How the NSA Attacks Tor/Firefox Users

[John Corliss]

Old (2013) article, but probably still relevant:

"The online anonymity network Tor is a high-priority target for the
National Security Agency. The work of attacking Tor is done by the NSA's
application vulnerabilities branch, which is part of the systems
intelligence directorate, or SID. The majority of NSA employees work in
SID, which is tasked with collecting data from communications systems
around the world.

According to a top-secret NSA presentation provided by the whistleblower
Edward Snowden, one successful technique the NSA has developed involves
exploiting the Tor browser bundle, a collection of programs designed to
make it easy for people to install and use the software. The trick
identifies Tor users on the Internet and then executes an attack against
their Firefox web browser.

The NSA refers to these capabilities as CNE, or computer network
exploitation.

The first step of this process is finding Tor users. To accomplish this,
the NSA relies on its vast capability to monitor large parts of the
Internet. This is done via the agency's partnership with US telecoms
firms under programs codenamed Stormbrew, Fairview, Oakstar and Blarney.

The NSA creates "fingerprints" that detect HTTP requests from the Tor
network to particular servers. These fingerprints are loaded into NSA
database systems like XKeyscore, a bespoke collection and analysis tool
that NSA boasts allows its analysts to see "almost everything" a target
does on the Internet.

Using powerful data analysis tools with codenames such as Turbulence,
Turmoil and Tumult, the NSA automatically sifts through the enormous
amount of Internet traffic that it sees, looking for Tor connections."

Full article is here:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/how_the_nsa_att.html

Tor, brought to you by DARPA. Firefox, brought to you by Google.
--
John Corliss BS206. No ad, CD, commercial, cripple, demo, nag, pirated,
share, spy, time-limited, trial or web wares for me please. I filter out
posts made from Google Groups and recommend you do likewise. I also
filter out all posts from »Q« (a consummate troll) and Kasey, who
doesn't believe in two-way firewalls.

[VanguardLH]

You do know, right, that Tor was started as a mesh privacy network by
the US gov't for their own agents?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_routing#Development_and_implementation

The FBI operates many of their own Tor nodes. The exit nodes have been
mapped, too:

https://tormap.void.gr/
https://hackertarget.com/tor-exit-node-visualization/

The precept is that an owner of a Tor exit node is also not the owner of
a Tor entry node, but that's not enforced plus it would be nearly
impossible to absolutely verify the owner of each node. With
cooperation between the entry and exit nodes, a common owner can track
where you are and where you went to.

[Flasherly]

On Fri, 4 Oct 2019 02:03:42 -0700, John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>Full article is here:
>
>https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/how_the_nsa_att.html

There's not as much a point to a reference written in 2013, or as much
need to trump tax resources the NSA, et. al., have at their most
majestic disposal to annihilate, effectively, a comparative dog-&-pony
outfit from a standpoint of TOR's budgeting.

That NSA, or whatever can be inconceivably so great, cannot see at
least as readily people using browsers, no differently than were they
a guppies in a fishbowl, then, obviously, they have a Majorly Priority
Whine on their hands -- having to lift even so much as finger -- for
Black Covert Ops to budget billions of tax dollars, at least, to break
TOR's balls.

And that's the point. It's not what you say and do, it's what you
might have, even if you didn't, that makes them want to bust the balls
of a TOR user right out from underneath them.

-
Obama: 'But, but ... everybody else is doing it.'

[Flasherly]

On Fri, 04 Oct 2019 13:06:18 -0400, Flasherly <Flas...@live.com>
wrote:

Obama: 'But, but ... everybody else is doing it.'

-
When Wikipedia and every site like it ...

dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html
thehindu.com/news/international/
news.trust.org/
zerohedge.com
nymag.com/tags/the-national-interest/
france24.com/en/tag/americas/
nationalpost.com/category/news
rt.com/usa/
bbc.co.uk/news/world/us_and_canada
deadline.com

...closes to effect ACCESS DENIED privileges, "Suspicious Activity",
so to impose a PERMANENTYL REVOKED status, of course -- they are
legally then correct and within American National Standards of
Government Industrial purposes (for [non]private use and engagement of
only approved browsers) -- yes, then TOR will no longer be needed, as
there will be no longer a freedom permitted to choose privacy.

Last week -- not in 2013, a greater Western Europe of human rights
interests passed a law that denies developers of American websites,
notably, to interject its tracking software (e.g., cookies) into a
browser, subversively, as to deny or not make apparent their intent.

