MailScanner- tracking downlaods - a cautionary note

[Scott Silva]

on 10/3/2007 1:51 AM Quentin Campbell spake the following:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info [mailto:mailscanner-
>> bounces at lists.mailscanner.info] On Behalf Of shuttlebox
>> Sent: 03 October 2007 09:20
>> To: MailScanner discussion
>> Subject: Re: MailScanner- tracking downlaods - a cautionary note
>>
>> On 10/3/07, Quentin Campbell <Q.G.Campbell at newcastle.ac.uk> wrote:
>>> Scott Silva said:
>>>
>>>>> Jules
>>>> You can always add some sort of "phone home with permission" type of
>>>> thing to keep track of the installed base. Maybe something that
> sends
>>> back OS and
>>>> maybe a randomly generated and locally stored signature. That way
> you
>>>> would get a better idea of how many mailscanners are out there.
>>>> Any body who is very paranoid could opt out.
>>> Julian
>>>
>>> If you chose to go down that route please be open and public about it
>>> and ensure every downloader is fully aware that MailScanner will send
>>> back info about usage to you.
>> Wasn't this meant as a harmless way of tracking MS usage? It's very
>> open and anyone can replace it to their liking.
> 
> No, what Scott Silva was suggesting, as I understood it, is quite
> different to a web bug. The suggested facility might send info about the
> server name/address, OS type, product being run, date/time, etc to a
> remote server of Julian's. 
> 
> The facility used by Anthony Howe sends some of the above info back to a
> remote server every time his software is started on a host. In his case
> it simply provides enough info to enable the licencee to check that the
> use of the product is licenced and in this regard has a different
> purpose to that which was suggested by Scott.
> 
> Quentin
I had more of a suggestion to only run once, on a fresh install, and ask 
permission first. Maybe even ask permission if it could run again after an 
upgrade. I don't have a problem if it basically sends the OS, and some type of 
hash against maybe MAC address just to make unique info.

Then Julian could have a nice page showing X number of copies on FreeBSD, X 
number on Linux , and so on with solaris and the other BSD's.
Maybe even more detail so people could see what OS choices are most popular 
with the MailScanner crowd.
At a minimum, he could have "x million copies running worldwide!" with a 
better estimate than how many copies downloaded.
I personally only download one copy and push it to all my servers so download 
statistics aren't real accurate.


-- 
MailScanner is like deodorant...
You hope everybody uses it, and
you notice quickly if they don't!!!!