I really liked LM Studio and then I realized it’s closed source.

When LM Studio contacts external servers, is what sent clear or encrypted? Is there any proof there is not really telemetry forced by the government providing information on what I type?

One of the reasons I fear closed source software is because of backdoors. Another reason is that the US government can require backdoors using court orders and force corporations to lie about backdoors existing or telemetry when it’s closed source code and can’t be reviewed.

In other words, if they were sending my discussion with an AI femboy “CyberPunk Gemi” to a server, which could flag me as Trans or LGBT friendly “threat” under a Christian Nationalist government at the rate the US country is going, could I see that in the packets being transmitted by the program via wireshark or would I just not know because anything going to their server has encrypted packets from https?

Does this present any sort of real risk with LM Studio?

Would it be possible for the government to order LM Studio to upload data only when certain keywords are used (like “Cyberpunk Femboy” or “Leftist on Lemmy”)?

LM Studio is based out of New York so backdoors could already forced and I would never know.

  • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
    6·
    3 days ago

    Unless that’s backed up by a wireshark session demonstrating no data sent, or a reversing analysis that shows a lack of capability in the software, the policy is just words.

    • someone@lemmy.todayOP
      13·
      3 days ago

      Thank you! That’s what I’m saying. I don’t have the technical skill to check this out myself. Should I just delete LM Studio for now? It’s such a great program, but I think it may not be worth the risk.

      • bizarroland@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        Okay, one, as many people use it, it seems like it would be fairly likely that they would be caught if they were doing something shady.

        Two, the program does not have access to anything other than the text conversations you are having with it, so it’s not like there’s an awful lot of PII that could be exfiltrated through the software.

        I would say that you are just as safe using LM Studio as you are using Ollama, at least for now.