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Comment by overflowy | Hacker News Reader

>OpenShell collects anonymous telemetry, limited to operational categories and counts, to help improve the project.

>To disable it, set OPENSHELL_TELEMETRY_ENABLED=false on the gateway, or server.telemetryEnabled=false for Helm installs.

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Or build from source and compile without `telemetry` [1].

[1] https://github.com/NVIDIA/OpenShell/blob/ea13dfce411e8467ddb...

In order to "help" myself I have taken some of your money.

Feel free to opt out maybe?

I have a question for those who turn off _anonymous_ telemetry. What are you worried about?

Why give up more information if we have the option?

Because you don't mind contributing usage data so that the developers can understand which features are being used and maybe focus on improving those features in exchange for a free tool?

There's no such thing as anonymity in 2026, and the documentation[1] listing the collected telemetry uses weasel words like "such as" rather than providing a comprehensive list or just pointing to the source reference. For people who don't audit or turn off telemetry, why don't you?

I am happy the repo explicitly points out and provides a disable for the telemetry though, that's good enough for me.

[1] https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/latest/observability/telem...

if you're not paying for the product, you are the product...

Is this also true of Linux? Or were us humans the stochastic parrots all along?

>Is this also true of Linux?

It is not, nor of open source software in general.

In general, the saying is specifically in reference to services provided over the internet -gmail, youtube, whatever. Note that you don't have the right to modify them and share your own copies -they're closed source.

So no, it's not true of Linux, GNU, etc; it's an apples and oranges comparison.

Being recorded and observed makes me feel physically uncomfortable.

> _anonymous_ telemetry

There is no such thing. The mere act of making a network connection reveals things like your IP address (reveals your hosting provider or even your geolocation for residential/mobile IPs), days and times you use the software, your OS via TCP/IP stack fingerprinting, etc.

The network path between you and the telemetry endpoint is always listening, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

That case was dismissed multiple times by different courts, so it's completely bogus and we're safe.

Israel was just caught doing an attack where Google ads would run JavaScript looking for known hardware identifiers from telemetry data they bought. When the ads showed on a target device, they would root you. Without you even interacting with the ad.

JavaScript can root you? That's way bigger of a problem than telemetry. Do you have a source? How does that even work?

It doesn't have to be a specific concern. It's better to remove the option than to find out later that you've gotten burned by something you had no way to anticipate.

Don't take chances, give as little as possible. Better to assume you'll get burned somehow and leave it off.

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