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Suppose you want to do something anonymously. 1. Download installer from Mozilla from your home network - Mozilla now has your home IP and installer ID. 2. Tr

Suppose you want to do something anonymously. 1. Download installer from Mozilla from your home network - Mozilla now has your home IP and installer ID. 2. Transfer it via USB key to a secure, anonymous computer - one not linked to you, on a network not associated with you, such as public WiFi. 3. Install Firefox using that installer on said computer. It transmits the installer ID to Mozilla, which matches the one given to your home IP, thereby deanonymizing you. 4. Mozilla receives a warrant for this information, or it is hacked, or the organization is infiltrated by a single government or corporate spy. Edit: It gets worse. Suppose a newspaper IT department takes care of providing Firefox and other trusted software installers to their reporters. Now Mozilla can determine who that newspaper helped with IT, such as journalists or sources. Or if you provide trusted software to your friends, Mozilla gets part of your social graph.

systemvoltage 5y ago
I can't remember exactly but Apple also does this with apps. "Downloaded from ...".
- dylan604 5y ago
  Isn't that just storing the domain name from which served the file? I actually find this useful for those times when I can't remember where a file came from but need to use the site again. Having that data in a Get Info windo has been useful and faster than web searching.
- weikju 5y ago
  Except this is an attribute saved on the file locally on your system, added by your browser when you download it, not something that Apple stores on their servers and tracks.
- evilduck 5y ago
  That's a slight bit different because that file metadata is being assigned on the receiving client side and not from the distributor of the file. Likewise, that info is stored in your Spotlight index, not the file itself and isn't moved with the file (you can look at the raw metadata with the `mdls` command on a Mac and see that it is lost when you move something to a USB stick, or upload it to your own server or something)
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  That is also annoying but two wrongs don't make a right. Also Apple seems to just track this to show a prompt as to why they need approval for the install. And it's just stored locally in the metadata. But yes I wish this prompt could be completely turned off. This isn't just security for the user though, they have a clear financial motive in promoting their app store as an easier option. After all the app store is a huge revenue driver for them on mobile but not on Mac. Also Apple has done a lot worse things like checking the notarisation online every time an app was launched. They have now cut this back to once every few days since the outcry about it but still it's something you should be able to turn off IMO. But what do you expect from a closed source OS (yes it is, only the kernel is open). And again, the fact that Apple does it too does not make Mozilla's action less questionable.
  - evilduck 5y ago
    I have a hard time viewing Apple's Spotlight metadata as a wrong. It's locally created and stored, it's transparently shown in File info and mdls. It can be purged and edited with xattrs. It doesn't follow the file across computers and you can outright disable file metadata and indexing if you really care enough and I've never seen or heard of any evidence of Apple sending this local data outside your computer. Windows indexes files and creates metadata, even popular Linux desktop distros do it, because it's a usability improvement for most people. >But yes I wish this prompt could be completely turned off. defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine -bool NO
Nbox9 5y ago
What’s your point, that someone can attempt to do something anonymously and fail?
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  No the point is that Mozilla is dishonest about their causes and consistently take actions that are hostile to user's privacy.
- car_analogy 5y ago
  My point is that they failed only because they were betrayed by the free software tool they thought they could trust.
  - charcircuit 5y ago
    Mozilla has never advertised that their software was designed to keep you anonymous.
    - chris_wot 5y ago
      They have whole campaigns against Facebook railing against intrusions into privacy.
    - kreeben 5y ago
      No, but they advertise that "Firefox automatically protects your privacy while you browse". https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-protection-firefox-desktop https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-prote...
      - shreddit 5y ago
        technically they did not lie. “While you browse” is clearly excluding the time whilst installing the browser.
        5y ago
zagrebian 5y ago
> Mozilla now has your home IP Since when does Mozilla collect IP addresses?
- car_analogy 5y ago
  Any connection to Mozilla's servers reveals your IP to them. Given the amount of telemetry in Firefox, it's foolish to assume they don't log these IPs. And in either case, they could be legally compelled to. But afaik, under US law, they cannot be compelled to subvert their software, e.g. to add such spyware features if they were not already present.
  - zagrebian 5y ago
    Why would Mozilla need the IP address? It doesn’t seem useful for their telemetry.
    - car_analogy 5y ago
      What part of Mozilla's behavior makes you assume they don't? It's easy to come up with some dubious internal justification to store IPs (like to determine where to focus internationalization efforts).
      - mynameisvlad 5y ago
        It's not even internal justification, it's just plainly the default for practically any web server that does logging. You would have to go out of your way to disable it.
        detaro 5y ago
        Not logging IPs or establishing controls on it is table-stakes for anyone doing anything serious about privacy.
        perryizgr8 5y ago
kaba0 5y ago
I hope you don’t use the internet at all if this is your threat model.
- car_analogy 5y ago
  The threat model is reasonable behavior + a single warrant or data leak. It may not be the most likely way of compromise, but it's very possible, and such small insecurities add up. Mozilla should be making such compromise less likely, not more.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    How do they add up? Having your IP address 10 times won’t make anyone ever of your medical history. It is not cumulative.
    - car_analogy 5y ago
      They add up in the sense that each increases the likelihood you will be compromised, and reduces the set of activities that you may safely and privately perform.
smitty1e 5y ago
