“If this turns into a nun’s bar, I’m outta here”

best line from 1992 Sister Act staring Whoopi Goldberg, and it is no small coincidence that the bar scene was filmed at The Black Cat

ttps://www.theblackcatla.com/history/

I can't believe I, of all people am saying this, but this is so far from the topic that even I feel like I should say something LOL.

I don't condemn this, because I too am guilty of this, but just going to say, you know who might respond.

here are just a few links for your enjoyment:
(will take most of a day to slog through the videos as well as the articles/links/commentaries/etc)

zeitgeist links:
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrHeg77LF4Y
ttps://archive.org/details/zeitgeist_movie
ttps://zeitgeistmovie.com/about/
ttps://zeitgeistmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ZeitgeistThe-MovieCompanionGuidePDF.pdf

kudos to @boughtonp for this one:
ttps://www.100-geek.net/articles/the_greatest_speech_ever_made

america freedom to fascism:
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub2isy55aPI

JFK to 911 - Everything Is A Rich Man's Trick:
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqxq03izxrQ

I,pet goat II full original version:
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XBK2xDEcX0

blackrock, vanguard, and state street buying up real estate of all types(businesses/farms/residential/etc):
ttps://businessandfinances.com/2023/09/investment-giants-buying-americas-homes-blackrock-vanguard-state-street/
ttps://theconversation.com/these-three-firms-own-corporate-america-77072
ttps://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/biggest-antitrust-story-youve-never-heard
ttps://grantvandyke.com/reshaping-the-american-dream-how-blackrock-vanguard-and-state-streets-dominance-is-transforming-homeownership/

welcome to the matrix

zephyr wrote:

Imagine it is in other apps, these two I'm aware of and don't use.

cheers

zephyr

It's been around the block for a while....

https://i.ibb.co/BrWJCgT/image.png

And in 2009 it was GNOME Zeitgeist. 13 years old at minimum, and still active.

That image says it all.

Gnome, KDE and Ubuntu use it, which is an automatic bad sign, given its other problems.

Always examine anything that the eye candy Desktop Environments or Window Managers if they require dbus, polkit, systemd, networkmanager, pulseaudio, pipewire, or zeitgiest...

The dbus part is probably on the lower end of that list as far as most are concerned, but the others, especially systemd and zeitgeist, are just, no.

Essentially, its an open source spyware.

As far as I know...

Notice btw,  one of the words rhymes with heist.

This is very appropriate on many levels.

...I'm not sure what all of this is about, but then again...I don't care. HAHAHAHA!!!

I'll exit the conversation now. Sorry for the intrusion...but I'm happy.

Not to contradict you or wanting to polemise any further, but I'd say that depends heavily on the what for aspect.

Some brillantly written worms and trojans will also fit into the "useful piece of software" slot. 
But ...

... you would have a very secure and properly segmented/firewalled network with strictly vetted users with assigned security clearances on a per case basis.

You do not need to have zeitgeist installed to have highly secure multi-user system.

But while I can understand your point of view, I don't agree with it and insist:

There's no need for zeitgeist to be in any Linux repository, much less Devuan's.

So let's agree to disagree. 8^)

Best,

A.

The point being that a package such as this one does not have a place or reason to be in any Linux repository.
Much less in Devuan's repositories.

Of course it has a reason. It is a useful piece of software. If I was administrating a highly secure multi-user system I would want to keep a very close check on what my users were doing. The same goes for my teenage grandchild — I am very tempted to install Zeitgeist on their box to aid safekeeping.

I think you are missing the point.
By a mile or so.

Yes, as of today.

As you can surely gather, that list can change and expand to a great many other packages within the Linux ecosystem.
Very quickly.

I beg to differ.
The point being that a package such as this one does not have a place or reason to be in any Linux repository.
Much less in Devuan's repositories.

In the same way that Wednesday night's sushi has no place or reason to be in your refrigerator because you expect no one will eat it.
Or will try to find the receipt from the delivery chap to see when it was purchased/delivered before taking a bite and getting scombroid poisoning.

Thanks for the heads-up.  8^)
But until pungentweasel posted his warning and you posted this list, here at Dev1 no one knew all this was happening.

As well as most if not all Linux users who installed budgie, cairo-dock, diodon etc. and ignored this fact.
Unless they read your post or done the research to find out.

ie: find out that this crap was being pulled in when they installed their chosen xxyyzz application.

