ip4-address buddy property - still needed?

[Sjoerd Simons]

On Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 12:20:01AM -0400, Giannis Galanis wrote:
> The feature, although not usable by the activities, it has other benefits.
> 
> By observing the buddy list, you acquire instant information of the network
> connection go the users:
> when connected to channel 1 for example:
> 169.254.x.x address are in link-local
> 172.18.x.x are connected to schoolserver

> when connected to a jabber server:
> 169.254.x.x are connected through an MPP
> 18x.x.x are media lab
> 172.18.x.x are connected to schoolserver in olpc
> etc

> It is information continuously used in network testing,
For the link-local case you can just ask avahi for this information directly.

For the jabber/server case, i'm unsure why your interested in how other nodes are
connected to the jabber server in the first place.

> also useful from the users prespective:

> 1. in the case of connecting to multiple jabber servers, the user should be
> able to tell which XO in the neighbout view belongs to the same school

Maybe this has changed. But afaik there will be one jabber server per school
(on the school's server) and you can thus look at the users jid.

> 2. get the geopraphical location of another user
A much better way for doing this would be to integrate some geoclue[0] information into
telepathy. Instead of having each XO's trying to work out where others are by
the small amount of information an ip reveals.

> In future versions of the neighbor view, or through other activities, the
> user should be able to filter for specific XOs according to location, or
> school(in the case he's connected to many servers). Two children in the same
> school should be able to recognize each other even if they are connected
> through a jabber server, other then the one in the school.

An xo should always connect to the same jabber server afaik..

> It can also be useful for locating an XO in case of theft.

In the case of theft the jabber server the XO is connecting to always has the
information of where a connection came from (or at least of the last nat hop
and you can work from there). I don't see the point of pushing that info to all
xo's.

> I have also added a ticket(4405) for adding the public id in the buddy list
> properties.
> 
> It is a small part of data(both IPs, private and public), which can be
> harmfully incorporated in the telepathy services.

I definately agree that having some information of where in the world your
buddy's are is something very nice. I disagree that exposing ip addresses is
the way to do it though.

  Sjoerd
0: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/GeoClue
-- 
Mediocrity finds safety in standardization.
		-- Frederick Crane