[clug] everyone still calling home?

[Eyal Lebedinsky]

I usually use an old CD player attached to my sound system, but today decided
to try and use my system (f9) to see what it does.

On inserting the CD a dialogue pops up offering three programs for handling
the CD. I first selected the default "Rhythmbox music player". I noticed that
it went right away and connected to
	stimpy.musicbrainz.org:www
it kept doing so even after I deselcted all plugins and any other options I
considered related.

Next I selected the offered VLC. This one makes a connection to
	mirror.freedb.org:8880
again, I did not request it and I unticked anything I deemed related.

The third offer was an extractor which I had no interest in.

I finally used what I know, mplayer, which just played it nicely with:
	mplayer cdda:// -cache 5000

Nevertheless, trying to use gnome-mplayer, it went ahead and  contacted
	mirror.freedb.org:www
adding '--disable_cover_art_fetch' did not help either.

Is it now standard for all (yes, I am generalizing here) programs to call home
(regardless of what excuse is given for it)? Should I keep blocking connections
on my firewall or is there a simple way to say "please do not access the
internet unless I say so"? Some kind of privacy setting somewhere?

So far, kmplayer is the only program I tried that did not make a connection.

-- 
Eyal Lebedinsky	(eyal at eyal.emu.id.au)