Debian systems email info to the debian gods !?

I'm doing some work on an Ubuntu server and noticed
/etc/popularity-contest.conf. I figured if there is a config file there
must be an application somewhere. There is! It's called
"popularity-contest".

I had know idea what this thing does so I read the man page. It checks
to see what Debian packages are used the most. What's bad about this?
Well, reading further down the man page I came across the following.

    Normally, popularity-contest is run from a cron(8) job,
    /etc/cron.weekly/popularity-contest, which automatically emails the
    results to Debian package maintainers according to the settings in
    /etc/popularity-contest.conf.

I checked /etc/cron.weekly and sure enough there sits
"popularity-contest". This means that the server will run
"popularity-contest" once a week and send the results to the Debian Gods.

I don't think the information that it sends out is a security risk.
However, I don't recall ever seeing anything about the system sending my
information out to the net. If any OS is going to do this they need to
put a big fat label out there saying that it does this.

    *Ubuntu Dapper sends out system info once a week with
    popularity-contest!
    *

This is a Debian thing so I'm guessing all Debian systems do this. This
thing has a website. http://popcon.debian.org/

Again, I don't think this is a security risk. I just don't want a system
sending out my information with out my consent. I've been using Ubuntu
for over a month now. Which means there could be a months worth of
information from my systems on the net. Information I had no idea I was
sending.

What other types of information do Debain systems send out? Should I be
concerned?
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Received on Sat Aug 26 11:48:38 2006