Live data from Hacker News

Brave, the false sensation of privacy

ebin.city

41–50 of 501 posts

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#41
post #18

I always find it odd that we worry so much about how much our browsers are tracking us, but almost nothing about what our ISPs are doing. Every time I've looked into it, it seems much worse. As far as I can tell, ISPs are legally allowed to sell your browsing history to third parties: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/for-sale-your-pr...

Almost everything is SSL-secured now. There's not very much an ISP can snoop on. DNS lookups and IP addresses, I guess.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#42
post #26

The people arguing that Firefox has an edge because it maintains a separate browser engine (like the writer of this article) are going to have real difficulties making their argument. Ditto the attacks on Brave for not being private enough. The people who care about privacy should be more worried about getting caught in Google's web of properties than about privacy per-se - that company is bad news. And Firefox is mo…

Firefox has had a load of conflicts of interests that people don't want to mention. For example, >90% of their funding comes from Google for being the default search engine. That means Mozilla doesn't want to upset Google too much.

As a result, what have we seen? Safari has added new privacy features, that should have been obvious, before Firefox. DuckDuckGo, which Mozilla staff generally recommend, isn't the default which is odd for how vocal Mozilla likes to be about how we're great for your privacy and an open web.

The point is that by receiving >90% of their funding from Google, Mozilla can continue existing. And also be a hypocrite in their actions.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#43
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use ublock origin on Firefox and it seems to properly block all YouTube ads. As with YouTube-dl it’s probably a bit of an arms race, so if your tool of choice stops working maybe wait for the next update and they’re likely to get it fixed / right.

I guess the number of users must be low. Otherwise, there's a near perfect solution for YouTube: create a stream that contains both the ads and the content and don't allow buffering ahead of time while the ads play. Sure, that's fair task, but doable. When the costs of uBlock exceeds the server+man power needed to implement that, they'll switch.

I get the impression that YouTube do not really put any effort into breaking youtube-dl, YouTube Vanced, etc. It seems that mostly when these break it's accidental.

The last thing YouTube wants to do alienate the technically literate minority who use adblocking, because these are the people who could establish an actual competitor. These folks still put money into the creator ecosystem anyway, through patreon and direct sponsorships, which funds creators to make more content. YT wins either way, honestly.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#44

I find Brave Rewards very egregious. You get lots of BAT and the marketing copy hypes it up immensely without mentioning, anywhere, that you need to provide your SSN and Driver's License to a third-party (Uphold) if you actually, you know, want to cash out. This seems particularly irritating because, let's say you set your browser to show you the max amount of ads for a while. You saved up for a few months, decided y…

> you need to provide your SSN and Driver's License to a third-party (Uphold) if you actually, you know, want to cash out.

This is the government's fault not Brave's. There are laws that enforce the requirements. We do not have the freedom to move value or money around freely any more.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#45

I find Brave Rewards very egregious. You get lots of BAT and the marketing copy hypes it up immensely without mentioning, anywhere, that you need to provide your SSN and Driver's License to a third-party (Uphold) if you actually, you know, want to cash out. This seems particularly irritating because, let's say you set your browser to show you the max amount of ads for a while. You saved up for a few months, decided y…

KYC, AML, CYA, IANAL

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#46
post #20

I find Brave Rewards very egregious. You get lots of BAT and the marketing copy hypes it up immensely without mentioning, anywhere, that you need to provide your SSN and Driver's License to a third-party (Uphold) if you actually, you know, want to cash out. This seems particularly irritating because, let's say you set your browser to show you the max amount of ads for a while. You saved up for a few months, decided y…

I think your anger is misplaced - you should be angry at government who requires Brave (and eBay, and Etsy, and any company that is paying out money to people) to require this. If this wasn’t legally required they (and every other company) wouldn’t do it.

Not sure why you are downvoted.

I guess users could also send the tokens elsewhere to try and find an exchange that doesnt care about money laundering laws - but governments get quite involved in crypto.

Or is transfering tokens not possible?

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#47

I find Brave Rewards very egregious. You get lots of BAT and the marketing copy hypes it up immensely without mentioning, anywhere, that you need to provide your SSN and Driver's License to a third-party (Uphold) if you actually, you know, want to cash out. This seems particularly irritating because, let's say you set your browser to show you the max amount of ads for a while. You saved up for a few months, decided y…

> you need to provide your SSN and Driver's License to a third-party (Uphold) if you actually, you know, want to cash out. This is the government's fault not Brave's. There are laws that enforce the requirements. We do not have the freedom to move value or money around freely any more.

And I completely understand that. But Brave is still guilty of not mentioning on their product page that for all the privacy things they do, Brave Rewards isn't private, and also has a conflict of interest incentivizing them to not tell people about it.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#48
post #18

I always find it odd that we worry so much about how much our browsers are tracking us, but almost nothing about what our ISPs are doing. Every time I've looked into it, it seems much worse. As far as I can tell, ISPs are legally allowed to sell your browsing history to third parties: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/for-sale-your-pr...

I only know enough about networking to be dangerous but I am convinced Comcast is doing shady shit with my modem when I change the DNS settings to use non-Comcast servers. Every once in a while I’ll attempt to use Wireshark to try to make sense of what’s happening but I’m pretty clueless and don’t really know what I’m looking at/for. If anyone knows any good resources to learn about the ISP nuts and bolts that make i…

I found The UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook (5th Edition), chapters about networking and DNS very instructive, and they list a ton of additional references if you want to dig deeper.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#49
post #18

I always find it odd that we worry so much about how much our browsers are tracking us, but almost nothing about what our ISPs are doing. Every time I've looked into it, it seems much worse. As far as I can tell, ISPs are legally allowed to sell your browsing history to third parties: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/for-sale-your-pr...

Almost everything is SSL-secured now. There's not very much an ISP can snoop on. DNS lookups and IP addresses, I guess.

the timing and size of everyone's connection to everything is "not very much"?

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#50
post #46
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your anger is misplaced - you should be angry at government who requires Brave (and eBay, and Etsy, and any company that is paying out money to people) to require this. If this wasn’t legally required they (and every other company) wouldn’t do it.

Not sure why you are downvoted. I guess users could also send the tokens elsewhere to try and find an exchange that doesnt care about money laundering laws - but governments get quite involved in crypto. Or is transfering tokens not possible?

Not with Brave, it is not. All of your tokens go into Uphold, and you must go through full KYC (providing your Driver's License and SSN), before you can move them to any other wallet. And no, the tokens your browser says you have, they aren't actually yours or transferrable until your KYC Verification is complete. The amount of tokens in your account before you complete Uphold verification is more of an IOU BAT until you create an account and get the actual BAT.

This is what is also egregious. Yes, BAT is decentralized when you move it around in wallets, but as far as the browser is concerned, all BAT you earn from receiving ads is actually quite centralized.

Post reply on HN