Anonymous usage statistics

[Lantis]

All,

I've been considering adding a feature to gargoyle to collect statistics about how people use the firmware.
Where geographically.
Up time
Version
Connection type (DHCP wireless, PPPoE etc)

This would be completely opt in. Only does it of you want it to.

The only thing that will be uniquely identifiable is your IP address which would be hidden in a database, only used to geographically match your location.

Before I run this by Eric I'd like to see how people would react to this.

Your votes and feedback are appreciated.
Thank you.

[meazz1]

I know Shibby uses it in his tomato builds and it's called TomatoAnon, simillar to your idea, an opt in/out basis.
I am all for it if this helps you in any way, shape or form.

[Volaris]

I'm a bit iffy about collecting IP addresses... but otherwise I'm okay with the concept.

Gargoyle builds by obsy/Cezary already include this. I'm running Gargoyle 1.9.0.2 and here's how that works:

It asks you during firstboot to opt in; along with your regulatory domain preference. Otherwise option can be checked in menu below:


Full size image: http://i.imgur.com/0a1Ud3M.png

Clicking see all statistics takes you to his website:
http://dl.eko.one.pl/stat.html

Shows all kinda of stats... such as how many of each router uses his builds, what versions are most common, longest up times, etc.

Clicking this router's statistics shows you stats about your router. Sorry just installed 1.9.0.2.


Full size image: http://i.imgur.com/94PFIQR.png

If you implement that, it'd be cool if it's publicly accessible like that.

Info about his builds:
http://eko.one.pl/?p=openwrt-gargoylepl-cc

[Lantis]

It will be that exact feature just ported to Gargoyle EN builds.
His build also uses your IP address for the geoip purpose. Does this change your opinion?

[Volaris]

It will be that exact feature just ported to Gargoyle EN builds.
His build also uses your IP address for the geoip purpose. Does this change your opinion?

I wasn't aware of that since I didn't notice any geographic mentions on his stats webpage.

I'm not going to disable it because of that, but I just have a hard time calling something that collects/logs your IP address 'anonymous'. Especially in this day and age when anything and everything that can be collected about you can be used against you.

How about uploading the WAN Gateway IP address instead? Wouldn't that give you the same GeoIP info without linking to any specific ISP account?

Since we're talking about obsy's features; any possibility we can see his Blue Ice C theme in regular Gargoyle plug in options? That theme is top notch.

[Mike_Krüger]

Although I highly appreciate obsy's builds, I never turn on the statistics, and never will. Reason: my router is mine, and mine alone.

As I suspect many people will do this, and there is no way of telling who turned it on and who turned it off. Therefore it will be difficult to make any meaningful analysis of the data that has been collected.

Of course it might be nice to see that some routers have a 500+ day uptime on an older version. But there is no way to interact with these users, and what relevance would it have on the development of Gargoyle?

[Lantis]

This is all good feedback. And that's why I asked here first. I'd rather know that it is useful and going to be used before spending a few hours porting it.

as an engineer, I LOVE gathering data and statistics. I like checking out patterns and usage trends.

Will it help the development of gargoyle? Probably not. It doesn't collect enough to help development.
Will it be interesting? Absolutely.

One potential usage is, when it sends off your version information, it could ping back and say "hey, there's an update available".
The possibilities of two way communication are endless I guess.


Anyway please keep voting and sharing your thoughts.
Also this is the geo data from obsy.
http://dl.eko.one.pl/maps.html

[Volaris]

One potential usage is, when it sends off your version information, it could ping back and say "hey, there's an update available".
The possibilities of two way communication are endless I guess.


Anyway please keep voting and sharing your thoughts.
Also this is the geo data from obsy.
http://dl.eko.one.pl/maps.html

Thanks for the link! Lots more users from China than I imagined. I wonder if Gargoyle helps them bypass their Great Wall.

Obsy's builds also have an update checker, but I hope one day it's able to directly download its sysupgrade file and verify MD5 Sum for ease of upgrading versions.