"Amazon will capture and control every Web transaction performed by Fire users.”

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by luqmaninbmore

Amazon? You're soaking in it!

Now that's funny!
I can just hear Madge saying it.

[HarryT]

Writing on the Naked Security blog, Senior Security Advisor at Sophos Chester Wisniewski, said that the new browser, Silk, relies on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) network to bear the majority of the burden of retrieving web pages and pre-render pictures to save battery life and increase the speed of mobile browsing.

One wonders why he bothered to say something as blooming obvious as this, given that Amazon said exactly the same thing at their press conference. It's not as if it's a secret.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by HarryT

One wonders why he bothered to say something as blooming obvious as this, given that Amazon said exactly the same thing at their press conference. It's not as if it's a secret.

Because it's always good journalism to provide a small recap or summary of the issues leading to the writing of the article so that those who haven't been following all along and don't read every press release out there are able to see why there's an issue.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by molman

I'm also still curious how it will handle SSL.

The SSL section in the FAQ:

We will establish a secure connection from the cloud to the site owner on your behalf for page requests of sites using SSL (e.g. https://example.com).

Amazon Silk will facilitate a direct connection between your device and that site. Any security provided by these particular sites to their users would still exist.

When they say "facilitate a direct connection" they mean "with Amazon as the middleman", right? Through a new SSL certificate or some such?

[taustin]

Originally Posted by kjk

The SSL section in the FAQ:


When they say "facilitate a direct connection" they mean "with Amazon as the middleman", right? Through a new SSL certificate or some such?

The two lines you quote are in conflict with each other. Either they establish an SSL connection from the cloud to the site, or you get a direct connection. It cannot be both. The use of "facilitate" suggest weasel wording, and given Amazon's sketchy history, I'm guessing that Amazon is, in fact, making sure they can eavesdrop on all communications. Be interesting to see what the credit card companies would think of that, especially given the likelyhood that they're recording all traffic.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by kjk

The SSL section in the FAQ:


When they say "facilitate a direct connection" they mean "with Amazon as the middleman", right? Through a new SSL certificate or some such?

Thanks.

That is very shady wording. I'm interpreting it just as you did. Which is of great concern to me.

=X=

[carld]

Originally Posted by molman

People did (and do) care

I've been using Opera Mini for ages and have never heard anyone complain about privacy concerns. It wasn't until Amazon showed up that people freaked. I think there's some FUD shoveling group-think going on here.

[jocampo]

Ohh boy!

People always getting paranoid about existing stuff. This is not new! Is a simple caching mechanism where some static files are being kept by Amazon, as middle man service kind of stuff. As a matter of fact, if you have Netflix, you're using that already. That's how Netflix provide the service to us. Remember when Netflix was down one month ago? It was because Amazon cloud, or part of it, was also down.

Are they going to collect information? Yes! Of course! How do you think that when you log into Amazon you get Book's recommendations and so on?

I don't watch porn. And they have my credit card number already, needed for every transaction. So I don't know what the big deal is.

Unless people use a paid proxy or one of the available online privacy services around, there is not such thing as privacy on Internet, is a myth! We will have to disable most java-script and webbrowser goodies in order to truly browse without giving any information whatsoever, which is virtually impossible, pages won't work.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Because it's always good journalism to provide a small recap or summary of the issues leading to the writing of the article so that those who haven't been following all along and don't read every press release out there are able to see why there's an issue.

A recap is fine - but why not attribute the quote to Amazon rather than a security expert who is quoting Amazon's press release.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by jocampo

Ohh boy!

People always getting paranoid about existing stuff. This is not new! Is a simple caching mechanism where some static files are being kept by Amazon, as middle man service kind of stuff. As a matter of fact, if you have Netflix, you're using that already. That's how Netflix provide the service to us. Remember when Netflix was down one month ago? It was because Amazon cloud, or part of it, was also down.

Are they going to collect information? Yes! Of course! How do you think that when you log into Amazon you get Book's recommendations and so on?

I don't watch porn. And they have my credit card number already, needed for every transaction. So I don't know what the big deal is.

Unless people use a paid proxy or one of the available online privacy services around, there is not such thing as privacy on Internet, is a myth! We will have to disable most java-script and webbrowser goodies in order to truly browse without giving any information whatsoever, which is virtually impossible, pages won't work.

Well, I like porn. And I don't want to share! Those are MY super sekret porn sites.

But honestly, I think it is that most people don't know that amazon tracks them as much as they do. Most people aren't aware that Kindle tracks reading speeds, etc. It's a surprise to a lot of people. I'm not shocked...Amazon has been tracking stuff for years. But this is very FB like. I hope I don't have to get rid of Amazon like I did Facebook.

I'm starting to feel like John Conner had the right idea...

[kjk]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

But honestly, I think it is that most people don't know that amazon tracks them as much as they do. Most people aren't aware that Kindle tracks reading speeds, etc. It's a surprise to a lot of people. I'm not shocked...Amazon has been tracking stuff for years. But this is very FB like. I hope I don't have to get rid of Amazon like I did Facebook.

I remember how surprised many TiVo users were when they found out TiVo was tracking what commercials they were skipping, which ones they replayed, what shows they watched....and selling that data to the networks and advertisers.

But of course their pitch to users is ease of use and convenience. Which, like Amazon's Silk, is indeed true. It's just not the whole story.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kjk

I remember how surprised many TiVo users were when they found out TiVo was tracking what commercials they were skipping, which ones they replayed, what shows they watched....and selling that data to the networks and advertisers.

Anonymised data, not data about what any specific user is doing. I really don't see any harm in that.

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Well of course it was. They just grew out of their satanic phase eventually, and everything was OK again.

Yeah.. they gave up betting........

Like to inject a touch of subtlety now and then.......

[Connallmac]

Originally Posted by kjk

I remember how surprised many TiVo users were when they found out TiVo was tracking what commercials they were skipping, which ones they replayed, what shows they watched....and selling that data to the networks and advertisers.

But of course their pitch to users is ease of use and convenience. Which, like Amazon's Silk, is indeed true. It's just not the whole story.

Just so you know, your bank is probably doing the same thing right now with your transaction information. Tool on over to http://www.segmint.com.

[RDaneel54]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

I'm starting to feel like John Conner had the right idea...

Ooh, obscure Terminator reference. Amazon, the beginning of Skynet... Cue music.