Mozilla phancies doing a Phorm

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk>
> Date: May 20, 2008 7:09:04 AM EDT
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Mozilla phancies doing a Phorm

> Hi Dave:
>
> From The Register (UK), for IP if you wish:
>
> cheers
>
> Brian
>
> ----
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/19/firefox_data_snoop/
>
> > Mozilla phancies doing a Phorm
> > Firefox - your friendly data snooper
> > By Andrew Orlowski
> >
> > The Phorm bug is spreading. The idea of collecting a user's browsing
> > history and flogging that data doesn't just appeal to ISPs. The
> > Mozilla Foundation, the people behind the Firefox browser, want some
> > of that action too.
> >
> > The Foundation is officially a tax exempt non-profit - but still
> > manages to pay its chairperson $500,000 a year. Executives last week
> > confirmed they are working on a project referred to internally as
> > "Data". This would gather anonymised data on a voluntary basis, and
> > provide the analytical information for anyone who wanted it.
> >
> > But recent history reminds us that "anonymised" data is anything but
> > anonymous. Meanwhile, bugs in the bloated browser have blown
> > supposedly "private" data wide open.
> >
> > Mozilla claims Firefox has around 170m users, which means it has
> > more users than the largest ISP outside China. So it's easy to see
> > why the temptation is there.
> >
> > "There are worlds of information about how people use the web that
> > are locked up and not currently shared," tootles Mozilla CEO John
> > Lilly.
> >
> > But what's a non-profit web browser doing building in a
> > data-gathering infrastructure? It would be creepy if we discovered
> > say Nokia putting stealth recording equipment into its handsets. But
> > this is creepier still.
> >
> > Michael Arrington, who Nick Carr described as the "Madam of the Web
> > 2.0 brothel", thinks it's a great idea.
> >
> > "The potential is huge. Tell them in the comments below and on
> > Lilly's blog how much you want this to happen," he urged in the
> > Washington Post.
> >
> > (You can't trust Web 2.0 evangelists with privacy, we've noted
> > before. People forget that AOL's notorious data leak was not
> > accidental, but intentional - a gift to the hive mind. For some
> > network utopians, the biggest regret about the scandal was that we
> > wouldn't see more such gifts.)
> >
> > Cryptome puts it more succinctly - "Firefox Ponders Suicide".
>
>
> --
> School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon  
> Tyne,
> NE1 7RU, UK
> EMAIL = Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
> FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell

-------------------------------------------
Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com