Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Friday May 18 2018, @08:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the when-is-a-feature-not-a-feature? dept.

As reported here, uBlock added a user tracking feature. Well, after news spread on Reddit, uBlock on Firefox has been reverted to the almost three year old version by the Firefox team, as can be seen here and on Mozilla.org (note version on left sidebar is now Version 0.9.5.0.1-let-fixed Last updated 3 years ago (Oct 31, 2015)).


Original Submission

Related Stories

Privacy Tool uBlock (NOT uBlock Origin) Adds User Tracking Feature 15 comments

The once-venerated then once-defunct uBlock had been abandoned for years. Minimal interaction on Github, almost no commits, no interaction on the issue tracker not much of anything besides asking for donations for nothing. Well, a few months ago, a user by the name of uBlockAdmin unceremoniously joined Github and was given control of the uBlock repository. Not many changes have happened since. Basically, just changing the Readme around and bumping the versions for the various browsers, while ignoring the breaking bugs that makes bumping versions a bad idea. But, one commit does stand out from the rest: https://github.com/uBlockAdmin/uBlock/commit/76b89c0a22d20f3a66d7feab14e024f56ca65539 That is right folks, a privacy tool that makes money from people confusing it for another piece of software now has the bonus feature of tracking you! With renewed activity and new versions being deployed to the various extension stores (thus making it harder to tell the real from old by latest release date and incompatibility with newer browser versions), it might be a good idea to check if you are using the real thing: https://github.com/gorhill/ublock


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday May 18 2018, @08:19PM (3 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 18 2018, @08:19PM (#681358) Journal

    As in the last article, use uMatrix.

    It's too geeky for grandma. But it works and has finer grained controls.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18 2018, @08:25PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18 2018, @08:25PM (#681366)

      What a beautiful day. The man, Winkelham, who was merely an observer, truly thought this to be so. Yes, Winkelham was but an observer; since he was a mere perspective, he could not affect anything with his actions. And so, he continued to observe his surroundings. Then, Winkelham spotted a small girl, and moved closer so that he could observe her in more detail.

      Intense. Winkelham's gaze was truly intense. The man observed the little girl with every fiber of his being, and then observed her some more. More. More. More! Winkelham couldn't get enough of it, so he used True Observation to observe every aspect of her being. That did it.

      Winkelham, who had finished observing the little girl, returned to his former spot in the park to continue watching his surroundings. The man's gaze did not once return to the naked, violated corpse of the little girl, since she was no longer worthy of it...

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by FakeBeldin on Friday May 18 2018, @09:27PM

    by FakeBeldin (3360) on Friday May 18 2018, @09:27PM (#681405) Journal

    IANAL.

    Having said that: in the source [github.com], it's clear that the new uBlock is sending data back to ping.ublock.org. It's also clear that the script collects data on the browser and creates a random (but not necessarily unique) userid.

    Submitting identifying stuff on a user back your server might very well make you a data processor in terms of the GDPR.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by pkrasimirov on Friday May 18 2018, @09:45PM (1 child)

    by pkrasimirov (3358) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 18 2018, @09:45PM (#681413)

    It's important to note what was reverted: only the binary at addons.mozilla.org. The code in github stays malicious with the two recent changes for stealing data: https://github.com/uBlockAdmin/uBlock/commit/76b89c0a22d20f3a66d7feab14e024f56ca65539 [github.com] and https://github.com/uBlockAdmin/uBlock/commit/abf116dd7ef0d6c7787ff1a930c5e533a889a217 [github.com] It seems a self-aware criminal has took over the git repo and won't back down voluntarily.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @03:37AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @03:37AM (#681513)

      They remove add-ons when they think they are unsafe. Sometimes in sneaky ways, just mentioning a GUID. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1461625 [mozilla.org]

      Go figure why uBlock got fixed in addons.mozilla.org and not blocked, because they have such tool, and it works even if you disable auto-updates. https://blocked.cdn.mozilla.net/0f0764d5-a290-428b-a5b2-3767e1d72c71.html [mozilla.net] (now you know which add-on the bug report was talking about, this page links to the report, but the report doesn't link back or mentions the name)

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @02:29AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @02:29AM (#681502)

    Who in their right mind uses uBlock over UbO? This is the first update this thing has seen in years, its basically a rip off from the original author. The "admins" solicited donations at one point and have never contributed any meaningful code. This prompted gorhill to get pissed and keep working on UBO, which btw is at version 1.16 while this is at .9.

    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday May 21 2018, @04:27PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Monday May 21 2018, @04:27PM (#682247)

      which btw is at version 1.16 while this is at .9.

      How cute, somebody who thinks there are hard rules as to what version numbers mean.

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
  • (Score: 2, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday May 19 2018, @05:26AM (3 children)

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Saturday May 19 2018, @05:26AM (#681522) Homepage Journal

    They say it's not compatible with Firefox Quantum. But more and more people are going quantum these days. So, looks like some problems there.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @05:29AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @05:29AM (#681524)

      That is a good comment.
      What have you done with realDT?

      • (Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Saturday May 19 2018, @06:01AM (1 child)

        by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Saturday May 19 2018, @06:01AM (#681534)

        I think he hired a ghostwriter with the profits from the MAGA (Make America Groan Again) merchandise.

        --
        Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 20 2018, @01:33AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 20 2018, @01:33AM (#681731)

          Do they sell MAGMA hats in Hawaii?

(1)