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Amazon’s Kindle Fire Silk browser has serious security concerns


securitybreach

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securitybreach

I know this is security related but I figured it should go here considering it is the browser that the new Amazon Fire tablet uses by default:

OK, here’s the good stuff about the new Silk Web browser, which Amazon will be embedding in its new Amazon Kindle Fire tablets: From all reports it makes Web-browsing amazing fast on relatively low-end hardware. The bad news? It does it by watching all, and I mean all, of your Web activity through Amazon’s cloud-based Amazon Web Services.You don’t have to take my word for it. Amazon states that, “All of the browser subsystems are present on your Kindle Fire as well as on the AWS cloud computing platform. Each time you load a web page, Silk makes a dynamic decision about which of these subsystems will run locally and which will execute remotely. In short, Amazon Silk extends the boundaries of the browser, coupling the capabilities and interactivity of your local device with the massive computing power, memory, and network connectivity of our cloud.”...
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking/amazo...y-concerns/1516If you do get one, I would suggest rooting it and installing a custom Android ROM on the device when it becomes available. (It never takes very long for the community to develop roms)
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Yes, it's a security concern to some extent, but again the article is alarmist:

And to think I was worried because Facebook was tracking you on the Web whenever you were on a site with a Facebook like button on it! That, while sneaky and underhanded, was nothing. When you’ll be using your Kindle Fire’s Silk Web browser everything you do on the Web will be made part of your permanent record.
This is objectively false:
Amazon Silk also temporarily logs web addresses -- known as uniform resource locators (“URLs”) -- for the web pages it serves and certain identifiers, such as IP or MAC addresses, to troubleshoot and diagnose Amazon Silk technical issues. We generally do not keep this information for longer than 30 days.
(from the Amazon Silk Terms & Conditions) 30 days is a far cry from "permanent"How is this any different from what your ISP does, though? Everything goes through their servers, (if you live in America) their servers are located in America (usually, I guess) and are subject to US laws.
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securitybreach
Yes, it's a security concern to some extent, but again the article is alarmist: This is objectively false: (from the Amazon Silk Terms & Conditions) 30 days is a far cry from "permanent"How is this any different from what your ISP does, though? Everything goes through their servers, (if you live in America) their servers are located in America (usually, I guess) and are subject to US laws.
Ah ok, thanks for the info. And yes, the part about the ISPs are true. Even though they supposedly get rid of the data as well. Lets not forget about ATT and the NSA while we are discussing this. :hysterical:
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