Ask Slashdot: Most Secure Browser In an Age of Surveillance? 391
An anonymous reader writes "With the discovery that the NSA may be gathering extensive amounts of data, and the evidence suggesting makers of some of the most popular browsers may be in on the action, I am more than a little wary of which web browser to use. Thus, I pose a question to the community: is there a 'most secure' browser in terms of avoiding personal data collection? Assuming we all know by know how to 'safely' browse the internet (don't click on that ad offering to free your computer of infections) what can the lay person do have a modicum of protection, or at least peace of mind?"
Internet Explorer (Score:5, Funny)
Secondly, the sandboxing means that IE is usually able to block an attack on plug-ins like the Flash Player and JAVA VM. This alone makes surfing with IE remarkably safe.
IE really is an different kind of beast in the sea of mediocre browsers. It has come long way and is aiming for the top.
- John Futura
Security Consultant
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but how do you know that MS hasn't inserted a nice big back-door for the spooks?
From a "security" perspective, you'll have to go with an open-source browser -- but even that's not a guarantee.
To be sure, you'll have to compile it yourself from a set of source files that you have gone through with a fine-toothed comb, checking each line for any chance of hidden functionality.
Oh, come to think of it -- you'll also have to assemble all the libraries from similarly vetted sources -- oh, and that means you'll need to use a compiler you've built from vetted sources -- but hey, that would involve using another compiler that could already be compromised so...
You'll have to hand-code (from source to binary) every bite of the compiler you use and then type it in through a BIOS that you've also hand coded -- entering the BIOS code through a set of toggle switches on the front panel.
Bottom line -- you don't *know* for sure that *any* browser is going to be secure.
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Have we actually heard anything that suggests that they put in back doors into software? All I've heard is that NSA has collected data going in and out of their datacenter, not individual customers.
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Informative)
They at least get early Zero-Day access. I'm guessing they have more.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/nsa-gets-early-access-to-zero-day-data-from-microsoft-others/
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Interesting)
They at least get early Zero-Day access. I'm guessing they have more.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/nsa-gets-early-access-to-zero-day-data-from-microsoft-others/
MS gives advance information about security patches to AV vendors. The intention is to allow those AV vendors to create scanning signatures which will enable AV products to pick up the attacks. Attackers have show a lazy tendency to just reverse engineer patches instead of finding vulnerabilities themselves. Less than 1% of attacks are zero-day attacks these days.
Some of AV vendors that receive such vulnerability information are foreign companies. Yes. Some of those AV companies are Chinese.
Is it not reasonable to afford the NSA the same advance warning? The advance warning is a few days before the patch is made public, around the same time that the public receive advance notification (with less details than the AV companies and NSA). It is not like they have months to exploit it.
But tinfoil hatters and Microsoft haters always spin it as something nefarious. There is *nothing* to suggest that there are NSA backdoors in Windows or any other OS for that matter.
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Some of those AV companies are Chinese.
Care to list out the name of the AV companies which are owned and/or operated by the CHINESE ??
I am interested in factual information, not fear mongering !!
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of those AV companies are Chinese.
Care to list out the name of the AV companies which are owned and/or operated by the CHINESE ??
I am interested in factual information, not fear mongering !!
The MAPP program is public. You can find the list of MAPP partners at Microsoft Security Response Center [microsoft.com]
Huawei is there, as well as several Beijing companies.
My emphasis on Chinese was tongue-in-cheek. They get a few days advantage to develop scanning signatures. Yes, some of them may go rogue or (more likely) some of the employees. I would think that is why they only get a few days head start and not several months.
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Informative)
Ah.. an anti-ms troll still stick in 1999. _NSAKEY has nothing to do with backdoors. Its understandable that non-technical simpletons would mistake it as such.
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9909.html#NSAKeyinMicrosoftCryptoAPI [schneier.com]
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Insightful)
I always love how people simultaneously believe that the NSA is so technically brilliant that it can collect and analyze every message sent by every random person on earth, but also so stupid that they name their secret backdoor key _NSAKEY.
