21–30 of 178 posts
So all that paranoia about being tracked by Google... wasn't paranoid at all. Yes, I know Google likely didn't cooperate in this, but they built a giant tracking engine, so it's not surprising to see it repurposed.
So all that paranoia about being tracked by Google... wasn't paranoid at all. Yes, I know Google likely didn't cooperate in this, but they built a giant tracking engine, so it's not surprising to see it repurposed.
In my opinion, browsers should block all third party website content by default. Yeah, I know, the interwebs will break if they actually did this. Well perhaps someone should come up with some kind of website quality rating which indicates that a site can be viewed withing worrying about the prying eyes of FaceBook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
- Cross-site requests not allowed without whitelisting. This means some setup will be required at first (for example, for separate image domains used by Amazon, Google, Yahoo, etc.), but after a bit it shouldn't be a problem. This also serves as a "better adblock" in some ways, as it blocks ad networks without relying on a database that needs to be updated.
- All cookies blocked by default; whitelist as necessary
- JavaScript disabled by default; whitelist-enable as necessary
- No Flash or Java, period. If I need Flash for something, I'll launch a VM.
Sadly, Safari doesn't support whitelisting for any of this. Chrome supports whitelisting of cookies and JS by default, but the Chrome UX is worse than Safari's IMO (for a few reasons, but that's another topic entirely).
RequestPolicy handles the first one quite well, but is unfortunately Firefox-only.
There are two primary issues here: the prevalence of Google Analytics and the unencrypted nature of the majority of websites. Google Analytics is on a substantial proportion of the Internet. 65% of the top 10k sites, 63.9% of the top 100k, and 50.5% of the top million[1]. My own partial results from a research project I'm doing using Common Crawl estimates approximately 39.7% of the 535 million pages processed so far…
Firefox, ABE, NoScript, Request Policy, Ghostery, HTTPS-everywhere, hygiene.
The irony of my militant approach toward privacy is that I probably make myself more interesting to would-be eavesdroppers by my carefulness than I would if they could see it all -- I'm just not that interesting.
On the plus side, the LCD of legitimate-threat hostiles is greatly increased. I'm fairly boring even to neighbors and law enforcement and copyright holders and scam artists and advertisers. I imagine I'm pretty stultifying to nation-state actors. :)
Still, I'd like everyone else to join me so that I can get lost in the crowd. The untracked, encrypted, well-rested crowd.
Come on in, the water's fine.
A perfect reason to NOT let Google own all layers of the stack between you and the internet (or indeed the real world). Search - Check (goog.com) Mail - Check (Gmail) Browser - Check (chrome) Devices - Check (Android/Chrome books) Websites - Check (Double click/AdMob, Unknown number of other companies) Google Analytics - Check Your DNA - Check (23&Me) Cars - Check (self-driving cars) I am probably missing large chunk…
Your larger point might be true, but has nothing to do with the current revelation. If every site switched from Google Analytics to, say, Mixpanel... nothing would change. The NSA would just target the equivalent mixpanel cookie. So long as their are popular third-party cookies, this will be a problem.
There are two primary issues here: the prevalence of Google Analytics and the unencrypted nature of the majority of websites. Google Analytics is on a substantial proportion of the Internet. 65% of the top 10k sites, 63.9% of the top 100k, and 50.5% of the top million[1]. My own partial results from a research project I'm doing using Common Crawl estimates approximately 39.7% of the 535 million pages processed so far…
In my opinion, browsers should block all third party website content by default. Yeah, I know, the interwebs will break if they actually did this. Well perhaps someone should come up with some kind of website quality rating which indicates that a site can be viewed withing worrying about the prying eyes of FaceBook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
Here's my ideal security policy: - Cross-site requests not allowed without whitelisting. This means some setup will be required at first (for example, for separate image domains used by Amazon, Google, Yahoo, etc.), but after a bit it shouldn't be a problem. This also serves as a "better adblock" in some ways, as it blocks ad networks without relying on a database that needs to be updated. - All cookies blocked by de…
Firefox is the answer. No other option makes any sense, if you're serious about this stuff. I understand that some people like the UI or process model of other browsers better, and that's where the evaluation of priorities comes in.
The good news is that the days of Chrome's technical superiority are truly over.. Speed, memory consumption, rendering engine...Firefox is all there and sometimes better.
Firefox is also the only browser with an ability to sanely handle tabs on the side, which is the only sane place to put tabs on modern screens. If I had to choose between sane tabs and sane privacy policies, I might have some soul-searching to do. I understand that everyone has their own equivalent, but be sure not to dismiss Firefox based on historical issues.
There are two primary issues here: the prevalence of Google Analytics and the unencrypted nature of the majority of websites. Google Analytics is on a substantial proportion of the Internet. 65% of the top 10k sites, 63.9% of the top 100k, and 50.5% of the top million[1]. My own partial results from a research project I'm doing using Common Crawl estimates approximately 39.7% of the 535 million pages processed so far…
There are two primary issues here: the prevalence of Google Analytics and the unencrypted nature of the majority of websites. Google Analytics is on a substantial proportion of the Internet. 65% of the top 10k sites, 63.9% of the top 100k, and 50.5% of the top million[1]. My own partial results from a research project I'm doing using Common Crawl estimates approximately 39.7% of the 535 million pages processed so far…
I've been in the internet industry for a while now.
For what it's worth, I think your thesis has significant value.