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Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

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Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#171

Post by Ajedi32 »

keeperofdakeys wrote: post #23
clarkevans wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the burden here is backwards? URLs may contain Protected Health and other Identifying Information. If this data leaks SSL and could be sent to a 3rd party, then it makes Firefox an unsuitable client for a great many applications. EDIT: OK. It's boolean flags (like use of flash) plus an eTLD+1 (example.org; not myname.example.org?). Even so, I believe this tracking should be opt-in with a disclosure screen tha…

They don't plan on collecting URLs, just (eTLD+1). The only real issue I can see here are users who have registered their own domain under an eTLD, and have it set to their home page. eTLD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Suffix_List

> The only real issue I can see here are users who have registered their own domain under an eTLD

Doesn't the differential privacy system described above prevent even that from being an issue?

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#172

Post by moosingin3space »

tjoff wrote: post #135
alexrs95 wrote: post #87

I work at Mozilla, but I'm speaking for myself here, and not on behalf of Mozilla as a whole. For those interested in understand more about this project and why we're doing it, here you can find an introduction of Differential Privacy and what we're trying to do. https://twitter.com/Alexrs95/status/896366072240144385

What you guys just won't grasp is that: 1. You will absolutely obliterate any trust you have with actions like this. This is important. Because if you continue to ignore this and you will have tons of data but you will be absolutely clueless as to why your product and brand are completely abandoned. 2. This data isn't worth that much to begin with. Here is a crazy idea, try to make a better browser instead.

This data will be used in the pursuit of #2. As it turns out, a lack of understanding of what users are doing with their browsers is an obstacle to making a better browser. Performance issues in complex systems often only show up in production, and that's what Mozilla is trying to collect this data to fix.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#173

Post by gbuk2013 »

huhtenberg wrote: post #43

The single largest advantage of Firefox over other browsers is that despite all odds and occasional missteps they managed to respect users' desire for complete privacy. For Firefox we want to better understand how people use our product to improve their experience. Sure thing. But the fact that they are unhappy that some (many?) people are opting-out from the data collection is merely a sign that they don't want to u…

> No phoning home. No telemetry, no data collection. No "light" version of the same, no "privacy-respecting" what-have-you. No means No. Nada. Zilch. Try and shovel any of that down people's throats and the idea of Firefox as a user's browser will die.

https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785

And now this :-(

I have been using Firefox since before it was called that. I develop my apps in it, even though most of my colleagues have switched to Chrome years ago. Even though it is (or was for a while) slower than Chrome for things like Canvas.

But I use because I believe in Free Software. But Mozilla keeps disappointing. DRM, bundled 3-rd party apps, analytics, tracking... It is just so very sad. :-(

Also, I have 17 add-ons installed (11 active). At present, of these 17, only 2 will continue working after November when the switch to WebExtensions is enforced.

Where to go from here?

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#174

Post by BenjiWiebe »

clarkevans wrote: post #150
kannanvijayan wrote: post #71

I can do a quick summary of what's being proposed and why. I work in the JS team at Mozilla and deal directly with the problems caused by insufficient data. Please note that I'm speaking for myself here, and not on behalf of Mozilla as a whole. Tracking down regressions, crashes, and perf issues without good telemetry about how often it's happening and in what context. Issues that might have otherwise taken a few day…

> Don't collect URLs, but only top-level+1 domains (e.g. images.google.com) Do you consider images.google.com to be eTLD+1? The eTLD would be .com; so, eTLD+1 would be google.com; and hence, images.google.com would be eTLD+2? eTLD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Suffix_List

This is clearly an example of the infamous off-by-one error.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#175

Post by tunap »

js8 wrote: post #20

I liked Firefox for years. I have lived through years of shenanigans such as broken extensions, forgetting what tabs I had open because Firefox accidentally closed without restoring them, moving icons and menus around for no reason, and recently, an update on my Ubuntu that broke scrolling of pages (with PgUp/PgDown). And now this.. I am starting to think that they just don't want people to use Firefox. Yeah, I know…

