Indicator Date and Time

Don't use geoclue if "show-auto-detected-location" is set to false

Bug #1074999 reported by Charles Kerr on 2012-11-04

This bug affects 11 people

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	Indicator Date and Time	Fix Released	Medium	Charles Kerr	Indicator Date and Time 13.04.0
	indicator-datetime (Ubuntu)	Fix Released	Medium	Unassigned

Bug Description

This bug is split off from an "umbrella" Bug #944251 which discusses various network connections made by various applications.

There are two reasons to not use geoclue until the user's specified it in the "show-auto-detected-location" settings:

(1) In the Nov 2012 UDS session on eliminating unnecessary startup memory/performance hits on the Nexus 7, we discussed deferring indicator-datetime's invocation of geoclue until it's actually needed, such as when datetime's menu is about to show.

(2) Several users perceive datetime's use of geoclue/geoip as a breach of privacy. (See bug #944251, http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2000108, http://askubuntu.com/questions/106916/how-do-i-stop-geoip-from-connecting-to-the-internet-every-time-i-boot)

Inspecting the code though, it seems that the geoclue code all boils down to setting the "geo_timezone" variable for use in update_location_menu_items(). There, we build a menuitem for the geo_timezone which is only shown if com.canonical.indicator.datetime.show-auto-detected-location is true.

So, indicator-datetime could avoid unnecessary startup overhead -- and please privacy-minded users -- by deferring use of geoclue until/unless the user enables the "In the clock's menu, show time in the auto-detected location" checkbox.

See original description

Tags:

Related branches

lp:~charlesk/indicator-datetime/lp-1074999

Merged into lp:indicator-datetime/13.04 at revision 194

PS Jenkins bot (community): Needs Fixing (continuous-integration) on 2012-11-05

Lars Karlitski (community): Approve on 2012-11-05

lp:~cyphermox/indicator-datetime/bootstrap

Merged into lp:indicator-datetime/13.04 at revision 198

Charles Kerr (community): Approve on 2012-11-19

PS Jenkins bot (community): Approve (continuous-integration) on 2012-11-19

Charles Kerr (charlesk) on 2012-11-04

summary:	- Don't ping geoclue server if show-auto-detected-location is false + Don't use geoclue if show-auto-detected-location is false
summary:	- Don't use geoclue if show-auto-detected-location is false + Don't use geoclue if "show-auto-detected-location" is set to false
Changed in indicator-datetime:
status:	Triaged → In Progress

Charles Kerr (charlesk) on 2012-11-04

description:	updated
description:	updated

Revision history for this message

Charles Kerr (charlesk) wrote on 2012-11-05:

After starting a Unity session with lp:~charlesk/indicator-datetime/lp-1074999 and "Time & Date Settings > Clock > Show Time in auto-detected location" set to false (which is the default value):

> $ ps -ef | grep geo
> charles 30147 8553 0 19:05 tty2 00:00:00 grep --color=auto geo

Then after setting autodetect to true and restarting Unity:

> $ ps -ef | grep geo
> charles 30255 1 0 19:05 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/geoclue/geoclue-master
> charles 30271 1 0 19:05 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/ubuntu-geoip/ubuntu-geoip-provider
> charles 30549 8553 0 19:05 tty2 00:00:00 grep --color=auto geo

Charles Kerr (charlesk) on 2012-11-05

description:

updated

PS Jenkins bot (ps-jenkins) on 2012-11-05

Changed in indicator-datetime:
status:	In Progress → Fix Committed

Alex Chiang (achiang) on 2012-11-05

tags:	added: mobile
tags:	added: nexus7
no longer affects:	ubuntu-nexus7

Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) on 2012-11-19

Changed in indicator-datetime (Ubuntu):
status:	New → Fix Committed
status:	Fix Committed → Confirmed
importance:	Undecided → Medium

Revision history for this message

Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote on 2012-11-23:

This bug was fixed in the package indicator-datetime - 12.10.3daily12.11.23-0ubuntu1

---------------
indicator-datetime (12.10.3daily12.11.23-0ubuntu1) raring; urgency=low

  [ Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre ]
  * Automatic snapshot from revision 197 (bootstrap):
    - Add scaffolding for Google Tests. (LP: #985060)
    - Add "check-news" to our AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE() call. (LP: #1075753)
    - Don't use geoclue until the user clicks the "Show time in auto-detected
      location" checkbox. (LP: #1074999)
    - Remove stray semicolon found by Coverity. (LP: #1064546)
  * debian/control:
    - Update to follow style like other indicator packages: use trailing commas
      at the end of lists.
    - Reorganize Build-Depends for clarity.
    - Drop Build-Depends on cdbs, bump debhelper to (>= 9).
    - Update Vcs-Bzr and Vcs-Browser, add a notice for uploaders.
    - Add gnome-common to Build-Depends.
    - Add libxorg-gtest-dev, libgtest-dev to Build-Depends.
  * debian/compat: bump compat level to 9.
  * debian/rules:
    - Switch to using the dh sequencer instead of cdbs rules, adjust targets
      accordingly.
    - Override dh_autoreconf to make it use autogen.sh from upstream.

  [ Didier Roche ]
  * debian/copyright:
    - Update the copyright

  [ Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre ]
  * Don't use geoclue if "show-auto-detected-location" is set to false
    (LP: #1074999)
  * Add check-news to indicators' AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE rules (LP: #1075753)
  * Add Google Test to projects lacking test suites (LP: #985060)
  * Stray semicolon in datetime-prefs (LP: #1064546)

[ Automatic PS uploader ]
* Automatic snapshot from revision 199
-- Automatic PS uploader <email address hidden> Fri, 23 Nov 2012 07:39:58 +0000

Changed in indicator-datetime (Ubuntu):
status:	Confirmed → Fix Released

Charles Kerr (charlesk) on 2013-11-06

Changed in indicator-datetime:
status:	Fix Committed → Fix Released

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