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly. The key is actually _SETECASTRONOMY.
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Don't need it (Score:3)
I think the thing people really need to worried about is all those "web accelerator" boxes that proxy encrypted data (very stupid idea IMHO) - if the NSA has a back door into any of those you have to hope that nobody associated with them has a gambling problem and decides to use your collected banking username and password - or of co
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You actually trust your hardware ???!!!!
You have to start with a handful of diodes and a soldering iron you naive, easily deceived person.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Funny)
So...you'll have to install Gentoo then?
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Of course you can win. All you have do is to build up a massive surveillance system yourself. Then you know exactly who is trying to listen to you with which methods, and can enact appropriate counter measures. :-)
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It's a guarantee of retribution. But it doesn't technically prevent any ill befalling firefox users. It simply makes doing something bad on purpose less attractive, not harder.
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have to compile Firefox from source. If an open source product has an NSA backdoor, it only takes ONE user to bring down the entire product, or the Mozilla Foundation in the example, and shame them forever. This in itself is a guarantee.
Assuming that it's clear that it's a backdoor, as opposed to something that appears to be an ordinary security bug.
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Informative)
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Of course there can be security, the problem is rather if you trust it.
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Informative)
How ?? (Score:2)
When the backbone is compromised, you're pretty much fucked unless you run strong encryption everywhere and obfuscate who you are talking to
1. How strong must those strong encryption be ?
NSA has their hands on the latest and greatest gadgets, including quantum computers, which can, theoretically, decrypt anything
2. Unless we have our own secured backbone trunks, there is no way we can successfully "obfuscate" our presence online, even TOR can be broken
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Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Insightful)
Well he is technically correct. IE is as of version 10 actually a good browser. The only problem is that it's only available on Windows and the source code is not available under an open source license. If both of these were false I then I wouldn't mind running it.
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Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what people said about IE5 & 6 at the time they were released and look how that turned out. Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is exactly the point, if enough people start using IE again that competition is effectively eliminated they will almost certainly cease development while encouraging the creation of ie-only websites to lock users in. This is called "bad faith".
Having experienced this in the past, i have no desire to experience it again and thus won't use any version of IE wether it's a decent browser or not.
If WebGL isn't a standard, what is? (Score:3)
Write for web standards and IE10 supports it pretty well.
What's the closest thing to "web standards" for a 3D view in a web application? Both Chrome and Firefox support WebGL on capable video cards, but Microsoft has refused, complaining about "security problems".
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:4, Interesting)
That said...from a "standards compliance" perspective, IE has made some marginal improvements. Marginal. At best.
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:5, Interesting)
Not enough, apparently.
Only two posts celebrating MS security since he's opened his account a few days ago is far too few.
Even if those two are the only posts he's made as yet.
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Back in July 2010, Microsoft claimed that SmartScreen on Internet Explorer had already blocked over a billion attempts to access sites containing security risks.
So... was that from virus infected machines attempting to access further malware, or is that a TSA style stat about how many "terrorists" they've stopped.
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll be uncharacteristically calm here, and ask that someone provide this, "evidence suggesting makers of some of the most popular browsers may be in on the action."
And in any case, let's be realistic. The NSA doesn't really need help from your browser if they're watching all your traffic. :p
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Well, we know that Microsoft and Google have apparently been giving a feed of data to the NSA for quite some time, now.
Please be a bit precise here. What exactly is claimed have Microsoft and Google given to the NSA? And how exactly do we "know"?
NSA direct access to all servers (Score:3)
Please be a bit precise here. What exactly is claimed have Microsoft and Google given to the NSA? And how exactly do we "know"?
Come on now. There's a powerpoint [zdnet.com] that proves it all.
It just needs a little imagination/fantasy and some extrapolation, then it is conclusive, irrefutable proof that the big companies have *all* of them given NSA direct electronic access to the companies' servers to perform any kind of snooping they desire with no judicial oversight.