> Suppose you want to do something anonymously. > 1. Download installer from Mozilla from your home network - Mozilla now has your home IP and installer ID. Compile from source?
- car_analogy 5y ago
  Of course the "attack" is easy to avoid. But you first have to know about it. Mozilla should not be planting such landmines.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    This isn't a landmine in any normal threat model. The average person is concerned with identity theft and perhaps their local law enforcement, not the full weight of domestic or foreign intelligence services.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      The average person fears the domestic intelligence service and is not as concerned with local police.
      - ashwagary 5y ago
        The thousands of people a year murdered by local police (many of whom are unarmed and innocent) would probably disagree.
        unnamed76ri 5y ago
        you’re only off by whatever number of thousands over a thousand you are implying here.
        Someone 5y ago
        I don’t know whether the OP was thinking of it, but world-wide, it is thousands (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-killings-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-ki.... Numbers “include those killed by security forces such as military police and intelligence agents”, but I think removing those would easily keep it ‘thousands’)
thyrox 5y ago
You know I let a lot of important things in Firefox slide (like the poor Webspeech API support, bad text-to-speech, some missing extensions and a lot of other things) but I still make it a habit to use it over Chrome (and recommend it to everybody) as somewhere in my mind it feels like a small revolt against the giant evil Google corp. But stuff like this and other shenanigans in the past (like Mr.robot, misuse of funding, etc) is really off-putting sometimes. It really makes me feel naive and just drinking the support open-source kool-aid.
- OrlandoHakim 5y ago
  I switched to Brave - no regrets
  - mrjangles 5y ago
    I'm almost certain Brave would have something like this too as advertising is their business model, right?
    - btdmaster 5y ago
      It does: https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/brave.html https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/brave.html
    - xtat 5y ago
      Suggest everyone here read up on Brave - internally the care for privacy is much higher than Mozilla [I have worked for both] and things like P3A liked here are carefully designed to avoid leaking PII and implemented honestly somewhat begrudgingly.
  - wyclif 5y ago
    I did, too. All I can tell you is that when I have Brave running on an M1 with four tabs open, it's consistently using 240MB of memory. When I fire up Firefox Developer Edition with the same tabs open, it starts at 660MB and quickly balloons up to 1.05GB of memory usage.
Mathnerd314 5y ago
The mistake is at step 1 when you downloaded Firefox instead of Tor Browser.
- rodamaral 5y ago
  Some people use Tor within Firefox via a SOCKS proxy. This might defeat the protection given by Tor.
  - Mathnerd314 5y ago
    Right which is why the Tor FAQ says using a browser besides Tor Browser is dangerous and not recommended: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/tbb-9/ https://support.torproject.org/tbb/tbb-9/ It's like how when you're baking a cake, the easiest way to do it is to buy a cake mix and follow the directions on the back. Yes, maybe you can make a tastier cake by changing the directions or using better ingredients, but you also introduced the possibility of the cake exploding. Particularly with anonymity, the trick is to do what everyone else who wants to be anonymous is doing.
    - mionhe 5y ago
      ...what ingredients are you putting in your cakes?
      - dane-pgp 5y ago
        Flour? https://daisyflour.com/flour-explosions/ https://daisyflour.com/flour-explosions/
        heikrana 5y ago
        Lmao
- fold3 5y ago
  Tor is banned in countries where you are most likely to get in trouble for your online activities like China, or more recently, Russia.
abandonliberty 5y ago
I can't believe the apologists commenting on this. Firefox put a lot of effort into tracking download to install behavior. Maybe this is the only violation you know about. There's no reason to continue to believe in Mozilla's good faith. They've been captured, and are 90% dependent on Google revenue. Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28954390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28954390 Firefox is dead. It's time to move past denial. It doesn't stand for anything you think it does. I'm sad, too. Time to bury the putrid, rotting corpse.
- rackjack 5y ago
  What're the alternatives to Firefox? The only ones that come to mind are Opera and Brave, and Brave had some controversy too.
  - OrlandoHakim 5y ago
    What is controversial about Brave? Seems like the best alternative at the moment IMHO
    - highwind 5y ago
      One of many controversies: https://www.techworm.net/2020/06/brave-browser-cryptocurrency.html https://www.techworm.net/2020/06/brave-browser-cryptocurrenc...
    - vlark 5y ago
      Some folks object to the Brave Rewards system and the embedded crypto wallet.
      - SllX 5y ago
        I just disabled all of that. No Chromium browser is my main browser but when I need one, Brave seems like the best option. If you were to pick between Brave, Vivaldi and I dunno, maybe Edge, just for when you need Chrome-compatibility and pretty much no other reason, which one would you pick and why?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jiriro 5y ago
> 1. Download installer from Mozilla from your home network - Mozilla now has your home IP and installer ID. The Apple’s icloud private relay should prevent Mozilla knowing the IP.
- Slartie 5y ago
  Great! And what about all those non-Apple users? Or all those Apple users not on a paid iCloud plan?
  - jiriro 5y ago
    > non-Apple users? Don’t know.. perhaps they might consider to get a gadget with that goddamn safari:-) > not on a paid iCloud plan It’s $0.99/month.
    - abenga 5y ago
      Have they tried not being poor?
_thph 5y ago
I wonder if the Tor people know about this? Firefox to my eye jumped the shark a long, long time ago, when they took to using deliberate deception during the install process to get people to sign up to a Mozilla account. Pretty much everything they've introduced for years I've not wanted or disliked. The saving grace has been that pretty much everything can be turned off in about::config. I may be wrong, but I think Moz has become a typical larger company, wholly divorced from its users, unable to know what users want, let alone respond. What Moz as a large company wants is really completely different to what users want, and a unique tracking ID is a shining example of this. I'll be using Tor, but I my secondary browser now has to change, as this is intolerable.

