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Was anybody else just burned by the Tor Browser flatpak? (futurology.today)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by nikqwxq550@futurology.today to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
34 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

And by burned, I mean "realize they have been burning for over a year". I'm referring to a bug in the Tor Browser flatpak that prevented the launcher from updating the actual browser, despite the launcher itself updating every week or so. The fix requires manual intervention, and this was never communicated to users. The browser itself also doesn't alert the user that it is outdated. The only reason I found out today was because the NoScript extension broke due to the browser being so old.

To make matters worse, the outdated version of the browser that I had, differs from the outdated version reported in the Github thread. In other words, if you were hoping that at least everybody affected by the bug would be stuck at the same version (and thus have the same fingerprint), that doesn't seem to be the case.

This is an extreme fingerprinting vulnerability. In fact I checked my fingerprint on multiple websites, and I had a unique fingerprint even with javascript disabled. So in other words, despite following the best privacy and security advice of:

  1. using Tor Browser
  2. disabling javascript
  3. keeping software updated

My online habits have been tracked for over a year. Even if Duckduckgo or Startpage doesn't fingerprint users, Reddit sure does (to detect ban evasions, etc), and we all know 90% of searches lead to Reddit, and that Reddit sells data to Google. So I have been browsing the web for over a year with a false sense of security, all the while most of my browsing was linked to a single identity, and that much data is more than enough to link it to my real identity.

How was I supposed to catch this? Manually check the About page of my browser to make sure the number keeps incrementing? Browse the Github issue tracker before bed? Is all this privacy and security advice actually good, or does it just give people a false sense of security, when in reality the software isn't maintained enough for those recommendations to make a difference? Sorry for the rant, it's just all so tiring.

Edit: I want to clarify that this is not an attack on the lone dev maintaining the Tor Browser flatpak. They mention in the issue that they were fairly busy last year. I just wanted to know how other people handled this issue.

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[–] conicalscientist@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago

I downloaded the tor browser binary which runs standalone. Why does it need to be a flatpak?

[–] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

On the face of it, that is a massive own goal. TOR project surely has a fediverse account or a blog or something to announce these things. This should be common knowledge.

[–] nikqwxq550@futurology.today 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Are you saying that this bug would have been reported there? I don't think I ever saw it, and I honestly doubt it was ever posted there. Unless you're talking about the browser update announcements, but I would still need to check the Help > About page of my browser to notice that it didn't match the latest version. As mentioned in my post, the Flatpak was updating like usual, the updates just weren't affecting the browser.

Really, the main reason I made the post was to see if anybody else was affected, and see how other people avoided the bug. And aside from one other user, it really seems like nobody else was affected, which is surprising to me. The only reasons I can come up with are:

  1. nobody installs Tor Browser using the Flatpak
  2. everybody manually checks their browser versions
  3. everybody installed or re-installed Tor Browser within the last year

Based on the comments I suspect #1 is the main cause. Which makes me lose trust in Flatpaks quite a bit. After all, if nobody is using them, then maintainers have less incentive to maintain them, and the worse they get.

[–] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No, no, I'm saying it should have been reported there and I don't get why they didn't share it.

[–] nikqwxq550@futurology.today 1 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Ah my mistake, yes a social media post or blog post from them would have been nice

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

What are the benefits of flatpacks? Like why not just install the actual Tor browser on your system? The one that is released and maintained by The Tor Project?

[edit] Looks like the Tor Project does support this flatpack. Im a silly goose.

[–] traches@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

flatpaks are supposed to be cross-distro. Maintainers only have one package to look after instead of several

Edit: autocorrect got me

[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 26 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And they give you more control over the permissions that you give the application; packages from apt, yay, etc. get full filesystem access by default even if they contain a bug or malicious code, flatpaks can be walled off by you very well.

[–] nikqwxq550@futurology.today 18 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Not to mention:

  • better isolation between apps, no dependency conflicts
  • ability to rollback to previous versions
  • easily set environment variables and other launch options persistently
  • transactional updates so if something weird happens during an update, the flatpak won't be left in a corrupted state
[–] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't understand the hate for flatpak. I wouldn't even be on Linux if it wasn't for flatpaks. I tried to switch many times over the years and it was such a PITA. With flatpaks I made the switch about a year ago and it finally stuck. Even got my wife to switch.

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

There are quite a few reasons to avoid flatpaks tbh.

  • You have no control over the dependencies. A flatpack can include a very old dependency and there is nothing you can do about it. You are at the mercy of the developer.

