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Brave, the false sensation of privacy

ebin.city

151–160 of 501 posts

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISPs can see a lot, but it does have limits. As long as we're using SSL (and I suppose, assuming it hasn't been cracked), the ISP really only knows what domains I'm visiting. So they might know that I'm going to WebMD, but they don't necessarily know that I'm reading up on treatment options for nose fungus. They also don't necessarily know exactly which member of my household is going to that website, nor can they li…

do we need randomized dom nodes ?

No.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#152
post #123
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody is saying Mozilla has to die, whatever that means. To die means having so few users that development is abandoned and the teams disbanded. It could happen; I wish it doesn't; you seem to wish it does... because it would make the life of web developers a little simpler? But I don't think that's true; I think it's the opposite: web development would be a little more difficult if/when everything is controlled b…

There is no risk of everything being controlled by one company. That is why it is acceptable for there to only be one browser engine. Observe that Brave, inc is using the chromium engine in a way that opposes Google. Mozilla has developed a bunch of great features in the last few years. If they were developing on Chromium, most of the internet would have access to them. Instead, only a minor subset do. This is a bad…

I don't think you understand how Chromium works. Google makes all the important decisions. People have advocated for independent governance (e.g. some kind of Chromium Foundation) but Google isn't interested.

E.g. Brave opposes Google in some ways but they have no say in the development of Web standards implemented by Chromium.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#153
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Brave's fault if they only give you access to your BAT coins after signing up with Uphold. There should be no reason they hide access to your coins until you use a third party service to dox yourself. Brave may not be implementing the dox'ing, but they appear to be requiring you to use someone else's implementation which is absolutely their fault.

I am guessing that the parent comment has it right. This is admittedly outside my area of expertise, but I would assume that the system they have for managing BATs is subject to the US's Know Your Customer laws, which require financial institutions (including crypto exchanges) to, well, know their customer. Personally. They have to figure all that out before they give you access to your account. Which means, yeah, th…

And that's all right and good, I'm actually OK with this being the requirement for a system like this if a browser that rewards you with crypto is available.

What I'm not OK with is that Brave isn't upfront about this.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#154

In 2001 or so I considered entering into an encrypted email correspondence with my brother, for fun. I quickly gave up on the idea because I realized that I didn’t trust that my computer or my brother’s computer didn’t already have spyware of some kind, I didn’t trust the integrity of any encryption/decryption tools that existed, didn’t trust myself not to lose the passwords or leave them lying around, and didn’t tru…

Exactly. I sleep outside because a meteorite would crush a house; therefore a house is useless.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#155

Another shady practice: you could donate to any website, but Brave itself received the amount if not claimed by the website creator. Users did not know. ( https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-br... , https://redd.it/a8g1i9 ) Don't use Brave. Tell others not to use it.

Brave can't send BAT to a site that doesn't accept BAT. For example, HN doesn't. When I click on the BAT icon, the first thing I see is a message saying the tokens will remain in my wallet until the site accepts my tip.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#156

Another shady practice: you could donate to any website, but Brave itself received the amount if not claimed by the website creator. Users did not know. ( https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-br... , https://redd.it/a8g1i9 ) Don't use Brave. Tell others not to use it.

Just because something is not perfect, it should not be condemned. I don't understand why alternatives are often held to much higher standards than the established service.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#157
post #103
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comcast isn't doing anything to your DNS. They're the largest ISP in the country, there'd be a huge uproar if they were doing something like that. There are plenty of experts who are subscribers who'd be able to figure out exactly what's going on.

"Come on, what are you worried about? I'm sure it's fine, somebody must have inspected it."

While absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, some guy's anecdote isn't really evidence of existence.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISPs can see a lot, but it does have limits. As long as we're using SSL (and I suppose, assuming it hasn't been cracked), the ISP really only knows what domains I'm visiting. So they might know that I'm going to WebMD, but they don't necessarily know that I'm reading up on treatment options for nose fungus. They also don't necessarily know exactly which member of my household is going to that website, nor can they li…

do we need randomized dom nodes ?

I guess I'd have to hear more details to know exactly what you're thinking, but my first instinct is to say that doing something like that would break CSS and accessibility without actually offering any significant impediment to tracking.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could pay for ad-free YouTube, if you dislike the ads so much. Many argue that "They'll pay to have ads removed", but that doesn't seem to hold true when services offers that exact option.

> Many seem to argue that "They'll pay to have ads removed", but that doesn't seem to hold true when services offers that exact option. I would pay for ad free Youtube, if it was an option. Even with Youtube Premium, included promotions continue to be shown

Well yeah, they don't stop someone advertising a product in the main content. If they did, then James Bond movies would be a lot shorter.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#160
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comcast isn't doing anything to your DNS. They're the largest ISP in the country, there'd be a huge uproar if they were doing something like that. There are plenty of experts who are subscribers who'd be able to figure out exactly what's going on.

Weren't they the ones who pioneered DNS hijacking of unknown domains to serve their own recommendations and ads?

No, that was VeriSign back in 2003: https://www.icann.org/en/announcements/details/advisory-conc...
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