Firefox Advances Do-Not-Track Technology 148
CowboyRobot writes "Despite strong advertising industry opposition, Mozilla is advancing plans to have the Firefox browser block, by default, many types of tracking used by numerous websites, and especially advertisers. 'We're trying to change the dynamic so that trackers behave better,' Brendan Eich, CTO of Firefox developer Mozilla, told The Washington Post. According to NetMarketShare, 21% of the world's computers run Firefox. Eich said the blocking technology, which is still being refined, will go live in the next few months. The blocking technology is based on that used by Apple's Safari browser, which blocks all third-party cookies. Advertisers use these types of cookies to track users across multiple websites. Mozilla's cookie-blocking efforts follow a Do Not Track capability being adopted by all major browsers. But the DNT effort stalled in November 2012, after advertisers stopped participating in the program, following Microsoft making DNT active by default in Internet Explorer 10. Advertisers wanted the feature to be not active by default."
Re: girlintraining advances do not track tech MOAR (Score:5, Informative)
In Canada at least, Tor is awful. Because others can use your connection as well, if someone looks at child porn from behind your connection, you are guilty of distribution.
I suppose if you're dumb enough to disregard the gratuitous warnings on the download page, the application itself, the configuration file, the manual, and every internet site that offers a 'how to', all of which lay out in explicit detail what an exit node is, and why enabling one on your personal home internet connection is very bad, then you deserve a punch in the face. But you won't go to jail over it. Not even in Canada... no more than running an open wifi will. And yes, that's been to court. And yes, the guy shit bricks. But he was found guilty only of criminal stupidity.
The correct way to configure Tor in a way that helps everyone and avoids this problem is to set it up as a relay, thus any traffic that comes and goes through your system is encrypted, there is no way for you (or anyone else) to tell what its contents are, and stays within the Tor network.
But by all means, we should all just give in to having our privacy violated by corporations, governments, and anyone with slightly more technical finesse than this Anonymous Coward does... all because a very tiny fraction of the population wants to look at child porn/terrorist websites/whatever is politically unpopular this week.