(Actually, within an extraordinary framework of this European
legislative measure, I then experienced a few "technical difficulties"
over reinitiating a TOR connection (in somewhat non-standard practises
and modifications if at all liberally applied), whereupon, once I did,
me and my TOR connection immediately were ushered into the facilities
for computer sciences at the Massachusetts' Institute of Technology.)

-
'Actually, what I had in mind is a World Police Force.' -Einstein,
Albert

[John Corliss]

Please note the next line carefully:

>> Tor, brought to you by DARPA. Firefox, brought to you by Google.
>
> You do know, right, that Tor was started as a mesh privacy network by
> the US gov't for their own agents?
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_routing#Development_and_implementation

*AHEM* <quote>brought to you by _DARPA_<unquote>

DARPA: https://www.darpa.mil/

> The FBI operates many of their own Tor nodes. The exit nodes have been
> mapped, too:
>
> https://tormap.void.gr/
> https://hackertarget.com/tor-exit-node-visualization/
>
> The precept is that an owner of a Tor exit node is also not the owner of
> a Tor entry node, but that's not enforced plus it would be nearly
> impossible to absolutely verify the owner of each node. With
> cooperation between the entry and exit nodes, a common owner can track
> where you are and where you went to.

[John Corliss]

Yrrah wrote:
> John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com>:

>
>> Old (2013) article, but probably still relevant:
>

> Possibly, but...

>
>> "The online anonymity network Tor is a high-priority target for the
>> National Security Agency. The work of attacking Tor is done by the NSA's

> (...)
>> Full article is here:
>>
> (...)
>
> They knew and know:
> https://blog.torproject.org/category/tags/nsa
> And:
> https://blog.torproject.org/expect-more-tor-2019
> (search for NSA)

>
>> Tor, brought to you by DARPA.
>

> Perhaps you should disconnect all internet connections immediately.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET

>
>> Firefox, brought to you by Google.
>

> Mine was brought to me by Mozilla and the Linux Mint team. But we all
> know that they work for the FBI. CIA, NSA, Mossad, Putin's boys, Xi's
> boys, the Arabs, Wall Street, the Communist Party, aliens...
>
> Damn, where's my tinfoil hat?

Remember the Australis interface? That was created and brought to you by
Google agents working temporarily for Mozillla. Their names were Jinghua
Zhang and Alex Limi.

Nothing "paranoid" about it. The facts speak for themselves.

[VanguardLH]

John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Old (2013) article, but probably still relevant:
>>>

>>> "The online anonymity network Tor ...s/2013/10/how_the_nsa_att.html

> Please note the next line carefully:
>
>>> Tor, brought to you by DARPA. Firefox, brought to you by Google.

I figured you already knew that Mozilla obtained search engine royalties
when they had Google as the default search engine but lost that revenue
in 2014 when they set Yahoo as the default, and went back to Google in
2017 with their Quantum release (except in China which gets Baidu as the
default and Russia and Turkey that get Yandex). Getting revenue from
the selection of a search engine does NOT have the owner of that search
engine influence the development of the web browser. The Mozilla
Corporation subsidiary (who employs the developers and does the releases
of Firefox) is 100% owned by its parent (Mozilla Foundation).

Firefox, if left with install-time defaults, also uses Google's
SafeBrowsing service. That still does not make Firefox a Google owned
or controlled program. Google paying Mozilla just under a billion
dollars back in 2011 over 3 years to keep them as the default search
engine was merely a partnership, not ownership, showing how much Google
wanted to be the default search engine in a web browser that had a
bigger marketshare than Chrome back then (2011: 42% for IE, 28% for
Firefox, 22% for Chrome) . Google misread their crystal ball regarding
marketshare: now 10% for IE+Edge, 10% for Firefox, and 71% for Chrome.

When I saw the ancient FUD claim about Firefox, it didn't seem it would
come from you, so I figured it was part of the old cited article (which
back then had users confusing affiliation or partnerships as somehow
effecting control). Your 2nd sentence was incongruent with the first.
In fact, the tiny insider community effects changes in Firefox that
affect all users, so blame that community on changes you don't like in
Firefox, and start opening tickets at bugzilla.mozilla.org to voice your
opinions (you'll likely get snubbed by the insiders, plus there is more
resistance in Dev to go backwards than make changes going forward).

If you truly believe Google owns or controls development of Firefox,
what web browser do you use?

