Why does KDE call out to akamai technologies?
 

a23-62-111-147.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com

I can understand somewhat the spider.kde.org and the download.kde.org.
What does the akamai do?

Is this part of the domestic surveillance thing?

Edit: More specifically the kio_http process.
tcp 0 1 10.1.1.144:41000 23.62.111.170:80 SYN_SENT 2381/kdeinit4:
1 S 1000 2381 2242 0 80 0 - 31099 poll_s ? 00:00:00 kio_http

Apparently, gnome does the same thing.
http://www.linuxinside.gr/content/83...administration

That's your web browser, it's connecting via port 80. If I'm not mistaken that's related to advertising that's found on websites around the net.

Uhh, NO! My web browser actually comes up as firefox.
75.126.162.205:80 ESTABLISHED 2964/firefox

NOT kio_http

Happens with no browsers open.

Hmmm. Good point.
Still, it is port 80 so that indicates probable http content. And a quick search indicates that akamaitechnologies.com is used by Adobe (among others.)
BTW, which distro are you using? Some distros serve advertising directly to your desktop.


I notice that Akamai provides hosting services for GitHub. Do you use Git repositories at all?

If you're unaware of what Akamai does, it's a content delivery service. It works by having Akamai servers provide copies of data rather than using the bandwidth of the original server, allowing service to many more users than would otherwise be possible. It is very widely used, and up to a fifth of the data retrieved from the Internet is actually supplied by Akamai's servers.

Probably kde.org uses Akamai. I wouldn't worry about it.

Well whatever it's used for, I did add them to my IP blocklist with no seemingly deleterious effects.

(along with google and a few others. I know Facebook uses akamai... so...)

DOn't come complaining in this forum later that your Internet has mysterious content access issues. Blocking Akamai and Google? I really don't see the point in that.

Eric

You haven't been following the General forum, have you. ;)

Akamai are one of the largest and oldest content hosting services on the planet. They provide content delivery services to business, corporate and probably even government. Even Microsoft hosts a large portion of their sites with Akamai. If you block them entirely you're going to likely lose a huge chunk of internet content form many, many sources.

That is because you haven't got half of them yet ....


http://bgp.he.net/search?search[search]=akamai&commit=Search

Link?

My point is simply that quite a few people have expressed a lack of comfort over what they perceive as being "tracked" by google... and what google may potentially do with that information. Here are some recent sample threads:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...id-4175426147/
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-alone-938430/
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...search-936534/
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...rs-4175464462/
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...on-4175438504/

Obviously, this was intensified by the Snowden leaks. But it started long before then.

Ah, I see. thanks. :)

In that respect I resolve the Google tracking problem with the following:

* I don't use any Google services, not even gmail.

* I use search services other than google.com, all of which the owners claim to not use any tracking (of which I can't prove or disprove, of course).

* For years I have permanently blocked google cookies.

* I never have allowed third party cookies.

* I maintain a limited cookies white list through NoScript.

* I maintain a limited JavaScript white list through NoScript.

* I don't use broken "features" like auto-complete, which I find seldom succeeds in any software. I never met an app where auto-complete (auto-correct) functions correctly more than incorrectly. I disable those kind of features in all apps I use. Then again, not to sound pompous, but I have more confidence in my intelligence than software algorithms designed to do little more than guess. :)

* Through the years I have found that google search results have consistently gone downhill. Too much noise results from most searches.

* I use a simple strategy to thwart ad tracking, based upon a massive secondary hosts file used by dnscache.

* I am one of those people who tends to sacrifice convenience in favor of security. I understand and accept I'm in the minority. :)

I'm not trying to be flippant --- just trying to help. :)

Yeah... I felt uncomfortable with some google firewall logs I was receiving.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...ia/google4.jpg
(inbetween 13:59 and 14:03).

You know google has made large donations to kernel.org...
That's all I'm going to say.

I'm going to guess what you're implying with that comment. Here, try this:

Better stock up on tinfoil.

I think I'll just go sit in my gauss bunker until I feel better... ;)

I agree - even though I sometimes type 'google is your friend' in response to posts here, google is not your friend!

It is not so much paranoia, but rather it is the simple principle of not rewarding people who are serial abusers of pretty much everything that I think is fair, and honest and respectful among human beings.

But I do block Facebook at the hosts file level on all my boxen... let's not even go there...

And that is really what all of these shenanigans reduce to: the lack of simple respect and decency for fellow humans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO2iiovYq70

As do I also block all things facebook. Not only for security reasons but I believe facebook is one of humanity's greatest hoaxes and a severe waste of energy and time. ;)

Funny how that works.

If you are implying that blocking cookies directly results in poor search results, I doubt that very much. :) Most of the noise in google searches is a result of copy-cat web sites (such as web forum spider sites) that google does not filter, resulting in all of those results appearing.

The problem with google is that you don't have to use google, but they still use you... way too much dbus shenanigans.

Edit:
I'm pretty sure I've got my answer on the original post, so I'm marking this one solved..

Slackware web site now delivered through Akamai
 

YAY! now slackware.com will be tracking us....;)

Wow. That is quite a step up from the ancient home server that I understand was being used before.

When did this massive upgrade in hosting happen?

slackware.com my home page, so I can stay on top of all things slackware beside LQ of course,

that announcement wasn't there a few hours ago