Spyware used by governments poses as Firefox, and Mozilla is angry

Originally posted by Cabin


Luckily I quit Mozilla years ago, although it is not their fault that governments used their product in order to surveillance people. There exists no online privacy...

At least it came out now, although I am interested how will it affect Mozilla´s users. Many will probably quit, although I appreciate the honesty of the company to come out with something that might affect their earnings.

arstechnica.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

There is NO reason anyone should Not use Firefox as long as they know they got their copy from Mozilla itself. No one will quit using FF over this. As your link points out, this spyware doesn't even effect the FF browser.. it just uses it's logos to mask as a Mozilla product. The governments do Not even use the FireFox browser to spy on people as you claim.. you need to go re-read the article and this time, use your noodle to pay attention.

Originally posted by threewisemonkeys
Gamma is a UK based company. The UK is the US's biach. Essentially the US are spying on themselves, and everyone else. That isn't really news.

edit on 2-5-2013 by threewisemonkeys because: (no reason given)

I think you will find it's actually the other way round...

2nd line.

So is there a program or something you can run to see if you have the fake software?
How is the fake one distributed? Are there certain 3rd party websites that offer it? Or do they use it in specific cases to spy on specific people?

reply to post by Cabin


I think its too late to do anything.... everything we do is tracked, whether online at home, Mobile Phone, Going Abroad, Using your Bank Cards or out in the street walking about!

Soon, they will release those plastic bees and flies with very tiny cams out into the night and they will be getting into your homes, caravans, cars etc etc...

Be Afraid..... Be Very Afraid.

I am wondering if the old anonymizer method works still. The site anonymouse.org says you can use their system to serf for free and stay anonymous, but does it really work?

Many mice surf the web under the illusion that their actions are private and anonymous. Unfortunately, this is not the way it is. Every time you visit a site for a piece of cheese, you leave a calling card that reveals where you are coming from, what kind of computer you use, and other details. And many cats keep logs of all your visits, so that they can catch you! This service allows you to surf the web without revealing any personal information. It is fast, it is easy, and it is free!

Originally posted by Cabin


Luckily I quit Mozilla years ago, although it is not their fault that governments used their product in order to surveillance people. There exists no online privacy...

At least it came out now, although I am interested how will it affect Mozilla´s users. Many will probably quit, although I appreciate the honesty of the company to come out with something that might affect their earnings.

arstechnica.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Well, it looks like you should switch back to Mozilla. It appears they are at least fighting for your rights. The other companies could care less about giving your personal information at the slightest request from Uncle Sam.

reply to post by Cabin


I think if you check out the alternatives to FF you will find out they are worse...

Oh the internet is the perfect example of humanity. People always say we deserve a second chance. We got one the internet, the internet used to be the free western. What did we do with it? We commercialized the sh*t out of it.

The internet is and will always be a reflection of our society.

And to add to the thread, what point is having the "safest browser" and add block etc. Your provider sell's your information so it doesn't matter.

As has been said, it's not a virus that is getting into your browser, it's basically the software itself being 're-compiled' and distributed. It's illegal actually what they are doing. They are adding malware to the software.

So long as yo get your Firefox download FROM MOZILLA, you are fine and there is also no need to worry about 'getting infected' because it doesn't work that way.

OP is a little misleading.

I have been using Firefox since it's beta.
Will never use IE for anything.
I tried Chrome but it's just not for me.

Originally posted by MaxSteiner
reply to post by Cabin

 

Hope you didn't switch to Chrome, at least Mozzilla aren't knowingly handing over all your data to the NSA:

www.wired.com...

Sorry but the NSA from AMERICA is spying on british citizens? I have chrome installed I'm sure the british government will have something to say about this...

reply to post by roughycannon


If you think that yo need to read up on Echelon, we asked the US to spy on our citizens!
In return we spy on theirs. Part of the reason they set it up was to bypass the need for a court order.

Here's a write up on the BBC:
news.bbc.co.uk...

reply to post by Cabin


i'm the biggest conspiracy buff i know, and a pirate(sharer), and i'm so paranoid about privacy i use ip hiders, sandboxes, vpns, and shaved down broswers, and i don't see anything wrong with making a spyware prog to trick people. it's called intelligence guys. if ur smart enough u won't fall for it. go prog up. go research. but according to the art of war, this is business as usual and even necessary for a govt or intel agency. i'm glad the knowledge came out, yes, but honestly when i got my very first browser ever i had already researched which ones to trust and wouldn't even use mozilla to browse porn. don't hate that they're doing their jobs, do yours.

reply to post by TruthxIsxInxThexMist


fear is the mind killer.

don't fear. we're coming into our own finally. this planet isn't the planet free people made. it's an inheritable lie and cage. free energy, free education(already here), immortality, unlimited space and resources, terahertz tricorders, 3d printers, all the ugliness u see right now is the final violent death-throws of "illuminati." the only control they have left now is fear. don't fall for it.

Originally posted by 0001391
I can't believe people use Chrome. Google is completely in league with the spy agencies. People use gmail, google desktop, and chrome on top of that. They stay logged into Google+ and youtube and blogger through google. Every single thing they do is monitored by google. Try to find a web page that doesn't use Google analytics or some other google scripts in their code. Every single web page on the planet has given themselves over to google. You can block it all but few do. If you use gmail, youtube accounts, chrome, etc, you're crazy.. or the kind of person that doesn't care if 10,000 watch you as you use the toilet.

Edit to add: Adblock Plus, Noscript, Ghostery, Re-direct remover, HTML5 cookie manager, Better Privacy, Little Snitch on Mac, TrackerBlocker, disable all google scripts, and web search using HTTS startpage.com instead of Google. Clean out all flash/html5/cookies after each session. Cycle your IP address constantly.

edit on 5/3/2013 by 0001391 because: Added addition info

And do all this so that Google doesn't tell the NSA if I prefer girls shaved or unshaved and if I have a specific ethnic preference to masturbate to and how much time I spend on World of Warcraft?

You know what i'm saying right?

99.9% of people are way too boring for the NSA to give a shiz about, your pron, your arguments with your ex, heck....

even 99% of people who post here the worst that will likely ever happen is some guy that you'll never meet and vice versa will turn to his buddy in the next cubicle and say "check it out, this moron thinks Princess Diana was from Hollow Earth"

There's 320 Million people in the US alone... you kind of have to really be acting like a giant douche online to warrant any actual attention

And frankly... this is the stupidest post yet... because if I was working for some agency... and saw someone covering their tracks this hard you'd be the first person who's machine i'd access because seriously i'd have to assume your some kind of "boy lover" or "bombardier" or "Walt from breaking bad" or some thing for you to give so many ucks about it....

reply to post by penninja


The thing is, storage has reached a point where you can just store everything until it's needed, so they aren't going to be looking at it real time. They just wait till they have to besmirch your name and pull out whatever they can from your web history.

I'd imagine every kid since the internets been around has looked at the Anarchist Cookbook (or whatever the modern equivlent is) - and thats enough for them to claim you're a bomb making a terrorist.
We had someone arrested in the UK for terrorism and all they'd done was download a PDF! (I had a look myself and it wasn't even that extreme) - they got released on appeal a year later, but the fact of the matter is they don't need you to do anything illegal online to arrest you, they just have to search your history for a reason however minor.

I'm pretty sure most porn could be claimed to be pirated as well (if you think about it had any of those extreme copyright laws passed they could have arrested any male in the western world lol)