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https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/02/27/mozilla-acquires-pocket/
Mozilla had previously made Pocket a mandatory part of Firefox and that really annoyed a lot of people because Pocket's business model was to spy on users for profit. This acquisition gives me hope that the spying will be eliminated, making Pocket - which is a genuinely useful tool - safe for all to use.
Pocket will join Mozilla's product portfolio as a new product line alongside the Firefox web browsers with a focus on promoting the discovery and accessibility of high quality web content. (Here's a link to their blog post on the acquisition). Pocket's core team and technology will also accelerate Mozilla's broader Context Graph initiative.
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Mozilla Acquires Pocket, Will Open Source Pocket Code
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In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.
-- Lenny Bruce
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday February 28 2017, @04:45PM (9 children)
Possibly I'm the only person on SN who actually uses pocket. I use it because I use a lot of boxes on a daily basis and pocket syncs across them all. It does in fact store the content. I can assure you it works really well with no data access at all, assuming what you want has been properly synced first of course.
Sometimes its annoying if you sync something huge and the phone takes awhile going all nuts syncing up. Sometimes I sync junk I never look at. Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to cleaning out the cruft. The ads they insert are moronic clickbait. But mostly its all good, that's about as bad as it gets.
WRT the NSA and space aliens stealing my precious bodily fluids I'm not minding pocket so much because the NSA already records everything I do and the advertisers already sell everything I see and touch in a database, so I may as well get some convenience out of it. If you have to live in "Brave New World" come alive, well, at least enjoy some Soma responsibly.
Lets see whats in there. There's a data sheet for a Bosch BME280 I2C weather sensor I was playing around with on the weekend a couple weeks ago. There is the docs for a particular node-red addon that I've been playing with. There's a ulisp.com page I've been meaning to read although I'm probably never going to use ulisp. The use-package (from emacs) docs because it always confuses me. Hackaday had a hilarious/fascinating article about ye olde LM386 audio amplifier, that hissy static-y old cross over distorted POS of an amplifier. There's a bunch of junk I deleted while making this list. There was a hilarious clickbait advertisement inserted along the lines of 8 things never to say when asking for a raise.
I don't keep the nuclear missile launch codes in there, and I would not recommend anyone else store nuclear missile launch codes in there. But for what it does, it works well.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday February 28 2017, @05:24PM (8 children)
I get your points, but as tech people our family and friends look to us for advice and I think we should start pushing back against all the "cloud" features. Users should be demanding total privacy through encryption, or at the very least have it as an option. These companies are selling a service, there is no reason they should also be able to datamine everyone just because it is an easy bonus for them.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday February 28 2017, @05:58PM (2 children)
>These companies are selling a service
Not to us they're not, unless you've found a way to actually *pay* for that service?
There are exceptions (such as the bulk of open source software), but generally speaking if you're not actually paying for something, then you're not the customer, you're the product. Broadcast television comes to mind as the most well-known example - the customers are the advertisers paying for access to you, the watcher.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday February 28 2017, @07:47PM
I actually pay for broadcast television (indeed, I would have to pay even if I hadn't a TV). Which unfortunately doesn't mean it's completely ad free.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday February 28 2017, @09:48PM
Very true, but in this case Mozilla is a non-profit that says they respect privacy, so users are the customers. I bring up paid SAAS models because those do exist and they do datamine the crap out of their customers. Your files can be scanned, and even if they have privacy policies that still leaves the corruption option open. Sysadmin is offered $50k to copy all client data for some douche, the world is evidence that it does happen and way more often than I care for. The only defense is encrypt so they can't datamine on a whim.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday February 28 2017, @06:42PM (4 children)
Users should be demanding total privacy
You, ah, know you're showing up in the equivalent of an apache access.log file of the server you're accessing, then google analytics logs it, then the NSA logs all traffic in and out of your ISP and the ad server is logging the whole thing ... Who can pocket sell to, that doesn't already have the data? If a market falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, or something like that.
The danger of relying on a 3rd party thats selling your access data is everyone other than your neighbor or other members of the casual public already have total access to all your data so they're gonna go out of business if they're relying on selling because there's no one left to sell to!
The other problem is the data isn't secret. I sprung for the BME280 sensor which includes a humidity sensor instead of the BMP280 sensor which only has pressure and the temperature compensation sensor. If it were monetizable, which it isn't, after decades of everyone being online only morons put secrets online. So if the attack is scheduled for midnight tonight, that's not going online or in pocket. You can only LARP that everyone is a noob for oh maybe 3 or 4 generations when it starts sounding tired.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday February 28 2017, @10:13PM (2 children)
Disagree, but not enough to downmod. Access logs are a huge cry away from mining your files and other data that isn't logged through simple access.
Never will I agree that only morons put secrets online, there are expectations of privacy people abide by, and if you feel comfortable living in a thought-crime society then... I dunno what to say, yuck? I don't think you are, you're just being pragmatic. But I say pragmatism is not enough, we must push back against this massive system which is steadily being subverted to work against the general public. Judging others for making mistakes online is a lame blame the victim mentality.
We shouldn't be afraid of searching out information, but nowadays that is exactly what is going through everyone's mind. "If I look up this thing it'll get tagged on my profile and make me look suspicious" so now we all live in fear to varying degrees. Technology is complicated, and that knowledge is not magically passed down from generation to generation. There will always be "noobs" because there are constantly new people being born that have to learn.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday February 28 2017, @10:40PM (1 child)
mining your files and other data that isn't logged through simple access
Oh that misconception might be a slight source of our disagreement. I set it up on a chromebook and that was not a permission demanded nor from memory did the android app ask for anything that exciting.
Its an online todo list of URLs and stripped down saved html files those URLs point to, thats all. Its not like running a virus scan to see whats hidden in your mp3 collection or something.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @02:32AM
I set it up on a chromebook
Well, if you are using a chromebook then its pretty clear you don't give a rat's ass about your privacy.
So I think it would be foolish to believe that you are even halfway cognizant of all the ways you are being snooped on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @08:30AM
You, ah, know you're showing up in the equivalent of an apache access.log file of the server you're accessing
The one you are talking to will always know that you are talking to them (well, if they didn't hear you you won't get an answer). Not a surprise to anyone, it's been that way since the stone age.
then google analytics logs it
Only on sites that ignore the EU cookie law. Unfortunately, that's currently not being enforced.
then the NSA logs all traffic in and out of your ISP
That's spying, something only our enemies do. Now, if only our government would listen when the US keeps insisting on being our enemy.
and the ad server is logging the whole thing
That's why ad blockers should be installed and on by default in every browser.