Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should read up on what Persona is before making judgments about it. Just a general guideline for reasonable discourse.
Here: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/persona/ "Many sign-in systems carry your profile data with them; some even share that info with other sites and social networks. We believe you should control how your personal information is shared. Persona lets you get started with just your email address; you can add your profile data later, when and where you think it’s appropriate." Whatever that "profile data" is, can be requ…
Mozilla Persona and Surveillance
51–59 of 59 posts
Re: Mozilla Persona and Surveillance
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
The blog post doesn't say it's an either-or question. It says that, given that Mozilla has limited resources, we think it is more effective to focus those resources on changing the law to benefit the user rather than trying to fix just Persona by moving it to another country. If we had unlimited resources than we'd be able to do both, but the post goes on to explain why that wouldn't be effective anyway. (Disclaimer:…
Honest question: why the wishful thinking? Why not tell it like it is? What is the potential damage that Mozilla could suffer by clearly stating that it is impossible and it will be impossible to guarantee that the government will not be monitoring all online activity? We know that the shadow-government is very good at: 1) Spying its citizens, using legal or illegal methods. 2) Cover up those operations with the use…
We did tell it like it is. In the security reviews (note the plural; we have ongoing reviews).
Here is the documentation from the initial public release: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Reviews/Identity/browserid
Note all of the times we called out government actors as potential threats?
With respect, it is easy to tuck tail and run (as in move to another country), it is much more challenging to dig in and try to change things.
(Disclaimer, I work for Mozilla, on the security team, and I worked on reviews of Persona since its first design iteration).
Re: Mozilla Persona and Surveillance
#53> First, it’s not clear to us that other governments have any less intrusive surveillance activities.
This is a surprising statement, and somewhat dismissive of the respect for privacy and personal rights in the rest of the world. The NSA program is not a mundane activity, and should not be regarded as such, especially by a foundation like Mozilla.
Re: Mozilla Persona and Surveillance
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
NSA and GCHQ are very good at math and very good at surveillance . Not engaging in an arms race with well funded, very smart, government agencies is probably a good idea. If they think you're a criminal (doesn't apply to Mozilla) they will coerce foreign governments to cooperate - see for example the illegal attacks on Mega or the domain seizures for gambling or torrent sites. But we know, from ECHELON, that they're…
"good strong laws and privacy culture[1]" "[1] The US has a strong culture of privacy, which is what makes PRISM so surprising for their citizens. (Not for many other people who were saying it's happening, and have been doing so for a while.)" When will the public accept that "good strong laws and privacy culture" is not in the least a characteristic of the US, and hasn't been for the last 30 years? The US is probabl…
That's not the impression you get from people's reactions to PRISM (see "nothing to hide").
Re: Mozilla Persona and Surveillance
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't really make sense in this case. Mozilla does get a lot of cash from Google, but Mozilla has a strong enough mission (see the manifesto) to make sure it's not a Google sockpuppet.
Google's funding isn't the end of the story. There are others (e.g. Microsoft) who would be happy to fund Mozilla. The real question is: How much cash could Mozilla get from non-US sources? I'd guess orders of magnitude less, sadly.
That's an interesting thought. Do you really think Microsoft would fund a cross-platform browser? Do you think Apple would fund a cross-platform browser? Yahoo is close with Microsoft, so they're out if Microsoft is. Oracle and IBM aren't really consumer facing. Intel, mostly hardware. Facebook's walled garden seems to conflict with Mozilla's core mission. Adobe, possibly. Who else were you thinking of?
Re: Mozilla Persona and Surveillance
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google's funding isn't the end of the story. There are others (e.g. Microsoft) who would be happy to fund Mozilla. The real question is: How much cash could Mozilla get from non-US sources? I'd guess orders of magnitude less, sadly.
That's an interesting thought. Do you really think Microsoft would fund a cross-platform browser? Do you think Apple would fund a cross-platform browser? Yahoo is close with Microsoft, so they're out if Microsoft is. Oracle and IBM aren't really consumer facing. Intel, mostly hardware. Facebook's walled garden seems to conflict with Mozilla's core mission. Adobe, possibly. Who else were you thinking of?
Based on the rumors (and partially supported by Firefox with Bing), both Microsoft and Yahoo were actively bidding against Google (for the ad revenue, presumably).
Microsoft also probably has some interest in supporting Firefox for "browser strategic" reasons (pushing back against WebKit/Blink on mobile, a partner other than Google or Apple for work with on new web standards, etc.). I find it harder to imagine Apple being interested, but perhaps that would change if Blink starts eclipsing WebKit or if they want to push iAds more. More generally, though, the point I'm making is that (almost?) all potential alternative sponsors have extensive US ties and/or interests...
Re: Mozilla Persona and Surveillance
#57The statement that Mozilla should have issued: "Some have claimed that we should move Mozilla out of the US. Unfortunately, for reasons of connectivity, workforce, ties to US market, legal issues and restructuring costs we are not able to do that. Current (recurring) developments in the US have shown that our government can not be trusted. No amount of legislation is going to achieve a fully accountable government. B…
> The only solution to a private internet is to fully embrace cryptography for all our communications.
Mozilla (or at least the Mozilla employee that wrote the OP) does not believe that: http://benlog.com/articles/2012/04/30/encryption-is-not-grav...
Personally, I think that argument is right. "Complete" encryption has usability tradeoffs many people will refuse to make. And I get that. Emotionally, it frustrates me that I can't store my Google Authenticator key in Google Drive even though I understand exactly why that would break two-factor authentication.
Re: Mozilla Persona and Surveillance
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's an interesting thought. Do you really think Microsoft would fund a cross-platform browser? Do you think Apple would fund a cross-platform browser? Yahoo is close with Microsoft, so they're out if Microsoft is. Oracle and IBM aren't really consumer facing. Intel, mostly hardware. Facebook's walled garden seems to conflict with Mozilla's core mission. Adobe, possibly. Who else were you thinking of?
Based on the rumors (and partially supported by Firefox with Bing), both Microsoft and Yahoo were actively bidding against Google (for the ad revenue, presumably). Microsoft also probably has some interest in supporting Firefox for "browser strategic" reasons (pushing back against WebKit/Blink on mobile, a partner other than Google or Apple for work with on new web standards, etc.). I find it harder to imagine Apple…
Yeah it's a good point, and probably more relevant than whether it's Google or somebody else in the US.
Re: Mozilla Persona and Surveillance
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's an interesting thought. Do you really think Microsoft would fund a cross-platform browser? Do you think Apple would fund a cross-platform browser? Yahoo is close with Microsoft, so they're out if Microsoft is. Oracle and IBM aren't really consumer facing. Intel, mostly hardware. Facebook's walled garden seems to conflict with Mozilla's core mission. Adobe, possibly. Who else were you thinking of?
Based on the rumors (and partially supported by Firefox with Bing), both Microsoft and Yahoo were actively bidding against Google (for the ad revenue, presumably). Microsoft also probably has some interest in supporting Firefox for "browser strategic" reasons (pushing back against WebKit/Blink on mobile, a partner other than Google or Apple for work with on new web standards, etc.). I find it harder to imagine Apple…
Speaking of BLINK... how about this? IIICTECH is getting trampled by both Google & Microsoft. So mutch for having a good idea & having a far shot at owning intellectual property... like a trademark.