JonDoNews

Today, 19th of May, JonDos GmbH publishes the new version of JonDoFox.
The new version 0.2.5 of JonDoFox offers even more opportunities for
secure web surfing.

What is JonDoFox?
JonDoFox is both a profile and an extension for the popular Mozilla
Firefox web browser that protects the user's privacy while surfing the
web. As it is open-source software and free to use, it is an ideal
add-on for anonymization services like JonDonym and Tor, but may also be
used without anonymization tools.

What is new?
According to recent studies
(http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2010/04/symantec_2009_global_intern...
), attacks on PDF reader software are meanwhile done more frequently
than attacks on web browsers. Therefore the new version of JonDoFox
includes detailed warnings and instructions on how to secure PDF readers.

The improved referer logic is now compatible with most web sites that
make use of the referer. The so-called referer (sic!) is an information
which is sent by the browser. It shows which web page the user had
requested before the one he/she is visiting now. This information could
be a severe threat for privacy: observing web surfers get a lot easier,
and in extreme cases, alien web sites might steal login or session data.
Deleting the referer, like other privacy tools do, is not the best
solution, though. This will cause problems on various web sites.
Therefore JonDos invented a new method: The referer is now only
anonymized if the user is surfing from site to site, but not within the
same web site.

Moreover, the new version of JonDoFox provides functions for protecting
the web browser's certificate storage: note that browser certificates
created by the user can be misused as „Super Cookies“ to track a user.
While web browsers and other data protection tools do not address this
problem, JonDoFox now reliably prevents misusing this information: as
soon as a web site requests a certificate, the user has to confirm this
process.

Other improvements are the more intuitive default setting of NoScript,
compatibility with the current Tor header data, several enhancements in
the program code and smaller bug fixes. Existing installations of
JonDoFox will automatically get the new version by Firefox' update function.

The JonDoFox development team is happy to present you the new version of
JonDoFox! Enjoy it!

http://anonymous-proxy-servers.net/en/jondofox/download

The operator Delta-Protect reports that the mix Jupiter will today not be available due to maintenance work.

From today, a wiki website for JonDonym is available. At this place, we provide help texts for advanced users, mix operators, developers and researcher.

The contents of the wiki will be extended step by step. Ever normal user may edit the texts in the area "onDonym Users" after a one-time, free registration, like at Wikipedia. Also for mix operators, there is such an area - "Mix Proxy Operators" - which they can design in their favor (after registration in the wiki and activation). Researchers are invited to publish their JonDonym articles and other contributions in the "JonDonym Developers" section.

The wiki thereby is an important contribution for the openness and transparency of the software and systems of JonDonym.

The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany announced today that the data retention implemented in German law is not compatible with the constitution. First, that means all mix operators that have already collected such data are going to delete them. And, second, no data is saved anymore in the future, at least until a law is made which is reconcilable with the German constitution.

The mix operators dotplex e.K. and German Privacy Foundation e.V. have open a new free cascade and increase the capacity of a running cascade. Because of the rebuild of two free cascade there was a little bit trouble with free services today.

Caused by a server outage in Dresden, the availability of the free services is currently limited.

The mix server of the GPF was closed by the ISP because of abuses. The cascade will be down for an indefinite time. The GPF contacts the ISP for fact-finding.

Update: The mix server is back and working.

The free services are currently malfunctioning. We are analyzing the problem. The premium services are thereby not affected.

Especially in the U.S., the Data Privacy Day became an important event. There are numerous activities in the whole country where companies like Intel, Google or Microsoft participate and want to make people more sensitive to privacy in the web. Also in Europe, this day is very meaningful especially in a time where privacy is at risk to become a product instead of being a right.

As the intention of the Data Privacy Day is very close to the philosophy of JonDonym we are proud that we could take part in an interview at PET-Portal. PET-Portal is a non-profit hungarian web site on topics in the scope of “Privacy Enhancing Technologies”. Rolf Wendolsky, lead developer at the JonDos company, speaks about JonDonym which is the JonDos' solution for more privacy while surfing the web.

Watch video on YouTube

The new JonDoFox profile 2.3.0 provides the following new features:

• compatible with Firefox 3.6 (in order to activate CSLite, also JonDoFox may have to be reinstalled after a Firefox update)
• In order to strengthen the security of the profile, only the following extensions are incuded now: AdblockPlus, CSLite, DownloadHelper, JonDoFox, NoScript, ProfileSwitcher.
• included SafeCache's functionality into the JonDoFox extension
• the new referrer logic keeps the referer unchanged within the same domain/web site; this leads to a far better compatibility with many web pages
• excluded the warning regarding opening mailto-links
• added a special overlay which is shown to the user if she wants to
  download a Word or a .rtf file
• new preference, extensions.jondofox.alwaysUseJonDo, which,
  if set to true, ignores the proxy used in the last session and lets the
  browser start always with JonDo; default is "false"
• minor bugfixes

The future development aims to make JonDoFox a self-contained Firefox extension. Besides NoScript and DownloadHelper, the functionality of all remaining extensions will be replaced by our own implementation.