>> You do know, right, that Tor was started as a mesh privacy network by
>> the US gov't for their own agents?
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_routing#Development_and_implementation
>
> *AHEM* <quote>brought to you by _DARPA_<unquote>

So, you're duplicating your above same retort for ... emphasis? You
top-post an inline reply and then bottom-post it again. Again, I
figured the FUD statements weren't yours. The onion network hasn't been
managed by DARPA in a very long time. What DARPA defined and trialed is
not managed by them today. The Tor Project manages the onion networks.
And Firefox is not controlled by Google.

My reading of your intro to the cited article stopped when I saw you
were promulgating very old information about long-know weakenesses in
Tor, and definitedly stopped at the URL since I had no intention of
reading ancient news.

[Shadow]

On Fri, 04 Oct 2019 19:27:33 +0200, Yrrah <Yrra...@acf.invalid>
wrote:

>John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com>:

>
>> Old (2013) article, but probably still relevant:
>

>Possibly, but...

>
>> "The online anonymity network Tor is a high-priority target for the
>> National Security Agency. The work of attacking Tor is done by the NSA's

>(...)
>> Full article is here:
>>
>(...)
>
>They knew and know:
>https://blog.torproject.org/category/tags/nsa
>And:
>https://blog.torproject.org/expect-more-tor-2019
>(search for NSA)
>

>> Tor, brought to you by DARPA.
>

>Perhaps you should disconnect all internet connections immediately.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET
>

>> Firefox, brought to you by Google.
>

>Mine was brought to me by Mozilla and the Linux Mint team. But we all
>know that they work for the FBI. CIA, NSA, Mossad, Putin's boys, Xi's
>boys, the Arabs, Wall Street, the Communist Party, aliens...
>
>Damn, where's my tinfoil hat?

The Arabs and the Communist Party?
You must be crazy.
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

[Anonymous Remailer (austria)]

In article <of5o14uq...@v.nguard.lh>

[Nomen Nescio]

I got a bit curious as to why my Tor used the same entry point for
months. I installed 7 Tor bundles and now have 7 Tors installed, each
with a different entry point.

I now feel better. :o)

[John Corliss]

Yrrah wrote:
> John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com>:
>

>>>> Firefox, brought to you by Google.
>
>>> Mine was brought to me by Mozilla and the Linux Mint team. But we all
>>> know that they work for the FBI. CIA, NSA, Mossad, Putin's boys, Xi's
>>> boys, the Arabs, Wall Street, the Communist Party, aliens...
>>>
>>> Damn, where's my tinfoil hat?
>
>> Remember the Australis interface?
>

> I see, an user interface. Shocking!

>
>> That was created and brought to you by
>> Google agents working temporarily for Mozillla. Their names were Jinghua
>> Zhang
>

> Is this her?
> https://www.wssu.edu/profiles/zhangji/index.html

Can't say. *This* is her though

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jinghuaz

>> and Alex Limi.
>
> https://limi.net/

>
>> Nothing "paranoid" about it. The facts speak for themselves.
>

> Such as: Firefox has numerous contributors
> https://blog.mozilla.org/community/
> and is open source?

At one point, Google was overwhelmingly the major funder of Mozilla. You
know that as well as I do.

> BTW, did Zhang and Limi return to Gugle after their "evil deeds" at
> Mozilla (on behalf of the NSA; grin) or simply move on?

Jinghua Zhang is now "Head of UX Research, Virtual Reality & Augmented
Reality" at Google (Jan 2016 – Present3 years 10 months)

And as far as what they did not being evil, fuck you, Yrrah. What those
two asshats did to Firefox was unforgivable. Australis was such an
abortion that a special extension ("Classic Theme Restorer") had to be
created. This was a result of the outcry against Australis's removal of
features and fucked up way of doing things.

Many Firefox users like myself have watched the gradual morphing of
Firefox into Google Chrome over the years with horror. If I fucking
wanted to use God damned Google Chrome, I'd use fucking God damned
Google fucking Chrome.

As you so frequently say, "Fuck Gluggle."

