Category Archives: Privacy

A small collection of Firefox add-ons you can install to improve (a little bit) your privacy – Part 2

I already described the privacy concerns related to Flash files in the my last post about Firefox add-ons and privacy. Today I want to talk about some interesting Firefox add-ons that could be helpful to reduce privacy risks during Internet navigation.

The first add-on is Flash Control that “controls as and when to display the Flash player and the HTML5 player”. Another similar add-on is Flashblock that does not allow Flash player to send information about your computer until you will decide to allow it. Personally I prefer Flash Control that is very intuitive and you decide when and what to watch just clicking on the Flash icon in the middle of the player.

But, if you are a purist and you want to be able to control not only Flash player but also Javascript, SilverLight, images and proxies, QuickJava is what you are looking for. QuickJava is intuitive, easy to control and really effective.

In fact, you must not underestimate Javascripts that are dangerous too if you think that they are equally able to remotely discover many information about your Ip, User-Agent, Architecture, OS Language, System Time, Screen Resolution. Statistically, when you have all these details, you have semi-unique fingerprints of the computer… and so someone could be also able to know who are you. For this reason an add-on as Disable WebRTC is recommended because it blocks JavaScripts to access your local IP(s), without any user prompt.

References:

https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/support-flash-control/2479

http://flashblock.mozdev.org/

http://quickjavaplugin.blogspot.com/

https://addons.mozilla.org/it/firefox/addon/happy-bonobo-disable-webrtc/?src=api

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Advertisers are increasingly using technology that targets users across multiple devices, and it’s working.

A small collection of Firefox add-ons that you can install to improve (a little bit) your privacy

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When I read news and reports about modern spyware I am a little bit discouraged about my privacy. But I also think that something can always be done to improve privacy levels.

This time I don’t want to talk about password strength but I will try to focus your attention on some Firefox add-ons can could positively impact on your privacy.

The first is about Random Agent Spoofer that is able to obfuscate your computer configuration (better: identity) when you connect to a remote server = Internet.

This add-on is really flexible and you will spend just a couple of minutes to decide what configuration can be useful for you. In particular you can decide how often you desire to change your agent profile and if you prefer to use just desktop agents or to appear as if you were connected through a mobile device.

Moreover, you can choose if you want to:

Send spoofed ‘If-None_Match’ headers (ETags)

Send spoofed ‘X-Forwarded-For’ headers

Send spoofed ‘Via’ headers

Accept headers match the selected browser profile

Spoof accepted documents

Spoof accepted encoding

Spoof accepted language (US English)

And if you have time you can also play with the many extras as:

Use standard font set

Disable local dom storage

Limit tab history to 2

Disable browsing and download history

Disable browser cache

Disable geolocation

Disable link prefetching

Disable dns prefetching

Disable webgl

If you prefer a less complex agent spoofer or you are planning to use it seldom, you can use User-Agent Switcher that contains fewer features and needs to be manually configured but it’s intuitive and equally effective.

The second add-on I suggest to install is TrackMeNot that will help to defend your privacy contrasting web search engines profilation with a (huge,-if you want-) number of false queries from your browser. The (huge) number of queries about general topics will obfuscate search engines’ profile about your personal preference. Also in this case this add-on allows you to decide what kind of false queries you want to submit and how often TrackMeNot will “search” the web.

The third recommended add-on is ZenMate, a free VPN service that has obtained positive reviews by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also because ZenMate is “based in Berlin and operates under strict German data protection laws”. ZenMate is free, easy to use and let you choose between four different exit node also if using the free base version:

– Germany

– Romania

– Hong Kong

– USA

Last but not least, keep attention on Flash Files. Do they are so essential for you? You have to keep in mind that sometimes, also if you use a VPN as Zen Zone, you can be betrayed by Flash files. In fact, videos based on Flash can potentially leak your identity also if you try to hide your IP behind a VPN or a proxy.

Pandora for “dummies”…. when you are outside the USA… – Firefox, Chrome and Opera add-on –

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The last time I wrote a post about connecting to Pandora when you are outside the USA was just (sic) three years ago. Meanwhile a lot of things changed and Anonymox, the Firefox add-on and proxy service I suggested in 2012, it is not free now.

It happens but when my nephew asked me something similar and really intuitive to connect to Pandora I was in trouble… more in trouble than I could imagine…. In fact when I started to search something alternative, I found a lot of very good proxy add-ons for Firefox. It was a pleasure to discover some of them because they are technically well done and offer a lot of flexible features for privacy purpose. But this is not the topic of my post… for today.

After many unlucky trials, where I tested different add-ons that were not able to guarantee a minimal rate of usable connection, I found ProxMate .