systemvoltage 5y ago

I can't remember exactly but Apple also does this with apps. "Downloaded from ...".

dylan604 5y ago
Isn't that just storing the domain name from which served the file? I actually find this useful for those times when I can't remember where a file came from but need to use the site again. Having that data in a Get Info windo has been useful and faster than web searching.
weikju 5y ago
Except this is an attribute saved on the file locally on your system, added by your browser when you download it, not something that Apple stores on their servers and tracks.
evilduck 5y ago
That's a slight bit different because that file metadata is being assigned on the receiving client side and not from the distributor of the file. Likewise, that info is stored in your Spotlight index, not the file itself and isn't moved with the file (you can look at the raw metadata with the `mdls` command on a Mac and see that it is lost when you move something to a USB stick, or upload it to your own server or something)
GekkePrutser 5y ago
That is also annoying but two wrongs don't make a right. Also Apple seems to just track this to show a prompt as to why they need approval for the install. And it's just stored locally in the metadata. But yes I wish this prompt could be completely turned off. This isn't just security for the user though, they have a clear financial motive in promoting their app store as an easier option. After all the app store is a huge revenue driver for them on mobile but not on Mac. Also Apple has done a lot worse things like checking the notarisation online every time an app was launched. They have now cut this back to once every few days since the outcry about it but still it's something you should be able to turn off IMO. But what do you expect from a closed source OS (yes it is, only the kernel is open). And again, the fact that Apple does it too does not make Mozilla's action less questionable.
- evilduck 5y ago
  I have a hard time viewing Apple's Spotlight metadata as a wrong. It's locally created and stored, it's transparently shown in File info and mdls. It can be purged and edited with xattrs. It doesn't follow the file across computers and you can outright disable file metadata and indexing if you really care enough and I've never seen or heard of any evidence of Apple sending this local data outside your computer. Windows indexes files and creates metadata, even popular Linux desktop distros do it, because it's a usability improvement for most people. >But yes I wish this prompt could be completely turned off. defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine -bool NO

