Mozilla Will Delete Firefox Crash Reports Collected by Accident (bleepingcomputer.com) 38
Catalin Cimpanu, writing for BleepingComputer: Mozilla said last week it would delete all telemetry data collected because of a bug in the Firefox crash reporter. According to Mozilla engineers, Firefox has been collecting information on crashed background tabs from users' browsers since Firefox 52, released in March 2017. Firefox versions released in that time span did not respect user-set privacy settings and automatically auto-submitted crash reports to Mozilla servers. The browser maker fixed the issue with the release of Firefox 57.0.3. Crash reports are not fully-anonymized.
Inverted bugs ? (Score:2)
In the past bugs meant that the product was _not_ doing what it was supposed to do. For example a bug would mean that Firefox would fail to collect the reports.
Same with Google's voice-activated assistant: a bug would mean that it does not record conversations.
However, recent bugs mean that the Firefox collects everything, and that Google's assistant records 24/7. Or when Google's cars doing the mapping for Street View "accidentally" slurped all wi-fi passwords they could find.
I think a new word should be i
Re: (Score:2)
I call it Accidental Spyware. Since this sort of bug is a type of defect where user information is LEAKED to the software vendor through call-home after the user SPECIFICALLY chose the opt-out box in order to NOT leak information back to the software vendor.
It just comes to show.... even open source software normally thought of benign such as Firefox CANNOT reasonably be trusted to have implemented opt-out correctly and completely in the client, even when opt-out is offered.
This speaks in favor o
Re: (Score:3)
Time for more Firefox hate. (Score:1)
Slashdot loves to hate Firefox, with Waterfox, Palemoon and now Basilisk available there is no reason to use Firefox anymore. Mozilla took their credibility and smashed it up. Only losers now use Firefox in 2018.
Gone, but not forgotten? (Score:2)
Since they're being open about a bug that "accidentally" captured user telemetry data, would Mozilla now care to share what they've done with that data since March of 2017 when v52 was released? Who else has that data? Has it been bought and sold already?
When it comes to controlling not-so-anonymized information, a half-assed effort is essentially fucking worthless.
Paranoid /. posters yelling at FF again (Score:2)
To the paranoid weirdos here: Cut the FF devs and leadership some slack. They're coming clean about an accidental collection of some crash data - which has only been going on since 52.x, and they've said they're not selling that data to anyone in the past.
Yes, they're far from perfect. They ARE, however, the only browser left that at least tries to respect user privacy (even to their own UX's detriment). You should all be thanking them for even still working on the project vs. abandoning the project altoget
Re: (Score:2)
The browser and its brand is just a way of getting the real tools needed working.
User privacy comes from what a user then has to install to make a browser great.
Fixed in Firefox 52 too (Score:2)
This bug was also fixed in Firefox 52 [mozilla.org], on the same day that they released the FF 57 bugfix. So if you want to keep crash reports off, receive latest security updates and still have all your old extensions work then Firefox 52 is still an option.
What about 52 ESR? (Score:2)
What about 52 ESR, the version meant to be used in corporate environments? Will a fix be issued?
Re: (Score:2)
52 ESR was already fixed last week Thursday with version 52.5.3 [mozilla.org].