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99 % of users won’t touch default values, so it’s not a valid excuse. I really have come to the conclusion that privacy is just a marketing feature for Mozilla

99 % of users won’t touch default values, so it’s not a valid excuse. I really have come to the conclusion that privacy is just a marketing feature for Mozilla. They e.g. also do nothing against data exfiltration by popular extensions although they have known that issue for years. If they’re really serious about privacy they should have waited to implement DoH as an open standard and allow more DNS providers to support it. The browser could then simply see if your default DNS supports it and if yes switch to DoH. This really smells like some kind of data deal between them and Cloudflare. This is not surprising because DNS data is really valuable and passive DNS monitoring is used for many purposes, e.g. security and marketing. Controlling this data gives you many interesting business opportunities, hence I can understand why Cloudflare and Google are after it. It’s also revealing that they don’t enable this in the EU, because they rightfully fear that it’s not compliant.

cnst 7y ago
> I really have come to the conclusion that privacy is just a marketing feature for Mozilla. They e.gg. also do nothing against data exfiltration by popular extensions although they have known that issue for years. I thought about this recently, and the move to HTTPS-Everywhere is the biggest issue here. In the old days, you could have something like the @guard firewall on Windows, which could examine all outgoing HTTP connections, and block ads and malware by examining not just the hostname, but also the URI of each request. This meant it was separate from the browser, worked with all browsers, and didn't break every time your browser is updated. It's pretty easy to write a similar tool on UNIX to act as a proxy, too, and make it network-wide through your OSS router. Nowdays, because it's all encrypted with certificate authorities and all, it's much more problematic to block ads and malware, because then you'd also have to intercept HTTPS, and manage certificate authorities and such. I guess it's still doable in principle, just more involved, with a considerably worse UI? Has anyone tried anything like that in the HTTPS world, do any solutions exist as FLOSS at all?
- munchbunny 7y ago
  Intercepting HTTPS is possible, but not easy. It just requires configuring your browser to use a known key pair for client authentication so that you can MITM yourself from a local or network proxy. On the consideration of trade-offs, I think HTTPS-Everywhere is completely worth it. It may be more complex to intercept your own traffic, but since you are in control of one of the endpoints and the ISPs (which in the US are openly trying to market your browsing data) are not, I still consider it an overall win for privacy.
- nullc 7y ago
  HTTPS intercepting proxies ("middle boxes") are commonly deployed in the corporate world. Firefox-- and internet protocols themselves-- makes many concessions to avoid gratuitously breaking these things. For free software, squid ssl-bump works, though is something of a pain to configure!
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    > makes many concessions to avoid gratuitously breaking these things. Or to look at it from another perspective, if you do this then in configuring the browser to accept it (typically, adding a private CA as trusted) you agree that you broke the browser's provided security promises and are happy without them. In principle this can be safe if the middlebox you use has its finger on the pulse (usually dubious) and you're applying security updates to the middlebox as you would a browser or other outward facing software. So far I've never seen one I'd trust.
orf 7y ago
DoH is an open standard. DoH is also better for the 99% of users who don’t care about DNS resolvers and use their standard, shoddy and privacy invasive ISP provided one.
- ThePhysicist 7y ago
  Just because something is open doesn't mean that it's ok to push it on users at will. DoH is highly controversial and not a standard, there are only a handful of players that push it for their own benefit. Also, in most parts of the world people trust their local ISPs more than giant US corporations, you should not assume that everyone welcomes this centralization.
  - bad_user 7y ago
    > in most parts of the world people trust their local ISPs more than giant US corporations On what is this assertion based on? I'm part of this world and I'm not a US citizen. I do not trust my local ISP, because they log and report traffic to local security agencies. It's bening at this point, tracking illegal activities, but they can connect whatever I do with my real name and address. If I were to guess, in most parts of this world people don't have freedom of speech and fear repercussions from their government for their online activity. The profiling that US companies do for serving better ads is essentially a first world problem, and a pretty irrelevant one for most people. Also if we had such deep mistrust in US companies, first of all we shouldn't be using devices and operating systems built by US companies.
- ajsnigrutin 7y ago
  My ISP has to obey the rules of my government, and it is not allowed to sell my data. It's in my country, with my regulatory bodies and close enough that I (or a group of people like me) can sue them, if they start doing bad things. What the hell am I supposed to do again cloudflare?
the8472 7y ago
> They e.g. also do nothing against data exfiltration by popular extensions although they have known that issue for years. This kind of sentiment compels mozilla into becoming an apple-like gatekeeper to a walled garden because people conflate the trustworthiness of extension authors with mozilla's trustworthiness, which leads to less software freedom, a single point of failure and a less diverse ecosystem.
- ThePhysicist 7y ago
  There simply should not be an API that allows exfiltrating the URL history of a user and then send it to a remote backend, at least not without making this very, very explicit to the user (which they currently do not). You don't need to be a "gatekeeper to a walled garden", it's just necessary to have sensible APIs that respect users privacy. I think a browser that puts privacy as its primary feature should be able to do that.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    It asks the user if they want to allow an extension to "Access Browsing History" [1]. That seems pretty explicit and self-explanatory to me. [1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/permission-request-messages-firefox-extensions#w_access-browsing-history https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/permission-request-mess...
    - ThePhysicist 7y ago
      No, it would be straightforward if they asked the user something like this: "Is it ok that this extension sends every single URL you open to an untrusted third party for processing? Please note that URLs might contain sensitive data like access tokens or session information." Even so, I don't think such an API should exist. And if you absolutely need to have something like this you should restrict it to domain information by default, cutting away the path. I can understand that Google might not care much about this (Chrome itself is a data collection platform), but I really don't get why Mozilla is so lenient about it as well, as their main differentiator has been user privacy for years.

