Arjen, Mathias, On Monday 18 July 2005 03:24, Arjen de Korte wrote:
"Since the behaviour of (software product XYZ) since the introduction of its latest version, namely the talkback functions which notify unknown third parties every time the user opens a document, might be illegal under german law, we're forced to drop (software product XYZ) from our linux distribution until further notice, especially since there are other products which are as capable, and do'nt do illegal things."
That would annoy me, though I'd just get the software some other way.
Along the same track, do you think that browsers that support JavaScript are outlawed in Germany too? Acroread 7 is not doing the callback, it is the embedded JavaScript in the document that is. A document without such code will not make a callback. So in the best case, documents with embedded JavaScript that provide callbacks might be outlawed, but you and I know that this aint gonna happen on a global scale.
I accept this sort of responsibility, though not entirely happily, especially when the default is to enable the tattletale capability. And sometimes, as in this case, the risk goes unnoticed for an extended period, but I suppose that's just a gap in my due diligence. I run RealPlayer, e.g., but not without first locking it down to prevent most of its reporting functions. The only problem I have with Adobe Reader 7 (it's proper name) is the fact that once you disable JavaScript it bugs you every time you shut it down that "The current document contains JavaScripts (sic). Do you want to enable JavaScripts from now on? The document may not behave correctly if they're disabled." It does this even if you don't open a document (perhaps it refers to an internal document that is implicitly or invisibly opened whenever Reader starts up).
If you don't like the possibility that Acroread calls back, either don't install it or take measures against it to connect to the outside world. If you Google around for a while you will see many suggestions on how to accomplish that.
Agreed.
Arjen
Randall Schulz