Google IS listening: Binary blob banished from Chromium build New Chromium builds will no longer download/install the Hotword Shared Module and will automatically remove the module on startup if it was previously installed. A closed-source and binary-only kernel module caused a fair fuss when it was found inveigling its way into the very much open-source Chromium. Thanking the community …
"Builds of Google Chrome will still download this module by default. It will not be activated unless the user explicitly flips a preference to do so."
Hmm... Listening to WHOM?
There's this little button labelled in black on a black background, which, if you press it, ignoring the clear warnings in the execute only file called beware of the leopard in the locked directory...
So just possibly I'm being awfully paranoid and frightfully unfair, but no real change then I presume.
"Which is the right thing to do.
Keeps the openistas happy and everything continues to work as is for Joe Public, who doesn't give a rat's arse about this sort of thing and also makes up 99+% of the user base."
I agree. Send them all to the gas chambers now. Eugenics is wasted on them.
I'm certain it's not a "kernel module"
Just because the term "kernel module" is widely used to refer to packaged software used to extend the Linux OS, that doesn't mean it's the only usage.
When you're developing software that runs on multiple platforms, it's usually structured around "core" and "edge" code. Core is the stuff that can be portably developed and simply shared across all platforms, and the edge is the stuff that has to be platform specific.
For example, with Chrome, the code that parses URLs and validates SSL certificates could be "core", and the installer would be "edge".
The actual voice recognition would also be considered "core", although the means by which the audio was acquired from the microphone would be "edge".
Another term for a "core" module might be a "kernel" module, since it's in the middle of the software.
When this story broke (in the Independent; I didn't see any mention in The Reg) I checked my Chromium installation and found it was an earlier version which didn't install the voice search extension. Good.
However, it had silently downloaded and installed Google Wallet under my user profile.
That's basically where things stand now. The code is still there, just not "enabled", and of course like every other feature can be re-enabled in at least two ways: from the user interface and in the background by hacking the config behind it without user intervention. Come on, that just moves it from Spyware to Spyware Development Kit, with the difficulty of the development part reduced to almost nothing. But what did anyone expect? Spying on its users is an essential part of Google's business model. The only good news here is that the public availability of Chromium's source code made it inevitable that this feature would be spotted.
Misusing the term "kernel" in a tech publication is of course inexcusable, but I suppose there must be some kind of shortage of writers and editors with a serious technical background. That's the only explanation that makes sense to me.
I do not give a flying fuck about anyone else's definition about what Chrome or Chromium might be or a discussion about Java, JavaScript... NaCl?
All I know is that 100% of people I know, as Johnny No Mates but excluding myself, have the Chrome Browser lurking on their computers along with the Ask Toolbar and that thing that lets 'Indians' log in remotely to bugger things up even more.
Dear Google. Fuck Off.
"Just because the term "kernel module" is widely used to refer to packaged software used to extend the Linux OS, that doesn't mean it's the only usage."
Well, I use it to refer to the little .ko files (whether packaged or not...) that can be loaded into the Linux kernel. Other OSes do have these... *BSD has modules, OSX has them but calls them kernel extensions. I'd go so far as to say it IS the only correct usage, computer science does give certain terms a pretty limited and precise meaning to avoid confusion. If someone decided to call some add-ons "kernel modules" I'd point out that term has a precise usage and they should call them something else.
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