I never authorized an integration that scans my secrets

Frenck here, I'm the one who replied on that issue.

My replies there were more dismissive than they should have been. My apologies. I've posted a follow-up on the issue.

As it turns out, the check can already be turned off after all:

  ha security options --pwned=false

Only the first 5 characters of a SHA-1 hash go to HIBP, and the matching happens locally: https://github.com/home-assistant/supervisor/blob/main/super...

Our documentation should have explained all of this, including how to turn it off. We'll get that updated.

- Should a password manager warn me about reused passwords without sending things out without opt in? yes

- Should a password manager send even one byte of my data to any service, regardless of whether it is for a good intention and mathematically proven to be "safe" without opt in? I'd say no.

- So would any other product out there, be it a smart home manager or a toaster, send any of of my data, hashed or not to any 3rd party without opt in? even if it's just the byte "1" to a page called "donothing.com" - the answer is hell no.

- Should open source developers who are not Linus Torvalds be a bit nicer on a public issue? And should open source users should be less heated because "let us know if you plan to fix this or we will uninstall and fork it" - I think this is the main takeaway from this.

We all can sometimes write a reply at the heat of the moment that we later regret. Frenk definitely realized it after the fact and I respect him owning it, apologizing, and keeping the old messages. He is right it's open source, and he doesn't owe anyone anything, but still, I believe a phoning home of any kind is violating The Principle of Least Astonishment.

Toxic developers turned me off Home Assistant. The same developer is the star of this issue: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326

Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27505277

You may find this unasked for scan humiliating, but we can mathematically prove we're not humiliating you. Any feelings of discomfort or humiliation are therefore invalid and should be set aside.

Edit: I'm sure a greater good argument can be made. I just don't think they are making it in a way that justifies the invasiveness.

It sounds like the dev's reason for rejecting the issue is that the issue was opened on the documentation repo rather than the code repo.

On the one hand, it's understandable. No amount of documentation changes will fix the issue.

On the other hand, it's a pretty abrasive response. It wouldn't have taken any more effort to be a little more helpful and direct OP to the right repo: "Sorry, this is the wrong place for this to be addressed. Please bring it up here instead [link]."

(For missing context from this bare link to an issue with no context provided by the submitter — Home Assistant apparently integrated the same Have I Been Pwned safe scanning process that many other password managers have.)

I have a great deal of sympathy for them refusing to engage; decisive software creators are far less palatable to an entitled swarm of disagreement, and that same decisiveness is what makes the best software. Perhaps in U.S. culture, refusal with a smile and a reassurance that “We’re Listening” is something folks feel entitled to, but in other areas of the world, demanding a stranger change their mind once it’s made up earns only mockery or pity. To those cultures, this GitHub is a comedy-farce, and I laughed out loud upon reading it — not because I necessarily agree with the project’s decision, but because I agree culturally with their tone and handling of what some view as blatant immaturity: a final flat refusal, closing the door, and getting back to work.

Tough one. I get the intention but this should've been opt-in.

>>please let us know so we can uninstall and fork

>Sorry, these are not statements we can work with. Doing such threats and trying to intimidate it not going to bring you anywhere. If you want to do a

just wanted to add an outsider perspective here, not trying to add wood to the fire

but i don’t think it’s inappropriate or ‘a threat’ to let the dev know the user can stop using the software.

Giving the home assistant core developers the benefit of the doubt, I am sure there are good intentions here. But if they are interested in adding new security features, adding support for phishing-resistant multi factor authentication (passkeys) would be much more valuable. Users have been asking for it for some time, and even submitted patches, which were rejected.

So, wait, these are secrets that are already given to h-a, hashed, and just the first five characters of the hash sent up..?

Yeah, I agree with the maintainer, this strikes me as outrage theater over any actual problem, no?

I wouldn't be surprised if that integration is outright illegal in EU due to GDPR, thus putting HIBP in trouble for ingesting PII without any legal legitimacy.

And the first reply being "It is not an invasion of privacy" just shows incompetence on privacy topics. It is never a valid answer.

Which is really concerning, for the lead developer of a home automation system that "fights for the fundamental principle of privacy" as per their mission statement.

Here we have the classic if you want something to happen in the corporate world, make it go viral on the internet. Except, humans will be humans and it played out in open source.

In this case, frenck most certainly backtracked because they realized they were on the front page of HN and did not want the heat.

> If this is all reason for you to uninstall and fork... So be it, it is open source after all.

what a petty answer. "just fork it bro".

I have another tab open where I am about to buy a home assistant green and start a journey of probably-pointless automations. This is giving me pause. Not about sending hashes to haveibeenpwned, but about the response this got on github.

The dev comes as self-serving. Not what you’d expect to see. Calls it heated when he himself caused it with their tone deaf response… it’s next level.

Frenck is the worst part of Home Assistant. He shits on so many things with just a hand wave and no attempt at justification.

Awfully tone deaf responses

And that kids is a clear example of how not to interact with people online.

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