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Mozilla Project Fusion: Tor Integration into Firefox

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Re: Mozilla Project Fusion: Tor Integration into Firefox

#151

Post by crunchatized »

hollerith wrote: post #138
crunchatized wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OEM configs have never been enough to implement everything they need in Tor Browser. They eventually started their uplift effort [1], to upstream all the patches and features they've added to it, so that they can possibly just use OEM configs. Project Fusion is a superset of that effort. [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Tor_Uplift

Could someone please explain what "OEM configs" means here?

Looking it up, I think the more accurate term is actually "partner repacks." [1] They're versions of Firefox shipped with different default settings and/or an extension included by default at install time, IIUC. Though reading this rather opaque page [2] it doesn't seem to explicitly preclude patches to the compiled code, though it seems like they would forbid that.

The key config file is distribution.ini. [3]

[1] https://hg.mozilla.org/build/partner-repacks/file

[2] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/partnerships/distributio...

[3] https://brashear.me/blog/2017/12/07/how-to-deploy-firefox-wi...

Re: Mozilla Project Fusion: Tor Integration into Firefox

#152

Post by floatboth »

kodablah wrote: post #29

Cool, now let me start an ephemeral v3 onion service from JS and have it reachable via WebRTC by a peer who has their own. It's the perfect tech marriage, removes signalling servers and NAT busters, but may be a bit taxing on directory servers and too slow to use for media streams (but I'll take data channels only).

Hah, kinda reminds me of Opera Unite. (That one wasn't from JS, it offered some fixed applications like file hosting, notes, etc., but it was hosting stuff from the browser)

Re: Mozilla Project Fusion: Tor Integration into Firefox

#153

Post by sametmax »

scrollaway wrote: post #146
sametmax wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last month I download 2 linux ISO with it for work. This month all the seasons of the pretender for fun. Facebook used to deploy their code using bittorent. I doubt it has changed. A lot of blizzard video games update using bittorent as well. If you play Starcraft 2, you use bittorent. Streaming services like stremio are basically bittorent. After netflix, it's my main source of video content. If you want to download…

Blizzard games no longer use BitTorrent but a proprietary http-based protocol called ngdp. BitTorrent was causing a lot of issues with firewalls so users were disabling it, so they had added http mirrors to them... And then CDNs became a thing, the rest is history. I'll be happy to give more details on ngdp if you are curious.

Please.

Re: Mozilla Project Fusion: Tor Integration into Firefox

#154

Post by zaphar »

neokantian wrote: post #150

"Removing fingerprintability" amounts to the browser just NOT sending all the http request headers that it sends by default. How hard can it be to "comment out" these lines?

I don't think this is true. Especially in the case of things like canvas fingerprinting.

Re: Mozilla Project Fusion: Tor Integration into Firefox

#155

Post by kodablah »

Hello71 wrote: post #136
kodablah wrote: post #29

Cool, now let me start an ephemeral v3 onion service from JS and have it reachable via WebRTC by a peer who has their own. It's the perfect tech marriage, removes signalling servers and NAT busters, but may be a bit taxing on directory servers and too slow to use for media streams (but I'll take data channels only).

sounds really useful, but to be fair, it doesn't really remove either. you're effectively just using the Tor network as freely available (but slow) signalling and TURN servers.

Exactly. Doesn't require any server side work and you get built in anonymity across peers and for discovery.

Re: Mozilla Project Fusion: Tor Integration into Firefox

#156

Post by toxican »

kleiba wrote: post #30
sametmax wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good, now if only we could have bitorrent baked in... EDIT: I mean baked in in the browser like tor, not baked in tor. Although interesting, it's really not my priority.

Honest question: is bittorrent even still a thing?

Of course it is. It didn't go away because you don't use it.

Re: Mozilla Project Fusion: Tor Integration into Firefox

#157

Post by darpa_escapee »

Hello71 wrote: post #70
forapurpose wrote: post #57

What will Mozilla do about the Tor network's usability problems? Advanced users can workaround them and because they understand the benefits and engineering, accept the frustrations as a cost for a worthwhile (and free) technology. But what will non-technical users do? Many public Internet websites filter connections from the Tor network, many other websites are very slow, yet others impose extra obstacles such as mu…

Which sites in 2018 still present multiple CAPTCHAs to users with cookies and JavaScript enabled? I think the theory behind this project is that those problems are primarily caused by Tor's popular image as a 'fringe network for pedophiles and drug dealers' and that by making it more mainstream they can fix those issues. (please more replies saying "that sounds really hard" and less replies saying "tor is not a fring…

Cloudflare.

Re: Mozilla Project Fusion: Tor Integration into Firefox

#158

Post by auslander »

akerro wrote: post #9
jerheinze wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#CanExitNodesEave... Yes, the guy running the exit node can read the bytes that come in and out there. Tor anonymizes the origin of your traffic, and it makes sure to encrypt everything inside the Tor network, but it does not magically encrypt all traffic throughout the Internet. This is why you should always use end-to-end encryption such as SSL for sensitive Internet conne…

>Fortunately HTTPS adoption is much better now :) It's HSTS what we need in 2018

HSTS can track people. Apple fixed that just few months ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17209697

Re: Mozilla Project Fusion: Tor Integration into Firefox

#159

Post by freehunter »

superkuh wrote: post #90
forapurpose wrote: post #57

What will Mozilla do about the Tor network's usability problems? Advanced users can workaround them and because they understand the benefits and engineering, accept the frustrations as a cost for a worthwhile (and free) technology. But what will non-technical users do? Many public Internet websites filter connections from the Tor network, many other websites are very slow, yet others impose extra obstacles such as mu…

They aren't Tor network usability problems. They're clear web network usability problems. It'd be great if more people used Tor, NoScript (yes, I know this will not be baked in), and other privacy protecting mechanisms so that clear web sites would care about the users they're intentionally making the experience worse for.

A huge number of people use adblockers, and websites haven't changed to make the experience better. All they've done is changed to block anyone using adblockers, which is what many sites/networks already do to Tor.

Re: Mozilla Project Fusion: Tor Integration into Firefox

#160

Post by Hello71 »

Vinnl wrote: post #87

If I understand it correctly, you shouldn't be using any website accounts using Tor browser that you also use outside of it. I really wonder if/how they can make the user properly aware of that in a kind-of super private browsing mode.

you can, and it is still a valuable contribution to the Tor network, since it adds cover traffic. the catch is just that the website you're using will know who you are. I hope that the vast majority of users will understand that if they log in, there is no privacy mode that will save them from the site they log into.
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