Mozilla: government spyware disguising itself as Firefox

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Mungo

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Mozilla has called on a commercial spyware company to stop masquerading as its Firefox browser to avoid detection on people's computers.

The action comes after a report from human rights group Citizen Lab claimed that Gamma International, a controversial surveillance software company, was using Firefox as a mask to hide its FinSpy software, which is used by governments to snoop on citizens.


Full report
 

HammerStone

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Thanks for sharing about this; I had not heard that report yet. (I'm a huge fan of Firefox.)

If one company is doing this, you can bet that there are others out there doing the very same thing. It wasn't very well disguised in some senses considering that screenshot (and assuming a technically literate person), but at the same time a few tweaks and there would be virtually no way to know about it. That's rather disconcerting.
 

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Mungo said:
Mozilla has called on a commercial spyware company to stop masquerading as its Firefox browser to avoid detection on people's computers.

The action comes after a report from human rights group Citizen Lab claimed that Gamma International, a controversial surveillance software company, was using Firefox as a mask to hide its FinSpy software, which is used by governments to snoop on citizens.


Full report
Google has been doing it for a long time.

Microsoft is notorious for embedding code in every user created document that is tractable to the licensed party.

Adolph Hitler and Joe Stalin would have loved this stuff.

Aren't you proud of the new fascist police state we've created in America?

it's just me, hollering from the choir loft...
 

Arnie Manitoba

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Google has been doing it for a long time.

Microsoft is notorious for embedding code in every user created document that is tractable to the licensed party.

Adolph Hitler and Joe Stalin would have loved this stuff.

Aren't you proud of the new fascist police state we've created in America?

it's just me, hollering from the choir loft...
You nailed it !!!!!!!!!

The tentacles are everywhere and it actually frightens me

Everything is archived in huge servers in Utah , look it up.
 

Doug_E_Fresh

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Microsoft is notorious for embedding code in every user created document that is tractable to the licensed party.
Every company does this to some extent and it's actually a blessing rather than a curse (depending on what side of the illegal fence you're on.). it's called metadata, and it's very useful for forensic purposes. There are ways to abuse it like steganography, but for the untrained user, it's more helpful than harmful.