gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2023/08/22/tor-browser-observations/

Posted in Free/Libre Software, Security at 8:08 pm by Guest Editorial Team

Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer

One of the things that does bug me about using NoScript….

Is that is keeps the text file it exports in a different format with “modern” browsers.

So I can pass around one exported list by occasionally stomping the exported file with a fresh one with the latest permissions from LibreWolf and then pass it around to my other browsers that can use the WebExtension.

SeaMonkey, on the other hand, uses a “Classic” unsupported version of NoScript which uses a different list format.

So I end up maintaining a special version of the list, a second time, just for SeaMonkey.

I’m hoping that the upcoming update adds enough backported JavaScript and WebComponents work that more sites start behaving normally in SeaMonkey.

Having to pay my electric bill through another browser is a real bummer, and some sites like Walmart just look weird, although humorously, Walmart is currently bungled in Firefox to the point where you can’t schedule a grocery pickup time and checkout, but in SeaMonkey that works fine, but the site looks a little weird. So I can shop for food in SeaMonkey, but not Firefox.

I’d report a site compat bug to Mozilla, but I’d get the usual “Go to Hell, also CoC” Standard Reply assuming they even took any action on the bug report at all.

Even the modern version of NoScript does not appear to have a special button to disable WASMs.

I think you can stop them with blocking Object to Trusted Sites, but not sure about this, and it seems more destructive than surgically removing WASM with a preference.

I noticed while I was playing with the Tor Browser last night, that the “Safer” setting, starts disabling some features that aren’t widely used while just browsing the Web. It leaves JavaScript on (but only for HTTPS sites), but it starts disabling some of the crappy features that you often don’t need.

If you look at the monthly Mozilla security updates, a lot of them address High and Critical CVEs that WASM itself adds to the browser.

That’s why I set javascript.options.wasm to False in all my browsers in about:config, so even sites I allow to run JavaScript can’t load WASM blobs on me.

I just want to pay my phone bill, not risk having executables sent down the hatch.

It seems the Tor Project agrees that WASMs are a special danger that adds a significant amount of attack surface to the browser, beyond what JavaScript alone is capable of, and it’s not really that important.

So I’ve set my copy of the Tor Browser to the safer setting. It’s not what I’d like (static content Web sites), but it’s probably the best you can do and have the Web as it is work at all.

They should move the slider closer to the user interface so the user can dial it up and down faster, and set it to Safest if they want to run silent, run deep for a while, and not take chances on scripts and stuff on .onion sites.

Best practices for .onion sites are to remain accessible to users who can only look at static content.

The way that people typically get unmasked on Tor is partially “active content” being on in the browser, and partially that the police will set up a site that requires logging in.

Then the court issues a broad warrant that authorizes a “Network Investigative Technique” or a NIT, which is just fancy talk for “You are authorized to attack every user who sets up an account and attempt to plant malware on the machine.”

Basically, interacting with a site like this adds you to the warrant’s scope, so sites that require logging in are a big red flag that “there’s a reason why”.

So the issue of Tor unmaskings are part technical and part legal.

In most cases, it’s a two-part thing where the user hands them both parts.

Unfortunately, Tor Browser is set by default to have almost all the same vulnerabilities as Mozilla Firefox. █

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● 08.22.23

●● Managing NoScript Whitelists and Some Tor Browser Observations