[John Corliss]

VanguardLH wrote:
> John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> VanguardLH wrote:

>>> John Corliss wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Old (2013) article, but probably still relevant:
>>>>
>>>> "The online anonymity network Tor ...s/2013/10/how_the_nsa_att.html
>>
>> Please note the next line carefully:
>>
>>>> Tor, brought to you by DARPA. Firefox, brought to you by Google.
>
> I figured you already knew that Mozilla obtained search engine royalties
> when they had Google as the default search engine but lost that revenue
> in 2014 when they set Yahoo as the default, and went back to Google in
> 2017 with their Quantum release (except in China which gets Baidu as the
> default and Russia and Turkey that get Yandex). Getting revenue from
> the selection of a search engine does NOT have the owner of that search
> engine influence the development of the web browser. The Mozilla
> Corporation subsidiary (who employs the developers and does the releases
> of Firefox) is 100% owned by its parent (Mozilla Foundation).

Of course I know about all that P.R. shit. But of you believe that
Mozilla's arrangement with Google came without any strings, you're naive
in the extreme. I'm sure there was more to the agreement than was made
public.

> Firefox, if left with install-time defaults, also uses Google's
> SafeBrowsing service. That still does not make Firefox a Google owned
> or controlled program. Google paying Mozilla just under a billion
> dollars back in 2011 over 3 years to keep them as the default search
> engine was merely a partnership, not ownership, showing how much Google
> wanted to be the default search engine in a web browser that had a
> bigger marketshare than Chrome back then (2011: 42% for IE, 28% for
> Firefox, 22% for Chrome) . Google misread their crystal ball regarding
> marketshare: now 10% for IE+Edge, 10% for Firefox, and 71% for Chrome.
>
> When I saw the ancient FUD claim about Firefox, it didn't seem it would
> come from you, so I figured it was part of the old cited article (which
> back then had users confusing affiliation or partnerships as somehow
> effecting control). Your 2nd sentence was incongruent with the first.
> In fact, the tiny insider community effects changes in Firefox that
> affect all users, so blame that community on changes you don't like in
> Firefox, and start opening tickets at bugzilla.mozilla.org to voice your
> opinions (you'll likely get snubbed by the insiders, plus there is more
> resistance in Dev to go backwards than make changes going forward).
>
> If you truly believe Google owns or controls development of Firefox,
> what web browser do you use?

What other fucking choice do I have but to use Firefox? Chrome? Opera (a
Chome-clone)? Windows 10's Edge (another Chrome-clone)? Internet Explorer?

At this point, I'm about one inch from dumping Firefox and going with
Pale Moon.

>>> You do know, right, that Tor was started as a mesh privacy network by
>>> the US gov't for their own agents?

Yes, that makes it all safe now. Of course, they never had any intention
of using the network as a fucking honey pot when it became public.

>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_routing#Development_and_implementation
>>
>> *AHEM* <quote>brought to you by _DARPA_<unquote>
>
> So, you're duplicating your above same retort for ... emphasis? You
> top-post an inline reply and then bottom-post it again. Again, I
> figured the FUD statements weren't yours. The onion network hasn't been
> managed by DARPA in a very long time. What DARPA defined and trialed is
> not managed by them today.

Whether or not they manage it isn't the issue. Whether or not they and
the other TLAs exploit vulnerabilities that they either built into the
system or were simply aware of, is. And Snowden's papers showed that.

> The Tor Project manages the onion networks.
> And Firefox is not controlled by Google.

Well, you just go on believing whatever makes you feel comfortable.

> My reading of your intro to the cited article stopped when I saw you
> were promulgating very old information about long-know weakenesses in
> Tor, and definitedly stopped at the URL since I had no intention of
> reading ancient news.

Then why are you replying to my post? That's a rhetorical question.
Don't bother replying because I'm out of here.

[Shadow]

On Fri, 4 Oct 2019 23:58:51 -0700, John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>Yrrah wrote:
>> John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com>:
>>
>>>>> Firefox, brought to you by Google.

.....

>>> Google agents working temporarily for Mozillla. Their names were Jinghua
>>> Zhang

...
>
>https://www.linkedin.com/in/jinghuaz
>
...

>
>> BTW, did Zhang and Limi return to Gugle after their "evil deeds" at
>> Mozilla (on behalf of the NSA; grin) or simply move on?
>
>Jinghua Zhang is now "Head of UX Research, Virtual Reality & Augmented
>Reality" at Google (Jan 2016 – Present3 years 10 months)

Google's "reality". The best distorted "reality" money can
buy. Try discovering what's going on in your country using Google.
Mission impossible.
>
>As you so frequently say, "Fuck Gluggle.".

