Big Brother OpenBSD

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OpenBSD Is Watching Me

I recently found out that OpenBSD 4.6 is tracking the URL where it gets the sets from during installation. The next time I install it on the same or another computer in my LAN the same location is presented as the first item in the list of mirrors.

This is a nice feature but it makes me a little bit nervous that both my neighbor - who shares the same gateway IP address - and the OpenBSD people get informed about my private OpenBSD mirror this way. I never got asked whether I would like to share this URL nor did I get a warning message.

At the end of the installation procedure the following request is sent to 129.128.5.191:

GET /cgi-bin/ftpinstall.cgi?install=http://192.168.4.1/~jexss/OpenBSD/4.6/i386&TZ=Europe/Berlin&method=http

Here are some screenshots:

The last time when I installed 4.6 it was taken from a pre-release snapshot. The binaries were stored in the unusual 4.6pre path of my mirror.

The fetch method and the timezone are transfered to the OpenBSD site as well.

After the first release install I switched my mirror to a regular 4.6 path. Thanks to the tracking system both my neighbors and the OpenBSD people are updated too.

This is the upload request. Path, timezone and install method are transfered.