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LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

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Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#511

Post by buellerbueller »

luxuryballs wrote: post #247
gwerbin wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost certainly they are using that for audience segmentation and ad targeting. Clever and disgusting. This isn't the invention of some evil moustache-twirling executive, this was the invention of an employee or group of employees who value money more than morals. We should think of such employees as henchmen.

if they do a better job at showing me an ad that might be relevant to me, how is that disgusting? if I have to see an ad at all I at least want them to give it their best shot

It's not just about ads. The same data and tech is also about locking you up and identifying you for deportation you if this admin thinks you are in the USA without permission.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#512

Post by francoi8 »

Bender wrote: post #462
haswell wrote: post #14

The headline seems pretty misleading. Here’s what seems to actually be going on: > Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser, LinkedIn’s JavaScript executes a silent scan of your installed browser extensions. The scan probes for thousands of specific extensions by ID, collects the results, encrypts them, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers. This does seem invasive. It also seems like what I’d expect…

Javascript can query chrome extensions [1] and much more [2]. [1] - https://browserleaks.com/chrome [2] - https://browserleaks.com/javascript

This blows my mind. What good reason is there for giving javascript such permissions by default? This should at the minimum trigger an explicit permission request from the user.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#514

Post by vaginaphobic »

haswell wrote: post #14

The headline seems pretty misleading. Here’s what seems to actually be going on: > Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser, LinkedIn’s JavaScript executes a silent scan of your installed browser extensions. The scan probes for thousands of specific extensions by ID, collects the results, encrypts them, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers. This does seem invasive. It also seems like what I’d expect…

[dead]

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#515

Post by SoftTalker »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #147
haswell wrote: post #14

The headline seems pretty misleading. Here’s what seems to actually be going on: > Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser, LinkedIn’s JavaScript executes a silent scan of your installed browser extensions. The scan probes for thousands of specific extensions by ID, collects the results, encrypts them, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers. This does seem invasive. It also seems like what I’d expect…

> this is why I run ad blockers. It's pretty wild that we live in a world where the actual FBI has recommended we use ad blockers to protect ourselves, and if everyone actually listened, much of the Internet (and economy) as we know it would disappear. The FBI is like "you should protect yourself from the way that the third largest company in the world does business", and the average person's response is "nah, that w…

Every browser should have ad blocking technology included and enabled by default. I do not understand why Apple in particular has not pushed this with Safari, as they like to portray that they care about privacy.

I get why Chrome doesn't, and that's why you should not use it. But Netscape? Edge? What is stopping them?

Browsing the web without an ad blocker is a miserable experience. Users who have never tried or don't know how to set one up would be delighted.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#516

Post by autoexec »

mcmcmc wrote: post #448
lastofthemojito wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is why I run ad blockers. It's pretty wild that we live in a world where the actual FBI has recommended we use ad blockers to protect ourselves, and if everyone actually listened, much of the Internet (and economy) as we know it would disappear. The FBI is like "you should protect yourself from the way that the third largest company in the world does business", and the average person's response is "nah, that w…

The FBI also recommended people use commercial VPNs… coincidentally they don’t need a warrant to spy on communications that leave the country

It's probably better to let them spy on your highly encrypted traffic going overseas than use a US based service considering that they can march into any US company and start collecting every bit of data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#517

Post by cousin_it »

cryptoegorophy wrote: post #331
Aurornis wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many extensions designed to scrape data from social media websites are disguised as simple extensions that do something else. If I had to guess: I sought that automatic content blurrer, neurodivergent website simplifier, or anti-Zionist tagger actually work. They’re all just piggybacking on trending topics to get users to install them and then forget about them, then they exfiltrate the data when you visit LinkedIn.

This. Do not install any extension unless you absolutely need. Assume they all leak your browsing data. Not familiar with Google but if you can just vibe code your own extension then do that.

Vibe supply chain attacks are coming btw.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#518

Post by JumpCrisscross »

kibwen wrote: post #477
chasd00 wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a) we opened a club house called the internet in the early 1990s, just after the time of BBSs "we" is doing a lot of work here. No clubhouse got optical switching working and all that fiber in the ground for example. Beyond POC, the Internet was all commercial interests.

No. The internet was not a commercial enterprise, it was first and foremost a military enterprise, just like GPS.

> it was first and foremost a military enterprise, just like GPS

This is sort of like arguing cutlery is a military enterprise. Like yes, that’s where knives came from. But that’s disconnected enough from modern design, governance and other fundamental concerns as to be irrelevant. The internet—and less ambiguously, the World Wide Web—are more commercial than military.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#519

Post by macNchz »

ronsor wrote: post #480
integralid wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the average person's response is "nah, that would take at least a couple of minutes of my time, As a data point I, a technical person who tweaks his computer a lot, was against adblocking for moral reasons (as a part of perceived social contract, where internet is free because of ads). Only later I changed mi mind on this because I became more privacy aware.

The social contract was "your ads aren't annoying or invasive, and don't waste my time, so I earn you some money" But ads are all of those things now, so I feel no obligation. I only got an ad blocker around the time ads were becoming excessively irritating.

Beyond just invasive/annoying, ad networks explicitly spread malware and scams/fraud. There's not much incentive for them to clamp down on it, though, as that would cost them money both in lost revenue and in paying for more thorough review.
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