+1
I don't even use their search engine any more. Which is
frustrating. I sometimes have to choose the 15th hit to get something
which isn't too biased or an ad. Not Google's usual 11th hit.
[]'s

PS Neither Firefox/Chromium browsers or Google services are
freeware. OT up.

[Spamblk]

John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com> wrote in <news:qn9f1u$p5p$1...@dont-email.me>:

> Many Firefox users like myself have watched the gradual morphing of
> Firefox into Google Chrome over the years with horror. If I fucking
> wanted to use God damned Google Chrome, I'd use fucking God damned
> Google fucking Chrome.
>
> As you so frequently say, "Fuck Gluggle."

Firefox had some good ideas. Among these are the
user[Chrome|Content].css files that in essence allow
non-programmers to customize Firefox in a way which I'm not aware
is much available in other browsers, particularly Chromium based
browsers.

A while back and Mozilla announced that these files are now
considered "legacy" features. "Legacy" apparently is Mozillaspeak
for "outdated" and/or "to be discontinued". Seems to be
justification for many to think that depreciating or retiring
userContent.css is a further step in the Chromification of
Firefox. I no longer use vanilla Firefox. I prefer an XUL browser,
one in which the custom buttons extension still works.

BTW as regards TOR, AFAIK the original idea of TOR is that certain
people should be allowed communicate securely without their
government finding out.

NB If you're an Iranian dissident or a Syrian rebel, Uncle Sam
will have little problem with you wanting to keep a secret from
your government. If you're a US or EU citizen, and you want to
keep a secret from your government, then as far as Uncle Sam is
concerned you might be doing something wrong. TOR might have a few
"safety" features to deal such as those who won't follow Eric
Schmidt's advice that if you are doing something on the Internet
you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it.

[Flasherly]

On Sat, 5 Oct 2019 22:05:49 +0000 (UTC), Spamblk
<Zap...@SpamMeNot.invalid> wrote:

>NB If you're an Iranian dissident or a Syrian rebel, Uncle Sam
>will have little problem with you wanting to keep a secret from
>your government. If you're a US or EU citizen, and you want to
>keep a secret from your government, then as far as Uncle Sam is
>concerned you might be doing something wrong. TOR might have a few
>"safety" features to deal such as those who won't follow Eric
>Schmidt's advice that if you are doing something on the Internet
>you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it.

As much intangible ideology and side effect to TOR usage: In and out
with the least concern over the quickest expediency. You have fewer
to no consequences, upon taking what you need from site, if there is
only a initiation for a different (node) connect following, possibly,
if you're a fidgety sort -- overwriting the browser prior state from
another, cleaner state (existing farther back which is batched with
such as Freeware SnycBack for "incongruities" that occur over a
continued TOR operational state).

What have we learned? Collection sites don't like that sort bullshit,
no way, not at all nor in the least: TOR destroys their marketing and
immediate tracking facilities, advertising links. All apart from
sites as accessible to TOR, and, they among all sites, are most
certainly not prevalent. Did you really expect the WWW to exist for
nothing but just and only for just you? Well, that's most certainly
closest to true of TOR. You needn't the intelligence of a Phoenician
pirate, operating off Lebanon, simply to distance yourself from
tracking, advertising, or a vast array of manipulations engaged, no
doubt, as a motif of the present WEB;- Not even if NSA says it makes
you look like exactly like you're quacking just like duck.

[VanguardLH]

John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> But of you believe that
> Mozilla's arrangement with Google came without any strings, you're naive
> in the extreme. I'm sure there was more to the agreement than was made
> public.

Well, you go make up all the pretense crap you want. Come on back when
you actually have some PROOF. You're the same guy that condems a
software developer or publisher for the actions committed by the gov't.

>> If you truly believe Google owns or controls development of Firefox,
>> what web browser do you use?
>
> What other fucking choice do I have but to use Firefox? Chrome? Opera (a
> Chome-clone)? Windows 10's Edge (another Chrome-clone)? Internet Explorer?

Per your FUD, Google is evil and Firefox is evil (because they get
revenue for Google's search being the default, but other web browsers do
the same). Since both are evil, you surely must not use them or any
variant that is based on a code fork from them.

> At this point, I'm about one inch from dumping Firefox and going with
> Pale Moon.

A old fork of Firefox which you claim is evil because it used to have
Google as the default search back then, too.

> Well, you just go on believing whatever makes you feel comfortable.

Stop puking FUD. Come on back with PROOF. Ah, because you have none.

[John Corliss]

Well how about you prove me wrong then?

