Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

groups.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 450 posts

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

#321

Post by Ajedi32 »

msla wrote: post #240
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…

You wouldn't say anything else, so your statements don't change anything: Any company which wants to collect more data would justify it in the same way. The main reason to collect data is monetization. People don't like to think they're being sold, so it's justified on other grounds. That's a universal. Since the way data is monetized is to track and segregate users, claims that it can be done in a privacy-respecting…

Are you honestly suggesting that the only possible use for aggregate user statistics is for ads? Not for A/B testing or tracking performance regressions?

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

#322

Post by noir_lord »

icebraining wrote: post #47
DangerousPie wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are only considering collecting "eTLD+1, e.g. facebook.com or google.co.uk" so this should almost certainly not be an issue.

My homepage is my self-hosted reader, at rss. .com :)

Mine is .co.uk :)

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

#323

Post by dang »

calcifer wrote: post #213

Can we at least stop with the FUD please? > DRM EME is not DRM, it's a fully open source spec to support third-party DRM modules. If you don't actively choose to install a DRM module, there is no DRM in your Firefox. > 3-rd party apps Like what? Pocket is fully owned by Mozilla. > analytics, tracking So far this has been 100% opt-in. It might change with this new thing, but even that's not for certain.

> Can we at least stop with the FUD please?

Please don't use uncivil internet tropes on HN. If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully. Your comment would be fine without the first sentence, but experience unfortunately teaches that flamebait has more impact than its accompanying substance does.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15072694 and marked it off-topic.

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

#324

Post by tomc1985 »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #207
joosters wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they not letting people decide? If it is not harming anyone's privacy, and they make it clear that it isn't, then what is the problem with letting people opt-in to it? Instead, it's telling that they are choosing to force people to opt-out. They know that their users don't want this, but don't care.

Opt-in inevitably results in data being heavily biased in favor of the small minority of users who go out of their way to opt-in. For some stuff that's fine, but for certain types of data you really do need a broad, unbiased sample of users in order for the data to be at all meaningful. (Usually to answer questions like "What percentage of users use x feature?" Or "What level of jank does the average user experience…

Software was built for decades without this data and can continue to be built without this data for decades to come.

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

#325

Post by staticelf »

morganvachon wrote: post #221
staticelf wrote: post #198

If they do this, I will uninstall Firefox and start recommending some other browser. Mozilla has really sunk in my eyes the last couple of years but this is the final spike in the coffin for me.

What else is there, though, at least for mainstream users? There's Chrome which has been doing this since the beginning for Google, there's Safari but only if you're on a Mac, and there's a smattering of smaller browser projects on Linux that are good in their own right but not mainstream enough to have the features of the big four. On Windows, Microsoft Edge is of course a lean and capable browser, but the OS itself…

Most likely Brave, Edge, Opera or Vivaldi. I haven't really dug into if they do telemetry but some quick google searches tells me that at least Vivaldi does not. Brave is also a browser all about privacy so it would be weird if they do spy on their users.

But you are correct, if Firefox falls as the last bastion in the web browser world to protect users privacy there is little choice left of really nice browsers.

If / when Firefox does this however there is really no real reason to even pick Firefox to begin with since all the other major players do the same.

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

#326

Post by dang »

Vinnl wrote: post #13

Note: "planning" means "reaching out for feedback about". Also interesting: the method they plan on using for anonymising this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy#Principle... If that is not sufficiently anonymous, then please submit the reasoning why to Mozilla.

Ok, we changed the title from "Firefox planning to anonymously collect browsing data" to (hopefully more representative) language from the first paragraph of the article.

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

#327

Post by acdha »

marcosdumay wrote: post #304
acdha wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any submission of data requires the transmission of an IP address, which is personal data and necessitates appropriate protection. Do you have a citation for that broad assertion? My understanding is that this is highly variable across legal jurisdictions and even in Europe, which typically leads the way in privacy, it's not that simple. See e.g. https://www.whitecase.com/publications/alert/court-confirms-... discu…

What's up with calling obvious stuff by "broad assertion"? Are you saying that people can not be identified by their IP address?

Because it's neither obvious nor globally true. Legal status varies around the world and from a technical perspective an IP address on its own doesn't usually identify a person unless you have other information — account data, correlated data from other sites, etc. — and things like NAT and public wifi make that necessary to reliably link activity.

I think it's important to talk about this issue – especially the importance of not storing it long-term — but from my perspective the real concern is the industry dedicated to linking and sharing your online activity. Without that an IP has little value and with it they can deanonymize most people without using IPs.

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

#328

Post by Ajedi32 »

pishpash wrote: post #292
Ajedi32 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting point. Admittedly, my understanding of differential privacy is very rudimentary, but isn't that only a risk under the assumption that you can ask the same user the same question multiple times, and get a new, independently chosen answer every time? If you can only ask each question once and every subsequent time you ask you just get the same answer, is that not secure in the information theoretic sense? P…

You are speaking of perhaps Google's RAPPOR protocol specifically, in which answers are sent through a series of BSC-like channels. These channels introduce noise, meaning the input signal is degraded, but by no means is it gone -- otherwise no statistics could be collected. Multiple independent reads would be an obvious attack; actually it's a form of repetition coding; but there are many other coding strategies aga…

Ah, fair point. I guess it's incorrect to say it's impossible to learn _anything_ about a user as an individual using data generated using differential privacy. Just that what you do learn is more of a small statistical possibility than a sure thing. (E.g. "The user visited this site." vs "There is a 5% higher than average chance the user visited this site.") And that's even assuming you already know who "the user" is (which certainly isn't a given).

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

#329

Post by mintplant »

Vinnl wrote: post #299
stewbrew wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tracking down regressions, crashes, and perf issues without good telemetry about how often it's happening and in what context. If that's what you're aiming at. Collect the data but keep it local. Install some sort of responsiveness/"problem" monitoring. Ask the user to send data relevant to the problem if a problem occurs. IMHO there is no need to systematically collect user data for that. Or get the data from a ra…

> Or get the data from a random sample of users. You don't need data from everyone. To my amateur ear, that actually sounds like a good compromise to lessen the blow somewhat more. You should suggest it to Mozilla :)

That's what's proposed here. I guess no one actually read the post...?

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

#330

Post by msla »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #321
msla wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't say anything else, so your statements don't change anything: Any company which wants to collect more data would justify it in the same way. The main reason to collect data is monetization. People don't like to think they're being sold, so it's justified on other grounds. That's a universal. Since the way data is monetized is to track and segregate users, claims that it can be done in a privacy-respecting…

Are you honestly suggesting that the only possible use for aggregate user statistics is for ads? Not for A/B testing or tracking performance regressions?

I'm saying that the behavior of someone who was collecting aggregate statistics for ads and the behavior of someone who was collecting aggregate statistics for another reason would be identical in this forum, so we must assume the worst.
Post reply on HN