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Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

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Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#111

Post by syshum »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #60
spiderfarmer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. If this is helping users, it should be easy to convince them to turn it on.

That's not how it works. Most users don't care and will simply use whatever the default is; and when it comes to anonymous usage statistics, "most users" is _exactly_ the group of people you want to be collecting them from; otherwise your results will be skewed heavily in favor of a small minority of power users.

I aways have a problem with this aurgument.

Most users do not care because they do not understand the true ramifications of their not caring. It is not like that looked at all the data, then made made an informed choice to share everything.

FF should be at the heart of caring for users privacy EVEN IF THEY THEMSELVES DO NOT.

The average person does not understand technology, how much data they are leaking about themselves and how this data can be used against their interests

Taking advantage of that ignorance for any type of gain is unethical IMO, most companies willfully exploit this collective ignorance Mozilla should be better than most companies.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#112

Post by kuschku »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #76
huhtenberg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most users don't care and will simply use whatever the default is These users will be installing Chrome, not Firefox.

I hope not. If that's true, then Firefox is in serious trouble. There aren't nearly enough power users and privacy enthusiasts around to make Firefox a significant player in the browser market all on their own.

That’s exactly why Firefox is around 5% global marketshare. Only the powerusers are left.

And this move will also drive them away.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#113

Post by spurlock »

Does anyone know why Firefox always phones home to:

    somerandomserver.compute.amazonaws.com
I have a tool called TCPView (a Microsoft sysinternals tool) that inspects my traffic. I disabled all the Mozilla telemetry and it still phones home to this server. The connection is encrypted going through port 443. It even appears in different forks of Firefox like Waterfox. Is this unique to me, or does anyone else notice this?

My best guess is that it's some sort of telemetry they're collecting. Keep in mind I disabled updates so it's not pinging update servers either. Also: It happens only when I visit a website, and doesn't appear when I start up the browser for the first time. I also have no plugins installed. Since I see some Mozillians in this thread I figured it's the best place to ask!

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#114

Post by yuhong »

kuschku wrote: post #84
claudius wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any submission of data requires the transmission of an IP address, which is personal data and necessitates appropriate protection. I very much hope that the Debian maintainers (and hopefully also the guys preparing Fennec in F-Droid) will disable such data collection mechanisms, either completely or hidden behind an explicit opt-in instead of the opt-out suggested in the e-mail.

> Any submission of data requires the transmission of an IP address, which is personal data and necessitates appropriate protection. And requires an opt-in under EU law, which makes this entire thing even more ridiculous.

Does an IP address actually require an opt-in? And if it does, does it only apply if it is being stored?

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#115

Post by Yoric »

michrassena wrote: post #107
Vinnl wrote: post #13

Note: "planning" means "reaching out for feedback about". Also interesting: the method they plan on using for anonymising this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy#Principle... If that is not sufficiently anonymous, then please submit the reasoning why to Mozilla.

Can you tell me the URL of the page containing the form where I can submit my feedback?

See the OP.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#116

Post by alexrs95 »

Yoric wrote: post #45
embik wrote: post #14

This is ridiculous. I use and recommend Firefox for pure ideological reasons, because frankly, Chrome/Chromium is miles ahead of them. If they start opt-out tracking using the same approach as Google I do not see any reason to use it nor install it for my friends and family. That's some data for you, Mozilla.

As you may have read in the feedback request, Mozilla is proposing to use differential privacy – differential is very different from tracking. For more information, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy for instance.

And here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15072276

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#117

Post by [deleted] »

hawkice wrote: post #81
Ajedi32 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how it works. Most users don't care and will simply use whatever the default is; and when it comes to anonymous usage statistics, "most users" is _exactly_ the group of people you want to be collecting them from; otherwise your results will be skewed heavily in favor of a small minority of power users.

Precisely. Most people don't have an explicit preference. And collecting data on every possible human would give better results -- useful even if they don't plan on justifying running any specific test. We should probably use our expertise in computer networks to create universal, unjustified surveillance. As long as there is an opt-out option (hopefully we can use a complex tracking method so people don't understand…

[deleted]

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#118

Post by dhimes »

I generally trust Mozilla, but I really don't understand what they are going to get out of the data. Their explanation leaves me scratching my head. Perhaps it's simply because I don't work on browsers?

How does seeing which sites users use that need Flash drive their decision-making. Either they support Flash, or they don't.

And- ditto for "Jank" (not sure I understand that term, frankly- why is it capitalized?). Some developers don't optimize well- how is Mozilla going to use this? I think they do a good job over on MDN.

I guess I'd like to be sure I understand what problem they are trying to solve. Maybe they feel like without understanding their users they can't keep up with Chrome. I see people talking about how good Chrome is. And I must admit- it is sweet for me too. But that may be because (1) I don't have it loaded up with add-ons like I do Mozilla and (2) they have optimized for certain sites like youtube and gmail and I just can't get Firefox to work all that well on those sites.

But I'm not convinced that they need my data to fix that.

EDIT: On the other hand, Chrome seems to lose my passwords on every upgrade so it won't be my main browser until if fixes that little issue, which is going on, what, 5 years now?

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#119

Post by Ajedi32 »

codefined wrote: post #99
kuschku wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any submission of data requires the transmission of an IP address, which is personal data and necessitates appropriate protection. And requires an opt-in under EU law, which makes this entire thing even more ridiculous.

Then don't send the correct source IP address, with simple statistics gathering like this I hardly expect they require a response. It would mean there would be no personal data whatsoever.

Wouldn't spoofing IP addresses risk the data packets being filtered out by ISPs or other upstream network providers? IMO if keeping IP addresses hidden is a concern, it'd be better to use something like TOR.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#120

Post by wila »

hawkice wrote: post #81
Ajedi32 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how it works. Most users don't care and will simply use whatever the default is; and when it comes to anonymous usage statistics, "most users" is _exactly_ the group of people you want to be collecting them from; otherwise your results will be skewed heavily in favor of a small minority of power users.

Precisely. Most people don't have an explicit preference. And collecting data on every possible human would give better results -- useful even if they don't plan on justifying running any specific test. We should probably use our expertise in computer networks to create universal, unjustified surveillance. As long as there is an opt-out option (hopefully we can use a complex tracking method so people don't understand…

When I browse to firefox.com I get [1] which has this text:

  More privacy
   
  Firefox doesn’t sell access to your personal information  
  like other companies. From privacy tools to tracking 
  protection, you’re in charge of who sees what.
  Here’s how Firefox protects your privacy
So yes they still advertise with that as one of the major features.

[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/?utm_medium=referral&u...

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