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Private by Design: How We Built Firefox Sync

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Re: Private by Design: How We Built Firefox Sync

#51

Post by mmirate »

riquito wrote: post #48
rauhl wrote: post #44

Sadly, I believe that Firefox Accounts — upon which Firefox Sync is built — are insecure in execution. The security of the whole system relies on keeping your password secret from Mozilla, but as you can see when accessing https://accounts.firefox.com/oauth/signin?scope=profile&clie... your browser downloads the JavaScript it will use to derive your authentication token from Mozilla. There’s nothing stopping Mozilla…

If you have that much distrust you shouldn't run Firefox at all since every page you load would be at risk. I doubt that any browser would match such an high bar

On larger Linux distributions, the trust is less with Mozilla and more with the distro-package maintainers - use of dynamically remote-loaded JavaScript here shifts the trust back to Mozilla; if you trust your maintainers but not Mozilla, then this is a problem.

Re: Private by Design: How We Built Firefox Sync

#52

Post by yoklov »

aiiane wrote: post #35
yoklov wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no risk to your data. It's not like this will delete your local data, the only risk is when doing a password reset in some (fairly rare) cases, which does attempt to make the risk of doing so clear. I don't disagree about recovery keys, they're rather new though, eventually it wouldn't surprise me if we did something like that.

There is a risk if you were relying on sync to be a backup solution (which in the absence of discussing the risk of remote data loss, someone might be tempted to do).

Sure, and we do warn during password reset.

I’m unsure of what alternative there is that avoids that risk while still providing the current privacy benefits.

Re: Private by Design: How We Built Firefox Sync

#53

Post by yoklov »

colemickens wrote: post #47
codetrotter wrote: post #30

This might not align with the goals of Mozilla, but what I would love to see is for Firefox Sync to be extracted so that: - It can be integrated into Google Chrome on desktop operating systems. - It can be provided as a stand-alone app on iOS so that I can: a) “Share” links to this hypothetical stand-alone Sync app from Safari in order to send them to Firefox Sync bookmarks storage. b) Copy username and password from…

Aren't both Chrome and Firefox's sync protocols open? At least, the Firefox Sync server is still self-hostable and open source, and at least the client side of Chrome's sync is open source since Chromium can sync as well... I've never understood why someone didn't implement a Firefox Sync extension for Chrome or vice-versa. Is it technical or are people opinionated enough about browsers that no one has the personal n…

For firefox sync on chrome: It’s completely possible, but the crypto is enough of a pain in the ass to deter most people.

(It’s also going to be very difficult to implement a robust sync system this way, integration with the underlying storage is all but required for that)

Re: Private by Design: How We Built Firefox Sync

#54

Post by kbumsik »

rauhl wrote: post #44

Sadly, I believe that Firefox Accounts — upon which Firefox Sync is built — are insecure in execution. The security of the whole system relies on keeping your password secret from Mozilla, but as you can see when accessing https://accounts.firefox.com/oauth/signin?scope=profile&clie... your browser downloads the JavaScript it will use to derive your authentication token from Mozilla. There’s nothing stopping Mozilla…

So are you suggesting to use a private API to login to accounts.firefox.com? And what about using accounts.firefox.com in other browsers?

Re: Private by Design: How We Built Firefox Sync

#55

Post by mintplant »

tprnz wrote: post #13
arctux wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it's not the default. From the article: > One could, however, add a second passphrase that is never sent to the server, and encrypt the data using that. Chrome provides this as a non-default option. The average user doesn't have the expertise to know that they have to configure an additional "master password" to keep Google from mining their data for ads.

That is true, defaults are important. Firefox users know that because they have to disable the advertisements that appear in the Firefox new tab page by default. https://prod-cdn.sumo.mozilla.net/uploads/gallery/images/201...

I'm downvoting this as the same off-topic whataboutism that comes up any time this topic is discussed on HN (and the fact that you felt the need to create a throwaway account to post it makes me think you knew what you were doing here).

Re: Private by Design: How We Built Firefox Sync

#56

Post by cpeterso »

ndnxhs wrote: post #42
Barrin92 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ever since they've switched to the quantum engine it also feels really fast, almost faster than chrome with the exception of youtube, which feels sluggish sadly.

That's because YouTube uses non standard HTML features that only work in chrome and then polyfills it for every other browser so it works like shit unless you use chrome.

If YouTube page loads are slow for you in Firefox, you can install the "YouTube Classic" extension to opt-out of YouTube's (2017) Polymer design. This extension doesn't affect video playback, just the page layout.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-class...

Re: Private by Design: How We Built Firefox Sync

#57

Post by mintplant »

arctux wrote: post #17
tprnz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true, defaults are important. Firefox users know that because they have to disable the advertisements that appear in the Firefox new tab page by default. https://prod-cdn.sumo.mozilla.net/uploads/gallery/images/201...

I strongly dislike that they've done that. In their partial defense, the selection of recommended articles based on your browsing history is done on device.

In fact this was one of the primary motivations behind Sponsored Tiles in Firefox, to prove the viability of a privacy-preserving monetization model for the web.

Re: Private by Design: How We Built Firefox Sync

#58

Post by vedantroy »

nwah1 wrote: post #49
riquito wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have that much distrust you shouldn't run Firefox at all since every page you load would be at risk. I doubt that any browser would match such an high bar

There was a substantive suggestion for improvement... to include the javascript calls to grab the authentication inside the source code, rather than a remote call. Maybe an intermediate solution would be to use integrity hashes on the remote calls.

I don't think the Javascript for authentication can be client-side. Authentication of passwords must be done on the server.

Re: Private by Design: How We Built Firefox Sync

#60

Post by Holybed »

mintplant wrote: post #55
tprnz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true, defaults are important. Firefox users know that because they have to disable the advertisements that appear in the Firefox new tab page by default. https://prod-cdn.sumo.mozilla.net/uploads/gallery/images/201...

I'm downvoting this as the same off-topic whataboutism that comes up any time this topic is discussed on HN (and the fact that you felt the need to create a throwaway account to post it makes me think you knew what you were doing here).

I'm not sure account age is so relevant. I create new accounts all the time (several times per month) even though I stand behind what I write. It takes 15 seconds so hardly a big effort. I've noticed that it's possible to extract a lot of info from people's posts, in many cases deanonymizing them if you go through enough history and correlate with other sites. Maybe he is a bit privacy concerned.
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