Can Opera be fully Trusted
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blackbird71 last edited by@coffeelover said in Can Opera be fully Trusted:
... Today I see that China has been using tiny microchips to gain access to US companies. This is yet another reason why I personally do not trust software or hardware that comes from China. Read about it by going to the link below. ... For those like me who no longer trust Opera, the evidence seems enough. For others like Blackbird who believe the evidence is not compelling, there is little point in continuing the discussion. It really boils down to what one is willing to place his/her trust in and for me... ...
Writing as someone who has spent much of his career dealing with highly classified materials, I feel there's a vast difference between an adversarial government covertly placing spy-chips into a market-leading company's industrial/commercial/military server hardware by bribing/coercing factory personnel within that adversarial nation in hopes of penetrating corporate/government networks so as to acquire strategic information versus that same adversary somehow getting some lines of snooping code covertly inserted into a second-tier Internet web browser that's designed by code experts outside the adversarial country and aimed at individual non-commercial users. Of course anything is always possible, but 'possible' doesn't make it likely - and it certainly doesn't necessarily make it even worthwhile. Covertness always carries the risks of unexpected disclosure, whose costs and fallout can be considerable when measured against probable reward for the effort. Consequently, the potential payoff must always be worth the risks incurred - and, frankly, the market exposure of Opera into truly strategic arenas doesn't really qualify as worth it.
But, as I think we agree, it all comes down to personal opinions and preferences. For me and the equipment upon which I use browsers, Opera is currently OK in a security sense. For equipment that really matters in a real-world security sense, I personally believe there should be complete isolation from the public Internet - a genuine airgap, if you will. Hence, the only practical browser risks for ordinary users is from non-nation-state hackers and vandals.
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A Former User last edited by
I've been using Chrome practically since the first versions. I remember earlier that Firefox was my browser. But Google appeared with a speedy browser, and I changed, at that time Firefox weighed a severe problem of browsing speed and resource consumption. Although Opera has always made sporadic appearances, now I've forgotten it since Chrome started releasing stable versions.
For a web browser I do not look for a Swiss army knife, only the following:
A browser that meets the standards.
Fast painting the web
Light regarding resources
Multiplatform: PC, OS X, and iOS.
Synchronization between platforms.
That I can install an advertising blocker.
After reading this article, I saw that Opera covered my needs, so I arranged for him to have another occasional appearance in my life.The thing did not start very well, the first thing I went to look at was the client for iOS. Wrong, it has not been updated for more than a year, I do not say to upgrade every week, but one year it makes me think that it is in a state of advanced abandonment. Touched and sunk in the first shot, but I kept investigating a bit.
I remembered the news from a few months ago that Opera Software had been sold to a Chinese company. So I accessed his website in search of information, and I was surprised by what I found, nothing. I had to go to a financial report of the close of the first quarter of 2017 indicating that the operation with the Chinese investment group ("the Buyer") of 575 million dollars had been completed and closed.
So the same report and Wikipedia gave me the name: Golden Brick Capital Management Limited. Accessing their website I see that they have investments in 4 companies, 3 of them Chinese and Opera that is Norwegian. I look at the companies: ISP, cable operator (TV and radio), a kind of YouTube that I find it hard to find information.
We know the level of censorship, control, and analysis of the information that the Chinese government imposes on their companies, so I do not get too good a thorn that a Chinese investment group that invests in critical channels of information distribution also has to its credit a Web navigator.
Call it paranoia, conspiracy, an influence of Hollywood or whatever you want, but if even Opera itself is funny to present them on their website, it makes me less thankful to use a program paid for by the Chinese.
Nothing is free if Google traffics with my data thanks to Chrome at least I know. Opera does not know where the Chinese have told him he should generate profits.
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blackbird71 last edited by blackbird71
@thephototoday said in Can Opera be fully Trusted:>
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Call it paranoia, conspiracy, an influence of Hollywood or whatever you want, but if even Opera itself is funny to present them on their website, it makes me less thankful to use a program paid for by the Chinese.Nothing is free if Google traffics with my data thanks to Chrome at least I know. Opera does not know where the Chinese have told him he should generate profits.
If you're not actually living in China, then Chinese control/censorship/tracking of their own citizenry is not a technically-relevant issue for your use of a web-browser even if the browser were somehow covertly altered to support such native control schemes (and of which, there is absolutely no evidence yet in Opera). The only remaining risk of something dangerous covertly coded into a browser would be some form of spyware/malware designed to steal your personal data or to spread itself along and into the local network for malicious/covert purposes... and that would have relevance to China only if you were involved in critical/defense-related infrastructure professions. Again, there's absolutely no evidence yet that anything like that exists in Opera.
Certainly, in one's imagination, anything might be possible for a Chinese owner of Opera. But 'possible' by no means is the same as 'likely' or 'reasonable'. One's rationality must always outweigh their paranoia. Embedding malware/spyware into a browser like Opera would seriously risk being discovered by the numerous far-flung Opera developers in multiple lands, having access to its code; it would risk discovery by countless 3rd-party monitors of software products and malware/spyware exploits throughout the world. Once discovered, it would be in clear violation of governing Norwegian laws, and it would be a truly product-killing event that would utterly destroy Opera's reputation thereafter and damage the reputation of any Chinese enterprise exporting any software/firmware product. To most nation-state 3-letter actors (NSA, FSB, etc), such risks would far outweigh any likely reward.
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A Former User last edited by
I've tried to balance my paranoia as it were. I will NOT allow the Opera browser to go to any banking site or use it to make purchases. Instead I use it for moderate browsing periodically. That's as far as I'm willing to make use of it. Each to his own.
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A Former User last edited by
@leocg That's true, Leo. I "think" (not sure so it's a total guess on my part) that most people believe coding can be more easily hidden in software than hardware so they're more willing to trust their devices than the programs they load onto them. Does it make sense? Probably not but my gut feeling is that this is how most people think.
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blackbird71 last edited by blackbird71
@coffeelover said in Can Opera be fully Trusted:
... I "think" (not sure so it's a total guess on my part) that most people believe coding can be more easily hidden in software than hardware so they're more willing to trust their devices than the programs they load onto them. Does it make sense? Probably not but my gut feeling is that this is how most people think.
You're right that it's how most people think (at least most people who even think about security - the vast bulk of users rarely even consider it in any depth). But since most "hardware" contains "firmware" (which is code embedded into PROMS or flash memory), there is far less difference than many folks might imagine. Discovery of backdoor code (intentionally malicious or simply heedlessly left over from factory testing access) has popped up in the news continually in everything from chips to full-blown PC boards for years.
Having worked in the digital and national security realms for 40+ years, I find no more security against spyware/malware in general code-capable parts/devices than I do in downloadable software programs, unless those parts/devices have been procured and tested against a published DoD/military QPL (qualified parts list). In reality, assuming one practices "safe hex", the key issues have more to do with who you are (your profession) and what you have to lose (in terms of secrets) than what an adversary may or may not do. In other words, if you have secrets that make you a worthwhile target or link you to a prime critical/infrastructure target, then you have reason to be super-cautious about national-origin of equipment or software. Otherwise, not nearly so much...
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A Former User last edited by
@blackbird71 Thanks for the enlightenment. That makes a great deal of sense.
