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Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#131

Post by danShumway »

dessant wrote: post #119
StavrosK wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The audio CAPTCHA always works first try for me. The image CAPTCHA can go eff itself, it would always take me five tries while the images loaded super slowly.

Yes, the audio CAPTCHA is easier to solve, but the audio challenge is blocked [1] if you are not in a good network neighbourhood or they can't collect enough tracking data to classify your visit. [1] https://github.com/w3c/apa/issues/25

Can confirm, it's rare for me to be able to get at the audio captcha. Occasionally I'll find that tabbing onto the the button allows it load when clicking directly on it won't. I assume if Google is observing behavior that makes them think you're sighted, they'll block access.

I kind of wonder if it would be possible to force the issue legally as an accessibility problem, but other people than me would need to do it, and in any case it feels a kind of dirty to me to use blind accessibility as a tool in the fight for privacy.

On the other hand, it also feels dirty to me that being blind would mean you're not allowed to do as much on the web to protect your privacy. Blind people should be able to use Tor.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#132

Post by chronogram »

scarejunba wrote: post #96
roca wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also reduces incentives to actually make moves that benefit privacy. Because if the people who say they care about privacy aren't going to support you, why bother?

Nah, the people who care are happy. The problem is the guys who like to talk. It's the same with security. There's like an army of people who've learned about it from internet commentary exclusively and they bluster a lot as a substitute for competence.

Tell me about it! The security people. yum update every 3 hours, reboot every 6 hours, hyperthreading off for some theoretical reason, what else! There's security as in keeping your iOS device on auto updates when you have it connected to WiFi, and then there's internet forum security...

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#133

Post by zwaps »

Kiro wrote: post #68
ziddoap wrote: post #34

I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on. Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an…

Pretty sure you would never say the same thing about Google.

Never?

You may not remember this, but Google used to be cool. "Don't be evil", and all that. There was a lot of hope - when Microsoft was still the bad guys. Working at Google was the dream - they made movies about that.

Nowadays we all feel stupid, obviously. Right up to deleting "Don't be evil". Literally taking it out. The nerve.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#134

Post by clairity »

ChrisSD wrote: post #112
ademup wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has ~250M users as of about 9 months ago and $562M revenue for 2017. I'd honestly pay $2 per month (12 times "my share") for a Firefox that completely disavows the ad model and produces a truly user-centric experience sans ads, fingerprinting, etc. However, given that over 95% of their revenue comes from Royalties, I don't see that turning around any time soon.

Well if HN users do want to try to lessen that percentage here's the donation page: https://donate.mozilla.org/

i wonder why mozilla hasn't tried a premium pricing model? the premium version of firefox could have a yearly subscription of, say, $24. it would have all privacy features turned on, the best privacy addons installed, and all analytics/telemetry turned off, by default.

i would even pay a whole $3/month for that! =D

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#135

Post by OhHeyItsE »

chrisshroba wrote: post #129
treve wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting a targeted advertising that is likely relevant to you is probably one of the few positives of tracking. The issue people have with tracking is not 'what ad am I getting on a given website'. To get a targeted ad they need to maintain a database of privacy infringing information. 3rd parties having this data, and what they might do it with it (or who they might lose the data to) is what many people have an issu…

Serious follow-up: I've always been fairly apathetic towards companies tracking me because I don't see too many plausible situations that would end up truly affecting me negatively. Do you have any examples (preferably that have happened in the past, but hypothetical are okay too) of what can go wrong if the tracking information falls in the wrong hands? Sure, street addresses, SSN's, credit card numbers would be bad…

Hypothetical: individual pricing based on how likely you are to pay more for an item, or how badly they think you need it. Sharing of data across domains could place you in a "bubble" where you see the same price no matter where you look.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#136

Post by floatingatoll »

Causality1 wrote: post #113
floatingatoll wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s probably wise not to encourage interstate advertising fraud that the FBI might decide to investigate and arrest you for knowingly participating in. https://www.fastcompany.com/90273549/fbi-and-google-take-dow...

They arrested people for making money by generating fake clicks on their own site. AdNauseam isn't ad fraud any more than running a web crawler bot is ad fraud.

I’m sure you’ll be fine, eventually - but that’s not guaranteed to stop them initially, or without a digital search of your entire computer, for example.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#137

Post by quickthrower2 »

Are they are biting the hand that feeds them? Interesting relationship with Google - they get revenue from them, but are a competitor with conflicting ideals.

I'd like to see Firefox premium services (like a dropbox clone etc.) to provide independent revenue, so they can be aggressive for privacy.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#138

Post by silversconfused »

hartator wrote: post #117
ziddoap wrote: post #34

I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on. Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an…

The thing is there is disparity between the value they promote - privacy - and Mozilla actions. If privacy first was truly the Mozilla mission, we won't have Google Analytics on extension internal pages, the Mr Robot Ad, the Yahoo ad deal, and the ability to inject code remotely in your browser. Privacy seems to be a Mozilla concern but it's not a primary one.

Mozilla will gladly protect you from other entities, but they are not user freedom respecting enough to realize that they should also not require you to submit yourself to them. My argument is that allowing users to "opt out" from tracking is insufficient, and I will argue against it whenever possible.. You should be asked and informed before ANY DATA IS SENT to them, not just informed that it is already happening and then asked if you want to keep it on.

Arg.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#140

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

zucker42 wrote: post #111
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers don't make much sense to me. On FF I get 14.05 with NoScript active. Curiously the headers increase from 1.68 bits to 3.47 when NoScript is running.

Of course no script increases the entropy. Most people don't run NoScript, so you are more identifiable when you run it.

It increases the entropy for the JavaScript tests as would be expected. It shouldn't affect the HTTP_ACCEPT header.
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