ProxMate is an open-source, SSL proxy manager for real dummies. As Firefox add-on you can install it on your browser in just few clicks and then you practically don’t need to configure anything. The only requested thing after installation is to decide the websites and services you want to connect through ProxMate. The internet connection has a good speed rate and the music flows as silk through your Pandora account.

You can install ProxMate searching it through the add-on panel you find in Firefox or you can decide to directly open the link from the ProxMate website. After the installation ( no restart required) you have to find the “shark fin” icon into your Firefox bar. If you don’t find it immediately, you have to manage your icons and manually personalize the bar.

Then, click on ProxMate “my button” icon and select: “Install New Packages”. You are redirect to the ProxMate website where you can select Pandora or others interesting websites (e.g. Netflix, iHeart Radio, etc..) with specific IP restriction policies.

Now, you select your desired website/service and follow the instructions (click selection) that will appear on the screen to complete the installation.

Last but not least, don’t forget to click again on the ProxMate icon and enable the proxy service.

As usual, I recommend to NOT forget to disable ProxMate (as every other proxy server) when you don’t need to use it.

Oops, I forgot to say that ProxMate is free of charge……. Enjoy it!!

——————

References:

https://addons.mozilla.org/it/firefox/addon/proxmate/?src=search

https://proxmate.me/

Link

Who will track the Internet trackers?

Link

How to Login into Ubuntu 12.10 Using USB Flash Drive http://bit.ly/WtgNHI

How to configure Firestarter to use VPN services on Linux

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VPN Linux In my experience Firestarter is a effective firewall and, on Linux, it starts automatically every time we boot up Ubuntu. But, when I decided to use a VPN tunnel through openvpn, I had some connection problems. In fact I was able to initialize my VPN services but, after a while, all the internet connections were mysteriously shut down.

The “problem” was Firestarter which cut off the connection as forbidden considering my inbound/outbound Policy.

To solve this matter you have to open a tunnel on Firestarter to allow VPN working:

1- open the configuration file my VPN provider gives to its users (generally its a text file containing all the configuration info used, in my case, by openvpn) and I searched for the IP address of the default starting connection used to authenticate the VPN services (e.g. 177.458.563.25). Save somewhere or memorize this VPN IP address.

2- open a Terminal and type:

sudo nautilus

3- using nautilus go to File System (it’s before home folder) and open etc–>firestarter and open the file user-pre using Gedit (or your preferred text editor)

4- the user-pre file is usually empty so don’t panic and write these lines into it:

iptables -A INPUT -j ACCEPT -s xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -p esp
iptables -A INPUT -j ACCEPT -s xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -p udp -m multiport -sports isakmp,10000
iptables -A INPUT -j ACCEPT -i tun+
iptables -A OUTPUT -j ACCEPT -d xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -p esp
iptables -A OUTPUT -j ACCEPT -d xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -p udp -m multiport -dports isakmp,10000
iptables -A OUTPUT -j ACCEPT -o tun+

Now you have to substitute the xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the VPN IP address you have found at step 1 (in my example was 177.458.563.25).

5- Save the user-pre file and close Gedit and Nautilus

6- open a new Terminal and restart Firestarter typing:

sudo /etc/init.d/firestarter restart

That’all! Now your VPN works on your Linux computer and Firestarter has accepted a new Routed IP Tunnel into its allowed policies configuration.

Michael Moore, Oliver Stone Back Julian Assange In NYT Op-Ed by Huffington Post

Watch your privacy! Upgrade your Firefox security with HTTPS Everywhere and HTTPS Finder!

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As we already discussed many times in this blog, we know that web security is something very difficult to reach but we can always try to improve our security when surfing into the web.

First of all, use Firefox! Do it! In my opinion it’s slower than Chrome but very “transparent” and so you have less risks to unintentionally share information you want to keep private. In my experience, Firefox could be safer than Chrome if you use the right adds-on.

Then, install a particular add-on named HTTPS Everywhere.

This add-on (for Firefox and Chrome) will automatically connect your browser to the https version of many websites contained in its “Rule list”. The number of https connections in the HTTPS Everywhere’s list is sufficiently wide and you can always decide to manually add new https addresses (more info) as in the following example:

<ruleset name=”Google”>
<target host=”www.google.com” />
<target host=”google.com” />

<rule from=”^http://(www\.)?google\.com/” to=”https://google.com/”/>
</ruleset>

If you prefer to save time and you don’t want to write some lines for every website you prefer to connect through https, you will install another add-on: HTTPS Finder. HTTPS Finder is perfectly interconnected with HTTPS Everywhere and it will try to reach every website you type into the address bar, using a https connection. If it finds a valid https website, it will ask you if you want to add a specific rule into HTTPS Everywhere rule list. At this point you have only to agree and the new rule will be stored in the list.

Simple, easy, useful!