No such thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Security should begin at the hardware level, the kernel should be inaccessible from a hardware perspective. The next best thing is a complete secure OS, so your options are limited to something like TAILS.
https://tails.boum.org/
I wouldn't say its 100% secure, its certainly not, but it does raise the bar a little and for them to use anything against you, they would need to admit to having the ability to break encryption. That's not going to happen. That said, always be careful as it will be used in other ways should it be required.
Other than that, there is no such thing as "safe".
Re:No such thing (Score:5, Interesting)
I was thinking Incognito/TAILS, exactly. Those guys seem incredibly serious about privacy and security. I haven't messed a whole lot with it myself lack of memory, no discs to spare, runs like crap in a VM...), but I recall it even featured Tor and a Tor Firefox extension and it had strict rules about *not* allowing certain "convenience" features in the name of privacy (ie. swap partition). No doubt, with security features and precautions like those, its Firefox browser is probably locked tight as hell by default.
Aside from this, I figure with all the extensions available and some additional services, you could help to protect yourself. You could start by doing the usual in your browser (disable third-party cookies, install the Adblock Plus, NoScript and DoNotTrackMe extensions, etc.). Reduce your reliance on American companies and/or servers. Example: Since Google's going to be killing off Talk/XMPP support, I decided to look around for alternatives, and chose many XMPP servers to test and decide which one to use. I originally was interested in performance and was going to choose one closest to me, in my own country if possible (the United States). Now, I am almost 100% certain my primary XMPP account will *not* be on an American server, unless I happen to decide to try my hand at setting up and maintaining my own XMPP server.
And... services. Obviously Tor can work as in Incognito if you want to use that, but another option would be a VNC provider. Specifically, one that respects your privacy (ie. does not store any more log data than they need to operate), and possible more importantly--again--one that is not in the United States. I'm not sure of a good VNC provider, but I can say that it's pretty pathetic when you are forced to subscribe to and pay a foreign provider just to try to ensure your own privacy. But, well, it looks like the U.S. government has no end in sight when it comes to royally fucking up own economy.
And last... you run Windows? Mac? Might want to change your operating system. It's already been discovered that various U.S. government agencies have deals with Microsoft to learn about zero-day exploits before anyone else in the world... who knows what other deals they might have, or what other American companies also have deals. Definite possibility of backdoors as well.
The real problem is that PRISM works (from what I can understand) by splitting the signal in between, for example, Microsoft's or Google's servers and their respective ISPs (Steve Gibson brings some pretty good points in a recent episode of Security Now). This means they get *everything*, so if it's encrypted (https:// for example) the government *may* not be able to read the data itself as it's transferred for storage in their own top-secret storage rooms... but they can definitely look at the activity to find out what IP address communications are between at any given time (or... just ask the company running the servers who that user is).
You'll just call attention to yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/06/21/1443204/use-tor-get-targeted-by-the-nsa [slashdot.org]
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So in other words: There is absolutely NOTHING AT ALL you can do? Any suggestions yourself, then?
But actually, say I use an XMPP server in some country in Europe and everyone I know also uses that server (ie. no need to use federation, which would possibly go through American servers)... I'd say that's protection. Unless we find out that the country it is based in is helping/sharing with the NSA as well. But as it is, XMPP is decentralized into so many small servers around the world I seriously doubt it
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"So in other words: There is absolutely NOTHING AT ALL you can do? Any suggestions yourself, then?"
Yes I do.
1 - you MUST abandon any OS that does not give you complete control of the networking. Linux or BSD or it's derivatives is required.
2 - you MUST never surf from home. Always use coffee shops and other places not attached to you
3 - you MUST use non US VPN servers. to get your traffic outside the USA before it it's the internet unencrypted, Again use several of them.
4 - Encrypted communications chann
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This is my take on this issue, and I do believe not only that you can do a lot, but that the feds had to say that crap that if you do they will focus on you since they are worried a lot of people will think extra hard now to avoid them. It's like the Borg saying resistance is futile. Anyways, this is my list:
-Install Hardened Gentoo. If you want to be extra paranoid download the source packages directly from the creators and compare hash keys.
-Get a Linux VPS in a country that either has strong privacy laws
https://www .. (Score:2)
Have you noticed that most sites have gone https:/// [https] only since a workable man-in-the-middle was devised ...