Where governments and corporations are concerned, the "why" condenses down to two simple answers: commercialization(profit) or weaponization(control)... it is easily conceivable that both will result over time. I hope Tor & EFF start giving more love to Pale Moon & it's ilk, but that may just be mitigating the inevitable death by 1000 cuts to privacy.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#176

Post by mccr8 »

dhimes wrote: post #118

I generally trust Mozilla, but I really don't understand what they are going to get out of the data. Their explanation leaves me scratching my head. Perhaps it's simply because I don't work on browsers? How does seeing which sites users use that need Flash drive their decision-making. Either they support Flash, or they don't. And- ditto for "Jank" (not sure I understand that term, frankly- why is it capitalized?). So…

> How does seeing which sites users use that need Flash drive their decision-making. Either they support Flash, or they don't.

I'm not saying I support this proposal or not, but here's an example of why this could be useful: Chrome was considering deprecating some API, because it wasn't supported by other browsers and they didn't think that it was used very much.

They collected generic statistics about how much it was used, but the numbers turned out to be much higher than expected, so they were considering leaving it alone. What if some fairly popular website they just hadn't heard of used the API? You might not want to break it, or at least you'd want to get in touch with the site to see if they could move to a more widely supported API.

In the end, they somehow (maybe through spidering, or somebody just happened across it in their own browsing) figured out that the high usage was due to being used by some ad network for fingerprinting. Not only was this not a reason to keep supporting the API, it was a reason to stop supporting it!

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#177

Post by kuschku »

veeti wrote: post #165
kuschku wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla currently uses Google Analytics for tracking, with "IP Anonymization" enabled. Which, according to Google’s FAQ, https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2763052?hl=en , just blanks out the last byte of the IP. Which is useless, because it still includes enough personalized data as to be completely and utterly reversible.

Google Analytics has nothing to do with this. As clearly linked in the mailing list, you can read the paper and source code for the client-side differential privacy tech used.

Then check out https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#178

Post by Ajedi32 »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #169
Ajedi32 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really sure what your concern is here. Let's assume for a moment that Firefox's implementation of differential privacy in this scenario is completely correct, and that as a result it's completely impossible (even in an information-theoretic sense) to learn anything about any individual user using this data; only about many users in aggregate. In this scenario, how exactly would Firefox's actions here compromi…

That is a massively unwarrented assumption, and the burden to show things are otherise is on the party that wishes to push these changes.

Fair point. What would you accept as sufficient proof that their implementation is correct?

If your answer is "nothing" then I think you're being unreasonable. Firefox risks compromising security/privacy with _every_ new feature they implement, not just this one, and it's clear from [other comments][1] in this thread that this feature is just as important for the overall functionality of Firefox as any other feature would be.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15072157

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#179

Post by [deleted] »

dhimes wrote: post #118

I generally trust Mozilla, but I really don't understand what they are going to get out of the data. Their explanation leaves me scratching my head. Perhaps it's simply because I don't work on browsers? How does seeing which sites users use that need Flash drive their decision-making. Either they support Flash, or they don't. And- ditto for "Jank" (not sure I understand that term, frankly- why is it capitalized?). So…

[deleted]

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#180

Post by saiya-jin »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #162
huhtenberg wrote: post #43

The single largest advantage of Firefox over other browsers is that despite all odds and occasional missteps they managed to respect users' desire for complete privacy. For Firefox we want to better understand how people use our product to improve their experience. Sure thing. But the fact that they are unhappy that some (many?) people are opting-out from the data collection is merely a sign that they don't want to u…

I'm not really sure what your concern is here. Let's assume for a moment that Firefox's implementation of differential privacy in this scenario is completely correct, and that as a result it's completely impossible (even in an information-theoretic sense) to learn anything about any individual user using this data; only about many users in aggregate. In this scenario, how exactly would Firefox's actions here compromi…

in 2017, how hard is it to understand that many of us don't trust some sweet talking companies? simple things work. simple NO is simply... NO. there is nothing more to discuss.

if they will follow with it, they will lose tons of customers and what is worse, credibility. why bother if there is chrome?

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