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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."

5 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.

  3. Everybody makes mistakes, false positives by Mr.+Gus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Any maintained blacklist of any reasonable size is going to end up with false positives. It's one of those things you just have to accept. People notice and report it, the entry gets removed, and we move on.

  4. Re:Not google's fault by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Um, no. The list is supplied by Google. When Firefox blocks a site, press the 'Why was this site blocked?' button to see Google's warning about it (http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?client=Firefox&hl=en-US&site=http://mine.nu/ in this case).

  5. Re:Trust by santiagodraco · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's just not going to happen. We like to think that "everyone" is capable of understanding what is going on when they browse the web, but that's wishful thinking.

    It will be a LONG time until you can ever hope that the general public is as smart as the malicious few out there. Until then technology solutions will continue to be needed, desired and our best bet in combating this. Hell, they always will.