I have privacy conserns about the new GeoIp list from v. 20

[S8b4S5S5]

Opnsense play on the good team, right?
Opnsense claims to be an opensource ...transparent platform....
Open source make sense... =)


From version 20.x  you have to register at Maxmind.com to be able to download the required list for geoblocking.  In earlier versions the address ranges where included in aliases.

From what I can tell, if you do care, just a tiny bit about privacy concerns, you would maybe want to stay away from them.

I do that, care just a tiny bit, not more than the normal geek average opnsense user I think.
 I use ublock origin, and have a standard pihole, but, that’s it!

But this time some bells ringed and I decided to just have a look at their website and privacy-policy too see what this is about.


I now have a hard time understanding why Opnsense so actively directs us to use their services in the documentation and with popups in the gui.
Not a word in the documentation about alternatives and the privacy concerns.  Just register here and use this service!




When register at Maxmind you are required to fill in:

Full name, Company, Industry, Country, Intended use, How you plan to use the geolocation data, Email address.



Here is some of whats in their privacy policy:

…store ipaddresses….. collect information about your device and how your device interacts with our Services and other services.
…. use web bacons or 1x1 gifs for identifying you ...used for a number of purposes, including, without limitation...
.... the GeoIP2 JavaScript Client API, collects IP addresses and other information....

We may combine the information we receive from third parties with information we collect...
...other sources..... include: our business partners and resellers; our customers; and publicly available sources such as open government databases or other data in the public domain..
.... including IP address, cardholder name, billing and shipping address, email, and phone number.....

….participate in our surveys; to serve advertising tailored to your interests on our Services and other services; and to fulfill any other purpose disclosed to you and with your consent.

One aspect of MaxMind's products and services is the provision of databases to our customers and other third parties, including our business partners and resellers. Such databases are compiled using numerous data sources, including information we receive from our customers 
  ..... information about the level of risk we associate with information about your device or email address, or your Unique ID.




And so on.. continuing with the usual tracking with google analytics

(Not unusual to do but they mention:  )W)e will occasionally update this Privacy Policy…
encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy to be informed of how we are collecting and using your information.

[S8b4S5S5]

So is there any good alternatives?

[AdSchellevis]

https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=15410.msg70255#msg70255

[S8b4S5S5]

From link above:

Hi,

No, there are no other vendors supported, but the file format is described in our docs repository (not published yet). Eventually we might offer one preinstalled as part of our business edition, but nothing solid yet. There aren't a lot of other options available which do not require some sort of registration as far as I could find.

To install the new code, see https://github.com/opnsense/core/issues/3856#issuecomment-569531305

Doc update can be found here https://github.com/opnsense/docs/commit/93f3e9dd41e9c7dfc28c8acae123baa08dcb747c

Best regards,


Ad

Is the old lists used in 19.x stored somewhere?

[AdSchellevis]

please, please, please, read articles in the forum before complaining about the change of policy. We always supplied Maxmind's list, at the end of last year they had to change their policy due to legal restrictions.

A lot has been written on this subject, both here in this forum as on GitHub (https://github.com/opnsense/core/issues/3856)

Best regards,

Ad