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Google Goofs On Firefox's Anti-Phishing List

Posted by timothy on from the unless-you-like-it-that-way dept.

Stephen writes "While phishing is a problem, giving one company the power to block any site that it wishes at the browser level never seemed like a good idea. Today Google blocked a host of legitimate web sites by listing mine.nu. mine.nu is available as a dynamic dns domain and anybody can claim a sub domain. All sub-domains are blocked regardless of whether phishing actually occurs on the sub-domain or not. Several Linux enthusiast sites are caught up in the net including Hostfile Ad Blocking and Berry Linux Bootable CD."

2 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Good idea? by grasshoppa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While phishing is a problem, giving one company the power to block any site that it wishes at the browser level never seemed like a good idea

    Actually, giving a single company this kind of authority is usually not a bad idea. Spamhaus and email, for example.

    The issue is about trust. Even with this goofup, I trust google ( although their response to this could change that ). Hell, I trust MS here too, to a limited extent.

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
  2. first time by Toveling · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is the first time we've heard about Google (or any others) making a bad block. As long as Google fixes this expediently, I'd say that it's an acceptable margin of error and the amount of phishing sites blocked is by far worth it. Now, if wikileaks suddenly gets blocked for 'phishing', something is definitely awry.