Topic: Well known browser is spying on you

[Clive]

There's a famous evil browser out there that broadcasts your list of plugins, IP and schedule to their headquarters on a daily basis. There's also IE if you don't want any of that.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2143

[Simon]

Talkback can easily be uninstalled from the Add-ons menu.  Considering the places that your IP is seen at whenever you use the web, I don't see this as a concern.

[Tony]

to right Bruv, I never have it enabled 

[Delgado]

Do we really care about all this? Some people are more suited to MI5 than to surfing the net.

Seems to me, in visiting some forums, that people are scared stiff to let anyone know anything about their PCs. Why dont they just unplug their machines and read a book or something?

When you go shopping you can be seen in most towns on CCTV-you can be tracked in your shopping habits by useing a loyalty card. You cant even die without the death being registered!

Is all this a worry-I dont think so.

   

[GillE]

Actually, I think it's one of the most significant issues confronting our society.  With all the petty civil servants around finding out as much about us as possible and enforcing their bureaucracy, our country is stealthily reaching totalitarianism.  Those aren't just my concerns - the government's own Information Commissioner recently expressed similar views.

Any state which needs to watch its subjects as diligently as we're being watched doesn't trust its subjects.  That means the people need to start asking questions.

[Simon]

Yes, but I hardly think whether people use Firefox or not determins the state of the nation, Gill. 

[GillE]

It's part of a culture, Simon.  We become conditioned to accepting apparently innocuous intrusions so it's easier for more sinister intrusions to be imposed.  And it's all for our own good, you know.

[Delgado]

It's part of a culture, Simon.  We become conditioned to accepting apparently innocuous intrusions so it's easier for more sinister intrusions to be imposed.  And it's all for our own good, you know.

Sorry GillE, I disagree entireley. Ive got nothing to hide, and I dont mind what information the Government or other people for that matter, know about me. I think that if we all had Identity Cards for example, if might stop loads of crime and these foreign b*****ds coming here ilegally and claiming what should be going to help our own people in need!

And personally I think some branches of our Society need controlling-teenagers with knifes ring a bell!

Lets enjoy our lives without worrying about what people know and dont know.

 

[GillE]

Ive got nothing to hide

Care to publish your last six months bank statements here?

Of course you won't do that, and I don't blame you.  We've all got privacy issues somewhere down the line.  It's a matter of where the line is drawn and whether society has a proclivity to draw it closer to the state or closer to the individual.

[Delgado]

I dont think my Bank Statements have anything to do with information gained from me useing Firefox, or visiting Marks and Spencers etc. I do see your point GillE that we all have real personal details to be kept to ourselves, but I think people have become too worried about silly minor information being made public, and Governments have a right to govern  and certain info about its citizens can be useful in keeping Society a safe place!

Getting back to Firefox, does it really matter that I visited Novatech and C/net and PC World Web Sites today? and the info is made public!!

I rest my case-shall we just beg to differ?

 

[Simon]

Getting back to Firefox, does it really matter that I visited Novatech and C/net and PC World Web Sites today? and the info is made public!!

If I understand correctly, it doesn't even tell than that, DG.  All Talkback reports is that the browser is being used, and which add-ons are present.  I see it basically as a bean counting exercise and nothing more.  After all, if no one used the browser, they wouldn't bother developing it.  I'm sure IE probably relates more information to M$ than Firefox does to Mozilla.

[GillE]

I rest my case-shall we just beg to differ?

Can I just say one more thing, then I'll leave the rest of this thread alone?



The point about the bank statements might be an unreasonable example in the current state of affairs, but I wonder what it would take to make us reflect on how readily available this sort of information is already to government departments and other bodies.  The taxman can certainly demand such information, as can the CSA (when they get their act together ), the SFO, and no doubt many other agencies.  I'm very worried by how easily we're slipping into the "I don't mind, I've done nothing wrong" mentality.  We should mind!  What is happening is that our civil rights are being subtly eroded as the state increasingly makes us prove our good faith rather than proves its good faith to us.  It's akin to reversing the onus of proof in criminal matters from 'innocent until proven guilty' to 'guilty until proven innocent'.  I happen to believe very passionately that the people should mould the state and the state should not mould the people.

[Simon]

I don't disagree with your comments, Gill, all I'm saying is, it's not all down to Firefox! 

[Sandra]

As long as they can keep track of people using terrorists recruiting and instructional websites then thats a good thing 

[chorleydave]

......I happen to believe very passionately that the people should mould the state and the state should not mould the people.

You've just given away that you don't vote vermin err Labour, Gill.