[John Corliss]

Yrrah wrote:
> John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com>:
>

>> And as far as what they did not being evil, fuck you, Yrrah. What those
>> two asshats did to Firefox was unforgivable. Australis was such an
>> abortion that a special extension ("Classic Theme Restorer") had to be
>> created. This was a result of the outcry against Australis's removal of
>> features and fucked up way of doing things.
>>
>> Many Firefox users like myself have watched the gradual morphing of
>> Firefox into Google Chrome over the years with horror. If I fucking
>> wanted to use God damned Google Chrome, I'd use fucking God damned
>> Google fucking Chrome.
>

> Don't get all hot under the collar, old chap. It's bad for your
> health.
> You may not like Australis, but it's only an interface. Australis
> doesn't make Firefox a Gugle Chrome derivative, fork or clone.

Says you. It was the first step along that slippery slope. Now we have
web extensions and you can't turn off update checking.

> Is there any verifiable evidence that Gugle is actually involved? Where
> is it?

What part of:

"Remember the Australis interface? That was created and brought to you

by Google agents working temporarily for Mozillla. Their names were

Jinghua Zhang and Alex Limi"

don't you understand?

> There are numerous reasons to be worried about and detest Gugle's
> practices, but you don't have a convincing case here.
Bullshit.

[John Corliss]

Spamblk wrote:
> John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com> wrote in <news:qn9f1u$p5p$1...@dont-email.me>:
>
>> Many Firefox users like myself have watched the gradual morphing of
>> Firefox into Google Chrome over the years with horror. If I fucking
>> wanted to use God damned Google Chrome, I'd use fucking God damned
>> Google fucking Chrome.
>>
>> As you so frequently say, "Fuck Gluggle."
>
> Firefox had some good ideas. Among these are the
> user[Chrome|Content].css files that in essence allow
> non-programmers to customize Firefox in a way which I'm not aware
> is much available in other browsers, particularly Chromium based
> browsers.
>
> A while back and Mozilla announced that these files are now
> considered "legacy" features. "Legacy" apparently is Mozillaspeak
> for "outdated" and/or "to be discontinued". Seems to be
> justification for many to think that depreciating or retiring
> userContent.css is a further step in the Chromification of
> Firefox.

I'm one of those people. IMO, those file are just a means of placating
advanced users for a while before yanking the rug out from underneath them.

> I no longer use vanilla Firefox. I prefer an XUL browser,
> one in which the custom buttons extension still works.

That extension is one of those that I find extremely important, but more
in Thunderbird than Firefox.

> BTW as regards TOR, AFAIK the original idea of TOR is that certain
> people should be allowed communicate securely without their
> government finding out.
>
> NB If you're an Iranian dissident or a Syrian rebel, Uncle Sam
> will have little problem with you wanting to keep a secret from
> your government. If you're a US or EU citizen, and you want to
> keep a secret from your government, then as far as Uncle Sam is
> concerned you might be doing something wrong. TOR might have a few
> "safety" features to deal such as those who won't follow Eric
> Schmidt's advice that if you are doing something on the Internet
> you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it.

A common remark I hear from people when I try to explain to them that
the United States government is monitoring their email and other online
activity is, "Well, I don't have anything to hide, so I don't care." My
reply to them is that:

a. They have no idea what it is that they're doing that may be of
importance to the government and:

b. They may think they don't have anything to hide now, but the day may
come when they will (ALA Nazi Germany in the late '20s) and they've lost
that capability.

[Shadow]

On Sun, 6 Oct 2019 02:51:26 -0700, John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>> Stop puking FUD. Come on back with PROOF. Ah, because you have none.
>
>Well how about you prove me wrong then?

He's rather like >Q<. He gets off on calling people naughty
names when he's cornered.
There's a massive amount of information about the NSA/CIA
owning TOR nodes all over the world. They usually gain access by
blackmailing the Sysops. It's what surveillance and profiling is all
about. Blackmail. Everyone (except me - I'm boring - unless
hemorrhoids count) has a secret.
The PATRIOT act and what it became never was because of a
false flag operation. It's always been THE false-flag operation.
OT up.
[]'s

[VanguardLH]

Pretty hard to find evidence that doesn't exist. We (me and everyone
else here) knows you're just making this stuff because you want to bash
Google and now Mozilla.

