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I'm surprised he doesn't mention NoScript, Privacy Badger, etc. "Normal people" should be more concerned about about the highly detailed profiles that companies

I'm surprised he doesn't mention NoScript, Privacy Badger, etc. "Normal people" should be more concerned about about the highly detailed profiles that companies are building based on browsing habits. "Normal people" read about data breaches and embarrassing leaks that force politicians to resign. "Normal people" know nothing about the behind the scenes tracking that goes on when you google medical symptoms[0] or visit pages which have Facebook like buttons as footers[1]. Yes, this article is targeted at people who don't understand the problem of using their .gov email address to sign up for dodgy sites, but think about whether you'd rather have your bank statement made public or a large, visualizable data set representing most of your browsing history. I would love to see more work done on privacy through noise/obfuscation, such as that started by Adnauseum[2] and TrackMeNot[3] - not necessarily publishing your credit card details online as suggest in another comment here, but in making random search queries and clicking on random ads when your device is idle. Most of us have sufficient processing power and bandwidth for the overhead not to be a problem. It's sad that it looks like both add-ons have failed to make a splash, and seem to have fallen out of active development (end of 2015 marks the last commits for both projects, which is too soon to pronounce them dead, but they definitely don't seem to be hives of activity). [0] http://motherboard.vice.com/read/looking-up-symptoms-online-these-companies-are-collecting-your-data http://motherboard.vice.com/read/looking-up-symptoms-online-... [1] http://www.allaboutcookies.org/cookies/cookie-profiling.html http://www.allaboutcookies.org/cookies/cookie-profiling.html [2] http://adnauseam.io/ http://adnauseam.io/ [3] http://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/ http://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/

geocar 10y ago
> think about whether you'd rather have your bank statement made public or a large, visualizable data set representing most of your browsing history. If someone got access to my banking details, they could do far more damage than just make my bank statements public. Now I've dealt with identity theft and credit card fraud, and I work in digital marketing, so I know which one I'd choose: Nobody is going to visualise my individual browsing history, and even if they did (for what reason I can't imagine), I can't imagine what they'd do with it! I can imagine someone might try to build a demographic profile about me to sell me stuff that I'd like, but that's good because it would be stuff that I would like.
- scholia 10y ago
  People's browsing histories are regularly used in court....
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    But in those cases it sounds like it was because they didn't even use private mode, were logged in, or didn't clear history. Not because LE got a subpoena for shady-ad-network.
INTPenis 10y ago
I do a lecture at local hackerspaces about basic security for the common person and anonymity is far down on the list. Much higher on the list are basic protection from dangers on the internet, like browser based exploits. So Noscript is one major selling point for Firefox due to most browser based exploits using Javascript. Even if you whitelist all the sites you're still more secure with noscript than without simply because it blacklists the unknown sites you don't know about, the ones that e-mail links open or pop-ups force your browser to load through various tricks.
- coldpie 10y ago
  I wonder if there's any demand for a pre-built whitelist for NoScript that includes stuff like Amazon, Google, Apple, banks, and most other popular sites. The admin would err on the side of allowing scripts to run, while the default-block rule would still block unknown and ad/tracker domains. It would obviously be less secure than an intelligent user making all their own decisions, but it would make the barrier to using NoScript much lower. Edit: While I'm musing on this, I wonder if NoScript could use a UI overhaul. A little icon that says "Something broken? Try activating these domains" with some heuristics e.g. first try allowing the current domain, then stuff on common CDNs, then maybe digging into DNS records or SSL certs for common ownership...
  - INTPenis 10y ago
    There is and I've given that so much thought. I've gone as far as to sync my own Noscript lists. Since Firefox Sync will not sync noscript whitelists I have to do that myself. So that's a major feature request from me right now. Not only to have pre-built lists but also to share your own list between devices.
  - slvrspoon 10y ago
    We (disclaimer i'm a co-founder) does exactly this with our Blur product which includes a "tracker blocker". We crowdsource and test for problems because of 'improperly implemented' tracking code and blockers and dynamically allow just those trackers on key sites. More here: https://www.abine.com/suggestions/ https://www.abine.com/suggestions/
deleted 10y ago
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geocar 10y ago

> think about whether you'd rather have your bank statement made public or a large, visualizable data set representing most of your browsing history. If someone got access to my banking details, they could do far more damage than just make my bank statements public. Now I've dealt with identity theft and credit card fraud, and I work in digital marketing, so I know which one I'd choose: Nobody is going to visualise my individual browsing history, and even if they did (for what reason I can't imagine), I can't imagine what they'd do with it! I can imagine someone might try to build a demographic profile about me to sell me stuff that I'd like, but that's good because it would be stuff that I would like.

scholia 10y ago
People's browsing histories are regularly used in court....
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  But in those cases it sounds like it was because they didn't even use private mode, were logged in, or didn't clear history. Not because LE got a subpoena for shady-ad-network.

INTPenis 10y ago

I do a lecture at local hackerspaces about basic security for the common person and anonymity is far down on the list. Much higher on the list are basic protection from dangers on the internet, like browser based exploits. So Noscript is one major selling point for Firefox due to most browser based exploits using Javascript. Even if you whitelist all the sites you're still more secure with noscript than without simply because it blacklists the unknown sites you don't know about, the ones that e-mail links open or pop-ups force your browser to load through various tricks.

coldpie 10y ago
I wonder if there's any demand for a pre-built whitelist for NoScript that includes stuff like Amazon, Google, Apple, banks, and most other popular sites. The admin would err on the side of allowing scripts to run, while the default-block rule would still block unknown and ad/tracker domains. It would obviously be less secure than an intelligent user making all their own decisions, but it would make the barrier to using NoScript much lower. Edit: While I'm musing on this, I wonder if NoScript could use a UI overhaul. A little icon that says "Something broken? Try activating these domains" with some heuristics e.g. first try allowing the current domain, then stuff on common CDNs, then maybe digging into DNS records or SSL certs for common ownership...
- INTPenis 10y ago
  There is and I've given that so much thought. I've gone as far as to sync my own Noscript lists. Since Firefox Sync will not sync noscript whitelists I have to do that myself. So that's a major feature request from me right now. Not only to have pre-built lists but also to share your own list between devices.
- slvrspoon 10y ago
  We (disclaimer i'm a co-founder) does exactly this with our Blur product which includes a "tracker blocker". We crowdsource and test for problems because of 'improperly implemented' tracking code and blockers and dynamically allow just those trackers on key sites. More here: https://www.abine.com/suggestions/ https://www.abine.com/suggestions/

deleted 10y ago

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