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Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

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Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#131

Post by imoreno »

extesy wrote: post #76

Maintainer here. My extension is pretty much unmonetizable so any offer I receive would require some degree of a moral sacrifice. The least intrusive offer I've seen so far is to put a reciprocal link to somebody else's extension inside of mine, kind of like DarkReader is doing on their website. Even though it won't compromise any of my users data, the reason I'm not doing this is because it indirectly endorses that…

You're doing a very admirable thing, and this helps dispel the little voiced but commonly held perception that "everybody sells out" when they get big.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#132

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

ehsankia wrote: post #111
afavour wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two different things. The popular conspiracy theory is that the phone listens to and presumably transcribes your conversations, sending them to a third party. The example the OP gave is specifically listening for TV content: they’ll have hashes of known ads/shows/whatever to compare against rather than do something like live transcription. Don’t get me wrong it’s shitty and gross. But they are different things.

Both iOS and Android show when your microphone is active so the whole conspiracy theory about it always listening to you and sending it back is pretty bullshit. And no one has yet found evidence of such network traffic either.

True, but the theory is far older than the indicators. So maybe Facebook stopped being sneaky once those controls came in? Not saying I believe them, but there's still room for doubt there.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#133

Post by sdflhasjd »

koonsolo wrote: post #105
sdflhasjd wrote: post #24

And if you run a website you get constant emails like this: Hey There, I wanted to reach out and see if accepts guest post contributions or link insertion in existing posts? If so, I'd love to hear more about your guidelines and any specific topics of interest. Thank you for your time, and I'm looking forward to your response. Best Regards, These ones are definitely spammed out en-masse, my site doesn't even have a b…

You just saved me some work, thanks! I also get these emails but run a WordPress site. I was convinced they would fingerprint websites and mail those to these sites only. It was on my todo to see if I could hide the fingerprint of WordPress. But now that you mention this, it's obvious it wouldn't do much. In hindsight, I could have know these spammer would just spam everybody in bulk.

Masking your WordPress install is a pretty good idea for plenty of other reasons though, just hiding wp-login will save you a lot of headache with bots wasting your CPU cycles and bandwidth trying to bruteforce.

Sounds like a challenge to hide the wordpressyness entirely though, it's got a huge surface area.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#134

Post by jshier »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #2

The root problem here is that there's no legitimate way to monetize browser extensions. Extensions are meant to be simple, so it's hard to sell premium features. Extensions usually don't "own" any space to embed ads in.

You can easily monetize Safari extensions by selling them through the App Store.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#135

Post by AlInGaP_Diode »

ehsankia wrote: post #111
afavour wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two different things. The popular conspiracy theory is that the phone listens to and presumably transcribes your conversations, sending them to a third party. The example the OP gave is specifically listening for TV content: they’ll have hashes of known ads/shows/whatever to compare against rather than do something like live transcription. Don’t get me wrong it’s shitty and gross. But they are different things.

Both iOS and Android show when your microphone is active so the whole conspiracy theory about it always listening to you and sending it back is pretty bullshit. And no one has yet found evidence of such network traffic either.

except it's always listening for you to say "siri" or "google assisstent". Some androids also show what music is playing nearby. You can thankfully opt-out but the ability to is still there.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#136

Post by sdflhasjd »

latchkey wrote: post #119
sdflhasjd wrote: post #24

And if you run a website you get constant emails like this: Hey There, I wanted to reach out and see if accepts guest post contributions or link insertion in existing posts? If so, I'd love to hear more about your guidelines and any specific topics of interest. Thank you for your time, and I'm looking forward to your response. Best Regards, These ones are definitely spammed out en-masse, my site doesn't even have a b…

This is my favorite sort of email that we get about once a month in various forms... their title at the end is hilarious. --- Subject: Found a security vulnerability on your website. Hi Team, I am Harris, a security researcher, and I have found a security vulnerability in your website outside a bug bounty program. I can disclose all the vulnerabilities found and their proper fixes too, to make your website more secur…

On the off chance you entertain these individuals, it's usually something really dull an automated scanner picked up.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#137

Post by lapcat »

jshier wrote: post #134
amadeuspagel wrote: post #2

The root problem here is that there's no legitimate way to monetize browser extensions. Extensions are meant to be simple, so it's hard to sell premium features. Extensions usually don't "own" any space to embed ads in.

You can easily monetize Safari extensions by selling them through the App Store.

I wouldn't say "easily", but you can.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#138

Post by jefftk »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #91
collaborative wrote: post #56

I don't know what the solution to this is, but I know a few trusted/legitimate companies that sell their user data for around £20/year even after having monetized their users with actual money I will never do this because violating privacy goes against the core of my beliefs, but there is a conflict I can't seem to work out. On the one hand, I KNOW that the vast majority of users prefer to sell their privacy than pay…

>They would gladly click on a "sell my data" over a "pay money" button any day of the week. You don't know that because no one is given a clear choice like you present (and even saying "data" is opaque to joe average user). And this is what regulations like EU's and CA's should be enforcing. Imagine if the choice was: We have this data about you (a comprehensive list of all the fruits of our creepy stalking: a,b,c,d,…

> this is what regulations like EU's and CA's should be enforcing. Imagine if the choice was: We have this data about you (a comprehensive list of all the fruits of our creepy stalking: a,b,c,d, etc...), if you let us violate your privacy in a myriad of ways, we will let you have this little trinket for free. Otherwise, it will cost you x. How many people would select privacy violation?

Unfortunately under the GDPR we are not going to find out how many people would choose this option. It isn't legal, in the EU, to refuse someone access if they say no to your data collection.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#139

Post by alyandon »

ehsankia wrote: post #115
alyandon wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android phones that are 8 major versions out of date because the OEM won't support them probably don't have that feature.

8 major versions, that is surely less than 5% of the Android population. I'm sure the security flaws in those non-updated phones is far more serious than the lack of microphone indicator.

I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek with the 8. However, it is just as valid to talk about unpatched security flaws.
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