[Spamblk]

John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com> wrote in <news:qnceig$cp4$1...@dont-email.me>:

> A common remark I hear from people when I try to explain to them that
> the United States government is monitoring their email and other online
> activity is, "Well, I don't have anything to hide, so I don't care." My
> reply to them is that:
>
> a. They have no idea what it is that they're doing that may be of
> importance to the government and:
>
> b. They may think they don't have anything to hide now, but the day may
> come when they will (ALA Nazi Germany in the late '20s) and they've lost
> that capability.
>

Yes that is it in a nutshell. Before world war II, the nice liberal
government in the Netherlands proposed a census. Many of the
population, including Jews, thought - why not? let's fill in the bits
about ethnicity. Hey we have a nice government. We are not doing
anything wrong so obviously nothing to hide, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II

In part due to the well-organized population
registers, about 70% of the country's Jewish
population were killed during the conflict,
a much higher percentage than comparable
countries, such as Belgium and France.[3]

[Shadow]

On Sun, 06 Oct 2019 14:33:24 -0500, 3...@wherever.you.want.net wrote:

>On Sun, 06 Oct 2019 07:13:15 -0300, Shadow <S...@dow.br> wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 6 Oct 2019 02:51:26 -0700, John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com>
>>wrote:
>

>> There's a massive amount of information about the NSA/CIA
>>owning TOR nodes all over the world.
>

>So where are a few URLs leading to this "massive amount of
>information"?

Google "NSA Tor nodes".
It was in Snowden's releases. You must have been asleep.

[John Corliss]

So you're saying that there's no evidence to prove me wrong.

[John Corliss]

Yrrah wrote:

> John Corliss wrote:
>
>>> Is there any verifiable evidence that Gugle is actually involved? Where
>>> is it?
>
>> What part of:
>>
>> "Remember the Australis interface? That was created and brought to you
>> by Google agents working temporarily for Mozillla. Their names were
>> Jinghua Zhang and Alex Limi"
>>
>> don't you understand?
>

> Gugle agents? Come on now, that frame should be "verifiable evidence"?
> People move from employer to employer all the time, certainly in the
> ICT business. You haven't provided any (verifiable!) evidence that
> they were ordered by Gugle to subvert Mozilla's Firefox project or
> were involved in whatever secret Gugle initiative to sabotage it you
> may want to see.

>
>>> There are numerous reasons to be worried about and detest Gugle's
>>> practices, but you don't have a convincing case here.
>
>> Bullshit.
>

> Not very convincing to say the least.

You asked for proof and I gave you proof. Now you're just trolling.

[John Corliss]

Spamblk wrote:

And it's pointless to try to publicly protest against excessively
intrusive censuses in a country where the government totally controls
all media and thus, the news.

[John Corliss]

Yrrah wrote:
> John Corliss wrote:
>

>>>> Well how about you prove me wrong then?
>
>>> Pretty hard to find evidence that doesn't exist. We (me and everyone
>>> else here) knows you're just making this stuff because you want to bash
>>> Google and now Mozilla.
>
>> So you're saying that there's no evidence to prove me wrong.
>

> We

Do you have a mouse in your pocket?

> don't have to prove you wrong. The burden of proof is with the one
> who made the claim, you.

That's a non-answer. Didn't you ever take debate? Both sides in a
discussion are responsible for providing proof of their viewpoint. I've
already provided mine, you've shown absolutely no evidence to support
your side.

[John Corliss]

Yrrah wrote:
> John Corliss <r9j...@yahoo.com>:
>

>>>>> There are numerous reasons to be worried about and detest Gugle's
>>>>> practices, but you don't have a convincing case here.
>
>>>> Bullshit.
>
>>> Not very convincing to say the least.
>
>> You asked for proof and I gave you proof.
>

> No, you didn't.
> Two people work(ed) for Gugle.
> They also worked for Mozilla on the Australis interface.
> You don't like that interface.
> Which led to your contentious assertion that they undermined the
> Firefox project on behalf of Gugle.
> However, that's an inference or hypothesis.
> You haven't provided evidence.

This isn't a court of law. I don't have to irrevocably prove them guilty
of collusion. That the two spies were there is and did what they did is
proven by info easily obtained from the Mozilla website itself. That
Mozilla was heavily funded at one point (at least) by Google is also
easily proven.

That Firefox continues to become more and more of a "reverse-engineered"
type Chrome-clone is patently obvious to any end user.

You keep believing whatever makes you feel comfortable, I'll continue to
suspect collusion based on the evidence I have on hand.

EOD, enjoy talking to yourself.