Which is something that a Linux user should not have to do when they install an application from a trusted source such as their distribution's repository.

Why?
Because (up to yesterday) no one in their right mind would have thought that a Linux repository would have this crap available for installation.

Done.
Thanks.  8^)

Note to devs:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please consider banning zeitgeist from the Devuan repository.

Consequently, any application that requires zeitgeist to be installed to work properly should be sanitized just like any application that needs systemd to be present but can work without it.

And if it cannot be sanitized, it should also be banned.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Best,

A.

pakcage

Tee Hee...

There's a software package called Zeitgeist [...] It reads your emails, it monitors the websites you visit, listens to private conversations, and logs the files on your computer.. and then it shares this information freely over D-Bus to any application that wishes to use it.  You are given no warning and have no option to say which software can access it, and which can't.  Any software can access D-bus, including closed-source software like Discord or Telegram (whether they do or not, who knows)

So don't install it then.

The zeitgeist package is not installed by default in any of the desktop environments and it won't work properly in bare window manager desktops so this seems to be a complete non-issue.

Here is a list of the packages which will pull in zeitgeist:

$ aptitude search ~Dzeitgeist
p  budgie-applications-menu-applet - Stylish Applications Menu for Budgie-Desktop
p  cairo-dock-recent-events-plug-in - Recent events plug-in for Cairo-dock
p  diodon - GTK+ Clipboard manager
p  gir1.2-zeitgeist-2.0 - library to access Zeitgeist - GObject introspection data
p  gnome-activity-journal - graphical user interface for Zeitgeist
p  libdiodon0 - GTK+ Clipboard manager (main library)
p  liblomiri-app-launch0 - library for sending requests to Lomiri App Launch
p  libzeitgeist-2.0-dev - library to access Zeitgeist - development files
p  libzeitgeist-cil-dev - CLI bindings for Zeitgeist Project - development files
p  lomiri-app-launch - User space daemon for launching applications
p  lomiri-app-launch-tools - Tools for working wtih launched applications
p  python3-zeitgeist - event logging framework - Python 3 bindings
p  synapse - semantic file launcher
p  zeitgeist - event logging framework
p  zeitgeist-core - event logging framework - engine
p  zeitgeist-datahub - event logging framework - passive logging daemon
$

So unless any of those packages are installed zeitgeist will not be present.

Any tinfoil consumers can use this file at /etc/apt/preferences.d/stop-zeitgeist:

Package: zeitgeist*
Pin: version *
Pin-Priority: -1

^ That will stop any zeitgeist packages from ever being installed.

If the zeitgeist pakcage is installed then this file at ~/.config/autostart/zeitgeist-datahub.desktop will stop zeitgeist-datahub from starting in full desktop environments:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Zeitgeist Datahub
Comment=Start the Zeitgeist Datahub for passive loggers
Exec=zeitgeist-datahub
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Hidden=true

The zeitgeist services can be masked with

systemctl --user mask zeitgeist{,-fts}

Masking a service under systemd means it can never be started, even if called by DBus or another service. Debian packages will never run unmask, even for system services, and certainly not for user services, so that modification would be permanent.

The bad news is that sysvinit/runit/s6/OpenRC can't do masking, they have no concept of that very useful feature.

EDIT: spelling, removed misinformation.

Yes, I agree.

But it would seem that it skipped both Debian and Devuan devs.
And the devs of other distributions that have it.

Then any other package that depends on it should also be banned from Devuan.
I cannot stress this enough:

                                                   ----> This is not an issue to be taken lightly <----

It is an infection which has actually originated from inside the Linux ecosystem.
Unbelievable.

An infection that, in my opinion, has taken root thanks to the slow but constant erosion of the basic principles Linux was built on.

ie: Do one thing and do it well

Get the point I am attempting to make above?
Integration? Then off with it's ugly head, I say.

Integration is nothing but the negation of the Unix/Linux philosophy as put forth by Doug McIlroy et al.
Has the widespread implementation of systemd not raised enough flags yet?

Indeed.
So am I.
Very (very) much so.

Best,

A.

Imagine it is in other apps, these two I'm aware of and don't use.

cheers

zephyr

It's been around the block for a while....

And in 2009 it was GNOME Zeitgeist. 13 years old at minimum, and still active.

Also, Synapse has always had it, back to the before Devuan with Debian

Imagine it is in other apps, these two I'm aware of and don't use.

cheers

zephyr