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Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#251

Post by wtmt »

danShumway wrote: post #131
dessant wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the audio CAPTCHA is easier to solve, but the audio challenge is blocked [1] if you are not in a good network neighbourhood or they can't collect enough tracking data to classify your visit. [1] https://github.com/w3c/apa/issues/25

Can confirm, it's rare for me to be able to get at the audio captcha. Occasionally I'll find that tabbing onto the the button allows it load when clicking directly on it won't. I assume if Google is observing behavior that makes them think you're sighted, they'll block access. I kind of wonder if it would be possible to force the issue legally as an accessibility problem, but other people than me would need to do it,…

> Can confirm, it's rare for me to be able to get at the audio captcha. Occasionally I'll find that tabbing onto the the button allows it load when clicking directly on it won't. I assume if Google is observing behavior that makes them think you're sighted, they'll block access.

That'd be very cruel to ignore those with vision, but who don't have anything close to perfect vision or correctable vision through glasses. It would also ignore those who have poorer vision as well as have difficulties in recognizing patterns. There's a whole spectrum of accessibility issues, and trying to "fail people" who seem to have enough vision to click on an audio button would be the definition of being evil.

> I kind of wonder if it would be possible to force the issue legally as an accessibility problem, but other people than me would need to do it, and in any case it feels a kind of dirty to me to use blind accessibility as a tool in the fight for privacy.

Even if this is not possible legally in all jurisdictions, enough publicity and outrage could help. There should certainly be some journalists from major publications/site reading HN (or HN readers with journalist contacts) who can investigate and write about this.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#252

Post by akerro »

skybrian wrote: post #183
RonanTheGrey wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fingerprinting is the primary way that Captcha decides whether to block you or not. Fingerprinting == security is the parallel they are drawing.

Ok, that makes sense. Not ideal, but captchas need to be written somehow.

Modern captchas are designed to be anti-human and use as for free training of their AI algorithms. We're slaves for free while Google benefits from this, both technologically and financially.

Next captcha from google will be even more aggressive, you're not logged to Google = you're a bot, you can't access that content.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#253

Post by wkornewald »

simias wrote: post #102
ademup wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has ~250M users as of about 9 months ago and $562M revenue for 2017. I'd honestly pay $2 per month (12 times "my share") for a Firefox that completely disavows the ad model and produces a truly user-centric experience sans ads, fingerprinting, etc. However, given that over 95% of their revenue comes from Royalties, I don't see that turning around any time soon.

I would too, but clearly most people wouldn't, otherwise advertisement wouldn't be such a popular way to monetize apps and websites (and Google wouldn't be the behemoth that it is today). Actually I would also gladly pay for a decent search engine but even DuckDuckGo decided to monetize using ads, which IMO means that sooner or later if they're successful enough they'll become just as bad as the rest. Besides paying…

I’ve recently switched to startpage.com - they use Google for high quality search results, but anonymize all search requests and show non-personalized, non-tracking ads solely based on my current search term. Also, they’re based in Europe/Netherlands.

I’m not affiliated with them. Just a happy user.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#254

Post by zwaps »

banachtarski wrote: post #189
zwaps wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You go to hotel.com and you don't get a good offer because they know exactly how much you are willing and able to pay. Sounds good? now do this for every other thing you buy online. Good enough?

I would classify that as "not sufficiently anonymized." I'm asking a serious question and don't really subscribe to dogma as being particularly convincing. Thanks for the facetious argument and hand-waving though.

This is literally why the data is being collected. Granted, i do not work at Google, but i have experience in exactly this area.

Apps and websites want to sell you things. Well many of them. They then need to know for how much. If they know, they can extract more profit. Which is why they try to find out. Really. No dogma.

What do you think I do with your fingerprint as you engage with my sales website?

"Improve my service?" I hope you never buy a used car.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#255

Post by Fnoord »

thethirdone wrote: post #100
ademup wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has ~250M users as of about 9 months ago and $562M revenue for 2017. I'd honestly pay $2 per month (12 times "my share") for a Firefox that completely disavows the ad model and produces a truly user-centric experience sans ads, fingerprinting, etc. However, given that over 95% of their revenue comes from Royalties, I don't see that turning around any time soon.

> Firefox has ~250M users as of about 9 months ago and $562M revenue for 2017 I think nearly everyone would be willing to pay the ~$2/year to use Firefox if all browsers weren't free. At that price, the main reason not to pay is the hassle rather than just downloading. Thanks for the context about the revenue of Firefox. I had never given it any though.

> I think nearly everyone would be willing to pay the ~$2/year to use Firefox if all browsers weren't free.

Don't forget $2 in USA buys you different things than in Russia, China, India, or Africa.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#256

Post by SquareWheel »

zwaps wrote: post #185
SquareWheel wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alphabet never used "Don't be evil" as a motto. They have used "Do the right thing" since their inception.

Alphabet is Google's parent company and did not exist when "Don't be evil" was put at the top of Googles preamble. Functionally, they took it out. Both by not using it in the new parent company, and deleting it out of the preamble of Google itself. Yeah okay it still occurs somewhere. But "Do the right thing" as substitute to "Don't be evil" has clear implications except if you are terribly naive.

>Functionally, they took it out.

If they never put it in, then they never took it out. There is no need to play the language game to try to make something false sound true.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#257

Post by anoplus »

I am posting this again, because I still didn't get opinions about it and I think it is important.

How much of Firefox success depends on donations?

I have seen successful crowd-funding projects where the budget is always transparent and communicated to the public. I am certain this motivates the masses to donate.

Wouldn't it be better for Mozilla to make their funding fully transparent to attract the masses?

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#258

Post by tngranados »

anoplus wrote: post #257

I am posting this again, because I still didn't get opinions about it and I think it is important. How much of Firefox success depends on donations? I have seen successful crowd-funding projects where the budget is always transparent and communicated to the public. I am certain this motivates the masses to donate. Wouldn't it be better for Mozilla to make their funding fully transparent to attract the masses?

I'm not sure how transparent they are about their finances, but most of Mozilla funding comes from search engines deals to make them default in certain regions (Yahoo, Google, Yandex and Baidu).

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#259

Post by Fnoord »

ngokevin wrote: post #143
TheRealPomax wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? I used to work for a defense contractor, using the military complex money to instead pay for civil projects that actually benefit normal people. You can take money that comes from "I don't like this thing", and then spend it on "this benefits everyone".

Does the defense contractor rag on the military afterwards? You can take money from something, use it for good, but it's kinda funny when you start to claim the hands that feeds you is evil and bad.

This is how OpenBSD lost their DARPA funding. [1]

[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/29937/

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#260

Post by atoav »

skybrian wrote: post #183
RonanTheGrey wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fingerprinting is the primary way that Captcha decides whether to block you or not. Fingerprinting == security is the parallel they are drawing.

Ok, that makes sense. Not ideal, but captchas need to be written somehow.

I had simple questions you can answer with text on my site for years, and I had no spam problem whatsoever.

I am not convinced that training google’s image recognition algorithms is the only way to solve the captcha problem

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