On 2019-10-28 23:22:54 +0100, Michael Biebl wrote: > I don't see a problem with /etc/machine-id being word-readable, I don't > see a problem either with the journal directory containing the > machine-id. If someone posts the id to a forum, I don't consider this > problematic either. > > The man pages recommends to not broadcast the machine-id via the network > for the simple reason, as this would easily allow the machine to be > tracked. This does not apply here.
No, this is not what the man page is saying. It just says that is it confidential. So, for instance, someone could decide that it is used for machine authentication. Thus a foreign machine could steal the ID to access services it should not be allowed to. In any case, the man page says "must not be exposed in untrusted environments, in particular on the network." And this part has been broken. Note also that the same paragraph recommends to use a hash as a stable unique identifier. But since this is meant to be stable and unique, this would also allow the machine to be tracked if such a hash is exposed on the network. So the reason you give is obviously wrong. -- Vincent Lefèvre <vinc...@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/> 100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/> Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)