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How does it raise the bar? The site is a binary download, which asserts that it takes my privacy seriously.
Can I download the source? Oh, sure, but between the Obfuscated C contest, Underhanded C, and compiler bugs/"quirks", can I really trust it?
I would prefer the recommendation of a privacy group, not Anonymous Coward. And for the record I would trust Linux and GCC if I were to compile from source. I wouldn't trust a binary from a random ass website.
Tor Browser Bundle (TBB) R/O system (Score:5, Interesting)
A LiveCD with TBB:
https://www.torproject.org/ [torproject.org]
for LiveDVD/USB preconfigured not to leak try TAILS:
https://tails.boum.org/ [boum.org]
in both instances unplug your HDD(s) before use.
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most end points are likely run by the likes of the NSA and FBI...
Then why isn't the FBI rounding up scads of drug buyers and paedophiles on a daily basis?
Tin-foil Hat Boy says, "because they *are* drug pushers and paedophiles", but that's a stretch.
Lynx (Score:5, Insightful)
Face it, who's going to bother writing anything to exploit flaws in lynx? It just isn't worth it.
Re:Lynx (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but it lacks the features to exploit. Which is actually an important point in security, to only have the features you need and nothing else. Less surface area to attack.
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Why not even go a step further and don't use the web at all?
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I had to follow a few dubious links in squid cache at various points when bosses were annoyed about people accessing very unusual content at work and lynx saved me from seeing some things that may have resulted in a loss of a bit of sanity.
I still use it on every new linux install to download nvidia drivers. It starts the download before firefox would have finished showing the front page animation (which is fair enough si
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Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Every time you go blabbing good ideas around, others will negate them! So shut the hell up, you idiot!
Thanks for bringing my attention to the parent, I nearly missed it but thanks to you I didn't. I think I'll try this one out straight away. Actually I'll tell my friends and family to try it as well, while I'm at it I'll put some posts up on Twitter and Facebook . Thanks again AC.
Helpful guidelines from EFF (Score:5, Informative)
The EFF has provided an up to date list of privacy-enabling tools in the age of Prism. http://prism-break.org/ [prism-break.org]
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They put iOS and Android in the same "do not trust" column. The only difference is that for Android phones, they are able to recommend alternatives : Replicant and CyanogenMod. While not perfect, these are by far better alternatives.
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From what little I've seen of wordpress it seems to break the number one rule of web pages since 1992 and is full of absolute links, thus removing portablity and making it difficult to test before deploying. Is it all like that or did I just stumble upon a part written by an idiot?
I just moved a wordpress installation from one domain to another. It's a two step process, and everything works without problem. (1) In the admin, you change the Wordpress and website address URL. Updating this results in an error because it expects another URL. (2) Move the installation to the new domain and/or rename the folder. It could be that a plugin stores an absolute path, but it isn't supposed to do that. Some plugins use file paths, but they will probably warn if that path is no longer available.
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They don't claim the recommended options are necessarily more secure, but they are freer and more in your control. They can also be tinkered with by yourself (also to be more secure, if you wish), and the code is more available.
That's a great list, and the least what one can do is change from Google to some other default search engine. Some of those listed are actually proxies to Google so they use its engine while filtering out all unnecessary information.
w3m / lynx (Score:5, Funny)
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actually it's pretty irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
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You'll have to block the tracking cookies too, otherwise the government will just ask the companies for the information.
Re:actually it's pretty irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
It's best to leak as little info as possible, so Firefox + NoScript.
What really should be done is making this Orwellian nightmare illegal. There is zero reason to wiretap EVERYBODY ALL THE TIME!
Free speech is one of the most important principles of the USA. And no privacy means no free speech. This dystopia is unconstitutional.
Re:actually it's pretty irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
Bingo, the tech community is doing it all wrong. Fight back through educating politicians and voters. Make the government work for you.
Chrome phones home with ID code (Score:4, Interesting)
Except that Chrome phones home the first time you start it up to check for upgrades. This has the unfortunate 'effect' of informing Google of the browser ID at this IP address, and as a consequence it informs the NSA of the linkage of browser ID and IP address.
