[governance] FW: [Dewayne-Net] Mozilla PR on privacy

[michael gurstein]

A very useful (IMHO) and responsible response from the Mozilla community who
not only condemn the recently revealed surveillance activities but also
suggest, based on their knowledge and experience strategies for more
appropriately managing these matters from a technical perspective.

M

-----Original Message-----
From: dewayne-net at warpspeed.com [mailto:dewayne-net at warpspeed.com] On Behalf
Of Dewayne Hendricks
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 5:42 PM
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Mozilla PR on privacy

[Note:  This item comes from reader Randall Head.  DLH]

From: Randall Head <rvh40 at insightbb.com>
Subject: Mozilla PR on privacy
Date: June 11, 2013 2:38:14 PM PDT
To: cyberia-l at googlegroups.com, Dave Farber <dave at farber.net>,
dewayne at warpspeed.com

Persona and Surveillance
By benadida
Jun 11 2013

Over the last few days, news reports indicate that US government agencies
are involved in broad surveillance of phone and Internet traffic. The exact
extent of this surveillance is not fully understood. The Mozilla Identity
Team joins the rest of Mozilla in calling for a thorough investigation of
these surveillance activities. We also join security professionals like
Bruce Schneier in highlighting the importance of transparency of
surveillance activities:

Knowing how the government spies on us is important. Not only because so
much of it is illegal - or, to be as charitable as possible, based on novel
interpretations of the law - but because we have a right to know.

So, with that said, let's talk about Mozilla Persona in this context, and
more broadly about Mozilla-provided user services. Mozilla stores some user
data to provide these services. As per our privacy policy, we store only
what we must to provide the features we build and validate with users and
developers. Mozilla's Manifesto clearly shows how we focus on user
sovereignty, whether we're discussing Firefox or Persona.

Some have called on us to move Persona servers outside the US to escape the
now-revealed surveillance activity. We don't think that would help, and even
if it did a bit, we think we can be much more productive by focusing on
other areas. First, it's not clear to us that other governments have any
less intrusive surveillance activities. Second, as a US company, Mozilla is
subject to US Laws, wherever we host our servers. Third, we'd rather not
engage in an arms-race with US government agencies. We'd rather focus on
efforts to change the Law to respect user data wherever it lives.

It's also worth pointing out that we do take certain technical measures to
limit the data we collect. We've designed Persona so that the identity
provider - including the fallback Identity Provider that we run - does not
learn your browsing history. We consider that a good security practice, not
specifically because of surveillance, but generally because collecting data
without a user benefit just creates risk.

Mozilla will always do its utmost to serve and protect users, with a
combination of technology and policy. We want to make sure the Law helps us
do that. Help us by signing the petition.

<http://identity.mozilla.com/post/52729477874/persona-and-surveillance>


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