Comment 176 for bug 1054776

I've alwys suspected the sort of thing the Snowden documents on PRISM, etc prove. That's why I removed Unity when this issue came up. It was replaced in my backup DE list with a Cairo-dock/Compiz session. For my main DE I use Cinnamon, but Unity with all scopes removed MIGHT be safe. Trouble is, for the sort of folks I distribute computers to I cannot take a chance and cannot distribute an OS known to put local activity of ANY type on a network.

I consider all online scopes to be a threat, as combining local with online searches could enable the NSA over time to figure out the content of your filesystem. Also, if ever the NSA finds and exploits a vulnerability in a scope, that would be an obvious target for exploitation, as the dock already talks to the network, and already lists files. Therefore, it is in the same category as installing a webserver in a machine that will never be used as a webserver: unused exploitable software that talks to the network. This does not require any malicious intent by Canonical, only malicious intent by the NSA or any other attacker.

Therefore, I now do not distribute Ubuntu's main distro. 12.04 and earlier are safe but getting old fast-and if someone updates 12.04 to a new version and does so with Ubuntu-Desktop installed I don't know if they get the scopes. As of now, if not distributing my own private fork, I give out either Mint or UbuntuStudio, the former with Cinnamon or MATE, the latter with XFCE.