, regardless where
>>> they say. We are not kids anymore.
>> I'll be sending a handyman to install a webcam and microphone in your
>> bathroom and bedroom. I've also engaged a private investigator firm to
>> follow you and record all discussions you have with friends. The ones
>> that mention or refer to Debian will be posted to
>> meetings-archive.debian.net. A team of volunteers will transcribe them
>> and post them to identi.ca. After all, ýou need to be responsible for
>> anything you say, at any time, in any place, in any context.
> 
> 
> well, bathroom and bedroom are more private than irc I would say, but
> sometimes even the context has to be considered when saying something
> 
>> More constructively... if you have a point that specific disucssions
>> about, say, release management should be made more public, then make a
>> specific suggestion about that, with justificiations why it's a good
>> idea. Saying that all Debian IRC channels should be logged publically
>> is too broad to be acceptable to a large number of people.
> 
> 
> And finally the point is there.
> If you look closely to my first email I never said "all", and specially
> I don't care about many channels (even -devel or -mentors might be useless
> when not connected to the internet).
> I even provided a list, -release, -ftp, -buildd.
> 
> so, the question still stands.
> Dear DPL candidate, how do you feel about having *some* irc channels of public
> interest being available for offline users?
> 

I feel bad about that. As explained elsewhere, it is not the spirit of
usage of IRC, at least in Debian. But ultimately, I think it is a project
decision if (for example) we want to make a #debian-recorded channel but
I would not support it, personally.

There are simple technical measures that you could personally put in place
to follow some channels.

-- 
Mehdi

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