Are you one of the 140 million people who have downloaded Web of Trust (WoT)? You might want to uninstall it - for now at least.

WoT pulls browser extension after privacy failure

[quote]
First, it seems that WoT has been collecting the browsing history of its millions of users and has been selling this data to third parties.

Second, and even worse, it seems the firm did not properly anonymise the data it collects on its users, which potentially allows others to expose the identity of the users and all their personal details.
[/quote]

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2016/11/09/wot-pulls-browser-extension-after-p rivacy-failure/

http://tinyurl.com/pbenm4o

)\/(ark

Always Mount a Scratch Monkey
Do you manage your own servers? If you are not running an IDS/IPS yer doin' it wrong...
... Do molecular biologists wear designer genes?
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11-09-16 21:20 mark lewis wrote to all about Web of Trust browser addo
Howdy! Mark,

@MSGID: <58245CAA.15030.windowsa@capcity2.synchro.net>
Are you one of the 140 million people who have downloaded Web of Trust (WoT)? You might want to uninstall it - for now at least.

WoT pulls browser extension after privacy failure

[quote]
First, it seems that WoT has been collecting the browsing history
of its millions of users and has been selling this data to third
parties.

I removed the WOT Add-In after reading Your message last month.

I was thinking recently that "I am not all that important", as Leo says in
some of His askleo.com articles.

And am now thinking about putting WOT back in Firefox because I miss using
it to see what others say about a website that I never visited before,
before I take a look at what's on the pages on that new website.

Did You ever use WOT? or still use it now? Thanks!

Yep! I'm paranoid about visiting unknown websites.
I'll even go to Wikipedia and Search to see if any of their pages have
the URL of that website in any Links or Articles.

I also have the Add-On in Firefox for Dr. Web but haven't used it as often
as I used WOT to research a new website.

Thanks Again! . .


... It's always darkest before you step on the cat.
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02 Dec 16 10:56, you wrote to me:

WoT pulls browser extension after privacy failure

[quote]
First, it seems that WoT has been collecting the browsing history
of its millions of users and has been selling this data to third
parties.

I removed the WOT Add-In after reading Your message last month.

I was thinking recently that "I am not all that important", as Leo says in some of His askleo.com articles.

as individuals, we're not really all that important... however, as a group, we are very important... just look at what those few teenagers from veles, macedonia did...

[quote]
Veles made international news in 2016 when it was revealed that a group of teenagers in the town were controlling over 100 websites producing fake news articles in support of U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, which were heavily publicised on the social media site Facebook, and may have influenced the result of the election.
[/quote]

yes, these are one of the main groups that caught facebook out with their fake news which facebook (and other places) latched onto as real true news...

And am now thinking about putting WOT back in Firefox because I miss
using it to see what others say about a website that I never visited before, before I take a look at what's on the pages on that new
website.

Did You ever use WOT? or still use it now? Thanks!

no and no... i did use something, at one point, that showed me something similar (pagerank by browsing habits, IIRC) but i stopped using it years and years ago because my browsing had to be being sent to be added to the stats for
me to be able to retrieve the stats on that page... as i got more and more into
network security, i decided that the metadata of my browsing and research was no one else's business... i won't mention how easy it is to stack the deck in those types of services, either...

Yep! I'm paranoid about visiting unknown websites. I'll even go to Wikipedia and Search to see if any of their pages have the URL of that website in any Links or Articles.

paranoia is a good thing... too much? not so good... however, learning, understanding and following a few simple rules is the best...

I also have the Add-On in Firefox for Dr. Web but haven't used it as
often as I used WOT to research a new website.

Thanks Again! . .

you and others are quite welcome... i really should be sharing more to this group than i have been... it is a tad on the painful side, though, because this
is a manual thing and i can't simply forward or copy and paste easily like i can for twitter, G+ and used to do for facebook before i reclaimed my 6+hrs/day
from them by dropping them in the bitbucket ;)


)\/(ark

Always Mount a Scratch Monkey
Do you manage your own servers? If you are not running an IDS/IPS yer doin' it wrong...
... Conform, go crazy, or become a writer.
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03 Dec 16 08:52, I wrote to you:

as individuals, we're not really all that important... however, as a

group,

we are very important... just look at what those few teenagers from veles, macedonia did...

[quote]
Veles made international news in 2016 when it was revealed that a group of teenagers in the town were controlling over 100 websites producing fake news articles in support of U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump,

which

were heavily publicised on the social media site Facebook, and may have influenced the result of the election. [/quote]

here's a bit more followup on the above...

https://apnews.com/12fc49ad3b694f35b5c4a08513ec8d33

[quote]
"The fake news is the good news," the 18-year-old said, pointing to a graph showing his audience figures, which reached into the hundreds of thousands, a bling watch clasped firmly around his wrist. "A fake news article is way more opened than any other."

[...]

He showed the AP how he ripped much of his material off The Political Insider, a right-wing news site that produces a steady drumbeat of pro-Donald Trump pieces. He then flipped over to Google Analytics, an audience tracking tool, to
show that he'd managed to gather more than 685,000 page views a week.

The teen said his monthly revenue was in the four figures, a considerable sum in a country where the average monthly pay is 360 euros ($383). As he navigated
his site's statistics, he dropped nuggets of journalism advice.
[/quote]

it is all about the ad revenue... just getting the ads shown pulls in the $$$...

)\/(ark

Always Mount a Scratch Monkey
Do you manage your own servers? If you are not running an IDS/IPS yer doin' it wrong...
... Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.
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