Comment 47 for bug 48734

Sorry but the decision still doesn't make any sense to me.
I have to change the default permissions on every installation which is indeed *not* usability friendly.

Besides that the public-dir would be perfect for this (wouldn't it be possible to symlink public to a directory outside of users home and so leave it accessible for everyone?): I never ever intenionally shared files between home-dirs.
Addionally I have to add that I even talked with many colleagues and friends for this "feature" and (surprise surprise) they also don't use this "feature".

But many people doesn't know that a default ubuntu-installation behaves like this. And this is the real danger.
If you want a proof you can find many more people in the web who where negative surprised (besides the ones in this bug-ticket).
Wether in ubuntu forums, askubuntu.com, blogs or here on launchpad: obviously no one is expecting that.

And even IF Colin Watson amazingly really have more cases with public read access than private access then it should be at least decidable by the user (as mentioned by himself in #8). And I don't mean by /etc/adduser.conf but in the GUI (ie an checkbox in usermanagement wether the home-dir should be readable and/or a checkbox on the installer).

Furthermore like David Henningsson already said: if you have even a public dir wouldn't it be intuitive to expect that the other directories and files aren't public?

I totally agree with aysiu what the defaults should like and I also think like flaccid that even IF somewant WANTS to share his home-dir it is the worst idea to share files. There are thousands of possibilities but sharing the whole home directory should be the default?

Marc Deslauriers even if every tool which stores the permissions correct: as long as the user doesn't knows that his files are visible it is still an terrible issue - isn't it? If the user manages his files which leads to unintentinally public data there is definitely a need to improve something.

It was a phantastic step to offer simple solutions for encrypting the whole disk, home- or private-dir. But even if I have a fresh installation with an encrypted disk and I prohibited booting from usb or networking there could be a case like this:
I am booting the system (type the passphrase) and leaving the room for a moment than someone could login to the (default-activated?) guest login and steal my data. In this case the attacker needs nearly nothing for getting everything.
And even in "smaller" circles when family members share accounts on one computer they mostly expect their home dir is their little home - including a little amount of privacy.

And to complete the analogy in "real life". See the home-dir like a real home with your own room. Inner-flat doors are often lockable even if you know that these locks give just a low-level-security.

For a project which claims to listen to their customers: with all due respect but nobody seems to really listen here (or on ubuntu forums, askubuntu, …) while they are good reasons mentioned for a meaningful revision.

So Mark Shuttleworth: No facts or circumstances changed, because there are still many people who think that the default is wrong, but is that really not a reason enough?

Or make a poll and ask them at least.