cnst 7y ago

> I really have come to the conclusion that privacy is just a marketing feature for Mozilla. They e.gg. also do nothing against data exfiltration by popular extensions although they have known that issue for years. I thought about this recently, and the move to HTTPS-Everywhere is the biggest issue here. In the old days, you could have something like the @guard firewall on Windows, which could examine all outgoing HTTP connections, and block ads and malware by examining not just the hostname, but also the URI of each request. This meant it was separate from the browser, worked with all browsers, and didn't break every time your browser is updated. It's pretty easy to write a similar tool on UNIX to act as a proxy, too, and make it network-wide through your OSS router. Nowdays, because it's all encrypted with certificate authorities and all, it's much more problematic to block ads and malware, because then you'd also have to intercept HTTPS, and manage certificate authorities and such. I guess it's still doable in principle, just more involved, with a considerably worse UI? Has anyone tried anything like that in the HTTPS world, do any solutions exist as FLOSS at all?

munchbunny 7y ago
Intercepting HTTPS is possible, but not easy. It just requires configuring your browser to use a known key pair for client authentication so that you can MITM yourself from a local or network proxy. On the consideration of trade-offs, I think HTTPS-Everywhere is completely worth it. It may be more complex to intercept your own traffic, but since you are in control of one of the endpoints and the ISPs (which in the US are openly trying to market your browsing data) are not, I still consider it an overall win for privacy.
nullc 7y ago
HTTPS intercepting proxies ("middle boxes") are commonly deployed in the corporate world. Firefox-- and internet protocols themselves-- makes many concessions to avoid gratuitously breaking these things. For free software, squid ssl-bump works, though is something of a pain to configure!
- tialaramex 7y ago
  > makes many concessions to avoid gratuitously breaking these things. Or to look at it from another perspective, if you do this then in configuring the browser to accept it (typically, adding a private CA as trusted) you agree that you broke the browser's provided security promises and are happy without them. In principle this can be safe if the middlebox you use has its finger on the pulse (usually dubious) and you're applying security updates to the middlebox as you would a browser or other outward facing software. So far I've never seen one I'd trust.

orf 7y ago

DoH is an open standard. DoH is also better for the 99% of users who don’t care about DNS resolvers and use their standard, shoddy and privacy invasive ISP provided one.

ThePhysicist 7y ago
Just because something is open doesn't mean that it's ok to push it on users at will. DoH is highly controversial and not a standard, there are only a handful of players that push it for their own benefit. Also, in most parts of the world people trust their local ISPs more than giant US corporations, you should not assume that everyone welcomes this centralization.
- bad_user 7y ago
  > in most parts of the world people trust their local ISPs more than giant US corporations On what is this assertion based on? I'm part of this world and I'm not a US citizen. I do not trust my local ISP, because they log and report traffic to local security agencies. It's bening at this point, tracking illegal activities, but they can connect whatever I do with my real name and address. If I were to guess, in most parts of this world people don't have freedom of speech and fear repercussions from their government for their online activity. The profiling that US companies do for serving better ads is essentially a first world problem, and a pretty irrelevant one for most people. Also if we had such deep mistrust in US companies, first of all we shouldn't be using devices and operating systems built by US companies.
ajsnigrutin 7y ago
My ISP has to obey the rules of my government, and it is not allowed to sell my data. It's in my country, with my regulatory bodies and close enough that I (or a group of people like me) can sue them, if they start doing bad things. What the hell am I supposed to do again cloudflare?

the8472 7y ago

> They e.g. also do nothing against data exfiltration by popular extensions although they have known that issue for years. This kind of sentiment compels mozilla into becoming an apple-like gatekeeper to a walled garden because people conflate the trustworthiness of extension authors with mozilla's trustworthiness, which leads to less software freedom, a single point of failure and a less diverse ecosystem.

ThePhysicist 7y ago
There simply should not be an API that allows exfiltrating the URL history of a user and then send it to a remote backend, at least not without making this very, very explicit to the user (which they currently do not). You don't need to be a "gatekeeper to a walled garden", it's just necessary to have sensible APIs that respect users privacy. I think a browser that puts privacy as its primary feature should be able to do that.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  It asks the user if they want to allow an extension to "Access Browsing History" [1]. That seems pretty explicit and self-explanatory to me. [1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/permission-request-messages-firefox-extensions#w_access-browsing-history https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/permission-request-mess...
  - ThePhysicist 7y ago
    No, it would be straightforward if they asked the user something like this: "Is it ok that this extension sends every single URL you open to an untrusted third party for processing? Please note that URLs might contain sensitive data like access tokens or session information." Even so, I don't think such an API should exist. And if you absolutely need to have something like this you should restrict it to domain information by default, cutting away the path. I can understand that Google might not care much about this (Chrome itself is a data collection platform), but I really don't get why Mozilla is so lenient about it as well, as their main differentiator has been user privacy for years.