Post NSA, I try to avoid Google services. They try to grab data for themselves, but in the process grab it for the NSA, and if the choice is NSA+Google or no Google, then I go without Google.
I opt for Firefox with the 'check for updates' turned to manual checks.
It's a minor thing, but it helps in as much that the choice of browser can help (not much if you're in the USA, quite a bit if you're not and behind an ISP NAT).
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Post NSA, I try to avoid Google services.
Since the NSA has been around for 60 years, and Google for 14, what exactly do you mean by "Post NSA"?
not much if you're in the USA, quite a bit if you're not and behind an ISP NAT
What if you're in the USA and not behind an ISP NAT?
BTW, WTH does ISP NATting have to do with this?
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Except that Chrome phones home the first time you start it up to check for upgrades.
This hasn't been true for more than three years. [h-online.com] In fact Google is very transparent about all privacy issues within Chrome [google.com].
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Re:actually it's pretty irrelevant (Score:5, Informative)
... the snooping is done on your ISP's backbone, and the browser you use makes little difference.
If you're just using a stock browser, this is somewhat true. But for privacy you wouldn't do that.
For instance, installing the HTTPS Everywhere extension will get you secure connections to as many sites as possible. That's a direct counter to pervasive snooping. I use it with Firefox and also NoScript, Ghostery, RefControl, and CookieMonster, and that set does a fairly decent job of having a more privacy-oriented (and faster) browsing experience. It also makes the NSA's eavesdropping more difficult, but that's just a nice side effect of not sharing your every move with the commercial trackers out there (I installed them all well before I'd ever heard of Snowden). The nice thing about solid security approaches is that they proactively defend against unknown attackers.
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FYI: Ghostery is created and used by advertisors :
Source: wikipedia [wikipedia.org] So they are still receiving tracking information.
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hard to hide what sites you visit (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that the internet transmits your public IP address in every header you send across the internet and also contains the IP address of the destination, there is no way for you to hide what sites you visit without going through a proxy server. As far as I know, Header information in every packet is plain text and there is no way to encrypt that because if it was encrypted then no router would be able to forward your packets onto the next step in its final destination. So your browser, e-mail program, or anything else that sends and receives data through the internet is going to leave a trail for the government to potentially record. It may not lead back to you specifically, but it will lead to someone in your household or in your neighborhood that is using your wi-fi for internet access, provided you haven't locked down your wi-fi. If you have locked down your wi-fi then the government can claim it was only you, someone in your household or someone you have given your wi-fi password to, which significantly lowers their potential suspects or targets.
If you send everything you do through a proxy server with a vpn connection to the proxy, then that has a very good chance of making you mostly anonymous. However, a warrant and the cooperation of the proxy service owner might make it possible for the government to still connect the dots back to you. Also, sending everything through a proxy server with all the non-routing information encrypted (via vpn) may actually lead to you being watched more closely then if you don't.
If what you are really after is encryption of the contents of what you see and do on the internet, your best bet is probably still a VPN through a proxy server. Especially since SSL and some of the other methods for encrypting data between two end points on the internet aren't as secure as they were once thought to be. I don't know of anyone that has come up with a replacement for SSL that has been adopted by very many content providers. And even if the web browsers may have adopted some new security encryption scheme, it won't be effective until most if not all content providers also adopt and implement it.
The only way to win is not to play at all (Score:5, Insightful)
So you fix your browser .. are you also going to fix your ISP, whoever they buy their feed from etc etc until you get all the way to the actual web server? And how do you know to trust them?
Or are you going to build your own internet ,. with hookers and blackjack?
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Don't forget Russia, PRC and Iran.
Naturally that implies that UKUSA/Echelon is morally equivalent to those nasty totalitarians, but it wouldn't surprise me if EVERY/b> country with enough money is slurping at the fiber optic fire hose.
The browsers! (Score:4, Funny)
They do nothing!