Nbox9 5y ago

What’s your point, that someone can attempt to do something anonymously and fail?

encryptluks2 5y ago
No the point is that Mozilla is dishonest about their causes and consistently take actions that are hostile to user's privacy.
car_analogy 5y ago
My point is that they failed only because they were betrayed by the free software tool they thought they could trust.
- charcircuit 5y ago
  Mozilla has never advertised that their software was designed to keep you anonymous.
  - chris_wot 5y ago
    They have whole campaigns against Facebook railing against intrusions into privacy.
  - kreeben 5y ago
    No, but they advertise that "Firefox automatically protects your privacy while you browse". https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-protection-firefox-desktop https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-prote...
    - shreddit 5y ago
      technically they did not lie. “While you browse” is clearly excluding the time whilst installing the browser.
      - 5y ago

zagrebian 5y ago

> Mozilla now has your home IP Since when does Mozilla collect IP addresses?

car_analogy 5y ago
Any connection to Mozilla's servers reveals your IP to them. Given the amount of telemetry in Firefox, it's foolish to assume they don't log these IPs. And in either case, they could be legally compelled to. But afaik, under US law, they cannot be compelled to subvert their software, e.g. to add such spyware features if they were not already present.
- zagrebian 5y ago
  Why would Mozilla need the IP address? It doesn’t seem useful for their telemetry.
  - car_analogy 5y ago
    What part of Mozilla's behavior makes you assume they don't? It's easy to come up with some dubious internal justification to store IPs (like to determine where to focus internationalization efforts).
    - mynameisvlad 5y ago
      It's not even internal justification, it's just plainly the default for practically any web server that does logging. You would have to go out of your way to disable it.
      - detaro 5y ago
        Not logging IPs or establishing controls on it is table-stakes for anyone doing anything serious about privacy.
        perryizgr8 5y ago

kaba0 5y ago

I hope you don’t use the internet at all if this is your threat model.

car_analogy 5y ago
The threat model is reasonable behavior + a single warrant or data leak. It may not be the most likely way of compromise, but it's very possible, and such small insecurities add up. Mozilla should be making such compromise less likely, not more.
- kaba0 5y ago
  How do they add up? Having your IP address 10 times won’t make anyone ever of your medical history. It is not cumulative.
  - car_analogy 5y ago
    They add up in the sense that each increases the likelihood you will be compromised, and reduces the set of activities that you may safely and privately perform.

smitty1e 5y ago

> Suppose you want to do something anonymously. > 1. Download installer from Mozilla from your home network - Mozilla now has your home IP and installer ID. Compile from source?

car_analogy 5y ago
Of course the "attack" is easy to avoid. But you first have to know about it. Mozilla should not be planting such landmines.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  This isn't a landmine in any normal threat model. The average person is concerned with identity theft and perhaps their local law enforcement, not the full weight of domestic or foreign intelligence services.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    The average person fears the domestic intelligence service and is not as concerned with local police.
    - ashwagary 5y ago
      The thousands of people a year murdered by local police (many of whom are unarmed and innocent) would probably disagree.
      - unnamed76ri 5y ago
        you’re only off by whatever number of thousands over a thousand you are implying here.
        Someone 5y ago
        I don’t know whether the OP was thinking of it, but world-wide, it is thousands (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-killings-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-ki.... Numbers “include those killed by security forces such as military police and intelligence agents”, but I think removing those would easily keep it ‘thousands’)

thyrox 5y ago

You know I let a lot of important things in Firefox slide (like the poor Webspeech API support, bad text-to-speech, some missing extensions and a lot of other things) but I still make it a habit to use it over Chrome (and recommend it to everybody) as somewhere in my mind it feels like a small revolt against the giant evil Google corp. But stuff like this and other shenanigans in the past (like Mr.robot, misuse of funding, etc) is really off-putting sometimes. It really makes me feel naive and just drinking the support open-source kool-aid.

