Public bug reported:
Hello, thank you for reading.
This bug is kind of high-level, and it took me a while to even connect
it to Ubuntu. (Initially I thought this was Gmail's problem, but that
seems unlikely now.) Here's what happened:
I recently got a new laptop. (Yay!) It's a ZaReason 430 UltraLap. It
was shipped with Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS. When setting up my account, it
offered to take a photo with the webcam and make that my login profile
picture. I consented. I wanted to see the camera work. The photo is
goofy, and not particularly flattering. I would never have put it
anywhere for anyone else to see.
About a week ago I noticed that Gmail was now using this photo for my
icon attached to all my mail! I certainly didn't authorize that. I
would not even have agreed to it if offered. I've been using Firefox
16.0, in case that matters.
I found a file containing the image on my hard drive. (It was called
/home/amber/.face) I removed it. I also did a find for jpegs, but
didn't find anything else (but note that this would not have located the
file called .face, either -- finding that was dumb luck.). I uploaded a
different photo to my Gmail profile, copied a new photo to .face, and
associated a new photo with my Ubuntu account.
Next time I looked the ugly photo was back. I have now removed it 10 or
more times to no avail, and I have cleared all my cache and cookies,
too. It always appears to go away for a time, and then reappears.
After a while I decided it only reappeared after suspending and
unsuspending my laptop (which also includes starting and restarting the
wifi. I don't know if simply starting and restarting the wifi by itself
triggers it).
Finally, I deleted the photo from Gmail, cleared the cache and cookies,
closed Firefox, created a new account on my laptop, opened that, and
opened Gmail on Firefox. That was nearly 24 hours ago, which is the
longest I've been without the problem since I first noticed it. I have
suspended and unsuspended 2 or 3 times, and the photo has not returned,
so I now know that somehow this photo is being restored to Gmail from
somewhere in my original Ubuntu account.
I find this incident absolutely egregious, as I feel that my privacy was
violated. What a relief that the photo was merely ugly, and not
obscene!
I'd be very grateful if someone would help me figure out how this is
happening, and where the file is being stored.
Please let me know if any other details would help.
Best,
Amber
** Affects: ubuntu
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
** Tags: privacy
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1066108
Title:
Photo taken by the webcam as part of the account creation process
repeatedly uploaded to Gmail as icon.
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