A stolen one... (Score:3)
Identity theft assures your privacy, so to speak. However, that would be illegal. Good thing they're looking for authentic criminals.
It's a political problem.. (Score:3)
.. that can only be solved politically. If you want peace of mind, prepare for decades of serious struggle, and learn to be okay with that.
If your ISP and the websites you use hand over everything, if things gets collected at packet level wholesale; what does it even matter what browser you use? It doesn't, not one bit.
security for dummies (Score:2)
None of them (Score:5, Insightful)
None of the browsers will protect you from surveillance.
Work on the basis that your ISP is compromised and that the web services you use have shared their databases with Government agencies. When you consider this, changing your browser is going to have little to no impact.
I think the only way you can really be secure from surveillance is to use the tor browser and only use web services which can't trace you. So, no Google, Apple, social networking or any of the cool stuff we take for granted these days.
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The OP is right insofar that a browser is only one part of the chain of events that ties an identity (and associated habits) to you. Even when you use something Firefox or Opera in so-called "private" mode, your traffic still originates from the same point, creating a common item between things that happen (and BTW, you should set your browser to be something else than the default "OS + browser ID").
The expensive way to address that is to route your traffic via some privacy proxy. The expensive way to do
Failure of Premise (Score:5, Interesting)
OP says "what browser should I use" I automatically add "for the Facebooks".
Here's the low-down:
That's just off the top of my head. The software you use to disclose the information isn't the problem - you are.
wget (Score:2, Interesting)
wget -m -k -K -E -l 1000 -t 3 -w 1 http://www.website.com/
Then after waiting a while (ok, maybe a long while), open the page/articles you *really* wanted to read in a text editor. Sure, the NSA might know which *site* you visited through normal spying means, but they'll never figure out which *page* you were really after.
Of course, they might think you read all the pages, and spend a few million dollars of taxpayer money trying to determine whether it's possible for someone to read 1 page per second and whe
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Don't Bet On It (Score:3)
You can bet that any browser worth its salt has had agents involved in its creation whether or not the people who built the product were aware of it at all. You can also bet that encryption products whether free or commercial often have back doors or keys built in. That is the very essence of intelligence gathering. Do not assume that physical or software products are free of snooping abilities.
I suppose your best chance might be a browser that was never popular or used by many people at all.
Think back a few years and recall the tunnel that we put under the Berlin Wall in order to tie into a major Soviet phone trunk line. We intercepted phone calls for years from that tunnel. If we could do that about 1968 or 1970 just imagine what could be done today. DARPA was the motive force behind the creation of the net. DARPA more than any other entity would have great reason to spy on communications. This is not a new issue.
pointless? (Score:2)
whats the point? (Score:2)
regression (Score:4, Insightful)
Your "secure browser" can be compromised by the Operating System. The Operating System can be compromised by the hardware.
The safest way to do your computing is to make all your own chips, assemble it yourself, and write your own OS. Even then you're subject to Man-in-the-Middle attacks, so you're going to have to go lay all your own fiber and do it all over again for those on the other side.
none of the above... (Score:3)
Surveillance happens today at the server level: the Feds claim that, under the PATRIOT act, they can get the records of all visits and all 'cloud' data straight from the server - this is the "PRISM" project, but shades of it have been going for the past decade.
They don't need your client end. They get the server logs, they get the server history of visits, and reverse-lookup you and then collate all visits to as many web services as they can from the particular IP and MAC address, and that's how they put together your history.
Cookies, SSL, HTTPS, none of that matters. The only thing that would escape it is to route through anonymous proxies.
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You have two alternatives - either to not go online at all or spread your traffic randomly to confuse the matter.
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"Hmm", says the spook examining the traffic. "Looks like this person is mostly interested in fighting crime by moonlight".
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you arrogant little turds ... fucks sake, no god damned shit ... based on unicorn farts ... little asshat turds
You'll get your point better across if you cut that childish angry cursing.
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dont piss yourself after being exposed to the real world there sonny
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mod parent up. and disable mozilla addon-tracking
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/how-to-opt-out-of-add-on-metadata-updates/ [mozilla.org]