  • Many Flatpak applications available on flathub are not effectively sandboxed by default. Do not rely on the provided process isolation without first reviewing the related flatpak permission manifest for common sandbox escape issues.

  • Running untrusted code is never safe; sandboxing cannot change this. It can be a false sense of security.

  • It is generally not a good idea to run unattended updates via systemd, as the applications can get new permissions without the user aware of the changes. See this blogpost for examples

  • Flatpak does not run on the linux-hardened kernel unless you do additional kernel modifications that could have negative security implications.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Most of those points are true for non flatpak things as well though.

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Care to explain?

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Non flatpak things aren't sandboxed either.

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Not entirely true. There is other sandbox software out there (such as firejail, distrobox, docker, chroot, any VM products, etc) although they should also be cautious about claiming to be more secure. Flatpak, however, is not considered a sandbox by some.

[–] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Sure, but I came from Windows. Is the security situation better over there? Flatpaks just work. I only install verified flatpaks, and I remove most permissions with flatseal before even launching it.

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

If your distro doesn't work unless you use Flatpaks, then stick to flatpaks ig. Its your system.

[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
  • ability to rollback to previous versions

I think apt handles this, as well, no?

All the other reasons are very valid, though! Especially the transactional updates!

[–] nikqwxq550@futurology.today 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Technically rollbacks are possible using regular packages, but in practice multiple packages will share dependencies and prevent you from downgrading just one of them. This is why it's important that Flatpaks isolate dependencies between apps.

[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 1 points 15 hours ago

Thanks for the clear explanation!

[–] unskilled5117@feddit.org 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It has been fixed for a while for new installs, bit I agree, there should have been some kind of notification, that manual intervention is required. It was even mentioned in the bug report, so I don’t know why the dev neglected to implement the notification

[–] nikqwxq550@futurology.today 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It sounds as though you were aware of this bug already. How did you find out? Did you notice it yourself or was there a notification somewhere?

[–] unskilled5117@feddit.org 3 points 15 hours ago

Ah sry, i just read through the bug report to get a grasp of the timeline.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 32 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

😬

Could be worth sharing this around so more people are aware of it. !privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com and !opensource@programming.dev maybe? I can cross post it myself, but I'm not as familiar with the topic to respond to comments/questions

[–] nikqwxq550@futurology.today 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Done, reposted to linux@lemmy.ml and privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com. Though maybe linux@lemmy.ml was unnecessary because this post is already on the lemmy.ml instance...

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

Thanks!

I think it's still helpful for people that primarily use the subscribed feed, in case they are subscribed to !linux@lemmy.ml, but not !privacy@lemmy.ml

[–] Inf_V@kbin.earth 20 points 1 day ago

yeah that's a pretty huge yikes.

[–] fubbernuckin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Flatpaks have always been really buggy for me. Most of them require at least some amount of tinkering in flatseal to get them running properly, others require some amount of specialized care. I find if you need something running properly and cannot afford hidden bugs then it's best to try to get something made for your distro if possible.

[–] nikqwxq550@futurology.today 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've had the opposite experience, and started using Flatpaks after running into dependency conflicts once or twice when updating my system. Though I admit I've run into bugs with Flatpaks as well, just nothing as painful as a dependency conflict.

[–] fubbernuckin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 day ago

Probably depends on distro i guess. I use manjaro and all the official packages are really clean on my system, but as soon as an aur package fails to build then the pain begins.

[–] PullPantsUnsworn@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think Tor Project is implementing a better version of Linux package. The current Flatpak one is more of a Python wrapper to download the browser rather than an actual browser. It was developed by an independent open source developer later took over by Tor Project since it was very popular. Hopefully it will be fixed in future.

[–] nikqwxq550@futurology.today 6 points 1 day ago

I hope so, Flatpaks are becoming the default way of installing packages, especially with the rise of atomic distros.

[–] chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm not a Tor user, so please forgive my ignorance. Why would you say the browser being outdated means you were being tracked?

[–] nikqwxq550@futurology.today 3 points 1 day ago

It's impossible to know for sure whether you are tracked or not, but even the most basic fingerprinting mechanisms check browser version, and Reddit has advanced fingerprinting mechanisms to detect ban evasion. Couple that with the fact that 90% of my searches led me to Reddit, and it's easy to conclude that Reddit correlated all my visits using my fingerprint, and thus has a history of all the things I have searched and been interested in for the past year, and sold that to Google. And Google has enough data on me from back when I used to use Google services, that they were probably able to link that activity to my real identity.