OrlandoHakim 5y ago
I switched to Brave - no regrets
- mrjangles 5y ago
  I'm almost certain Brave would have something like this too as advertising is their business model, right?
  - btdmaster 5y ago
    It does: https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/brave.html https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/brave.html
  - xtat 5y ago
    Suggest everyone here read up on Brave - internally the care for privacy is much higher than Mozilla [I have worked for both] and things like P3A liked here are carefully designed to avoid leaking PII and implemented honestly somewhat begrudgingly.
- wyclif 5y ago
  I did, too. All I can tell you is that when I have Brave running on an M1 with four tabs open, it's consistently using 240MB of memory. When I fire up Firefox Developer Edition with the same tabs open, it starts at 660MB and quickly balloons up to 1.05GB of memory usage.

Mathnerd314 5y ago

The mistake is at step 1 when you downloaded Firefox instead of Tor Browser.

rodamaral 5y ago
Some people use Tor within Firefox via a SOCKS proxy. This might defeat the protection given by Tor.
- Mathnerd314 5y ago
  Right which is why the Tor FAQ says using a browser besides Tor Browser is dangerous and not recommended: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/tbb-9/ https://support.torproject.org/tbb/tbb-9/ It's like how when you're baking a cake, the easiest way to do it is to buy a cake mix and follow the directions on the back. Yes, maybe you can make a tastier cake by changing the directions or using better ingredients, but you also introduced the possibility of the cake exploding. Particularly with anonymity, the trick is to do what everyone else who wants to be anonymous is doing.
  - mionhe 5y ago
    ...what ingredients are you putting in your cakes?
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      Flour? https://daisyflour.com/flour-explosions/ https://daisyflour.com/flour-explosions/
      - heikrana 5y ago
        Lmao
fold3 5y ago
Tor is banned in countries where you are most likely to get in trouble for your online activities like China, or more recently, Russia.

abandonliberty 5y ago

I can't believe the apologists commenting on this. Firefox put a lot of effort into tracking download to install behavior. Maybe this is the only violation you know about. There's no reason to continue to believe in Mozilla's good faith. They've been captured, and are 90% dependent on Google revenue. Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28954390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28954390 Firefox is dead. It's time to move past denial. It doesn't stand for anything you think it does. I'm sad, too. Time to bury the putrid, rotting corpse.

rackjack 5y ago
What're the alternatives to Firefox? The only ones that come to mind are Opera and Brave, and Brave had some controversy too.
- OrlandoHakim 5y ago
  What is controversial about Brave? Seems like the best alternative at the moment IMHO
  - highwind 5y ago
    One of many controversies: https://www.techworm.net/2020/06/brave-browser-cryptocurrency.html https://www.techworm.net/2020/06/brave-browser-cryptocurrenc...
  - vlark 5y ago
    Some folks object to the Brave Rewards system and the embedded crypto wallet.
    - SllX 5y ago
      I just disabled all of that. No Chromium browser is my main browser but when I need one, Brave seems like the best option. If you were to pick between Brave, Vivaldi and I dunno, maybe Edge, just for when you need Chrome-compatibility and pretty much no other reason, which one would you pick and why?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jiriro 5y ago

> 1. Download installer from Mozilla from your home network - Mozilla now has your home IP and installer ID. The Apple’s icloud private relay should prevent Mozilla knowing the IP.

Slartie 5y ago
Great! And what about all those non-Apple users? Or all those Apple users not on a paid iCloud plan?
- jiriro 5y ago
  > non-Apple users? Don’t know.. perhaps they might consider to get a gadget with that goddamn safari:-) > not on a paid iCloud plan It’s $0.99/month.
  - abenga 5y ago
    Have they tried not being poor?

_thph 5y ago

I wonder if the Tor people know about this? Firefox to my eye jumped the shark a long, long time ago, when they took to using deliberate deception during the install process to get people to sign up to a Mozilla account. Pretty much everything they've introduced for years I've not wanted or disliked. The saving grace has been that pretty much everything can be turned off in about::config. I may be wrong, but I think Moz has become a typical larger company, wholly divorced from its users, unable to know what users want, let alone respond. What Moz as a large company wants is really completely different to what users want, and a unique tracking ID is a shining example of this. I'll be using Tor, but I my secondary browser now has to change, as this is intolerable.