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[tor-bugs] #31740 [Applications/Tor Browser]: Review RemoteSettings usages in esr68



#31740: Review RemoteSettings usages in esr68
-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------
     Reporter:  acat                 |      Owner:  tbb-team
         Type:  defect               |     Status:  new
     Priority:  Medium               |  Milestone:
    Component:  Applications/Tor     |    Version:
  Browser                            |   Keywords:  ff68-esr
     Severity:  Normal               |  TorBrowserTeam201909
Actual Points:                       |  Parent ID:
       Points:                       |   Reviewer:
      Sponsor:                       |
-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------
 `RemoteSettings` (https://firefox-source-
 docs.mozilla.org/main/68.0/services/common/services/RemoteSettings.html)
 is now used for several features as a way to synchronize some local state
 (collections, sets of records) with some remote state that Mozilla
 controls. I did not review the protocol, but the way I understand it is
 that there are periodical polls to the server with an etag header
 (last_timestamp, returned by the server in a previous poll) which return
 the list of changes since that timestamp. I think this etag may be quite
 close to a user identifier, so Mozilla's servers could probably link
 together all the RemoteSettings request can get is the sequence of all
 'RemoteSettings polls' for a user. Not sure how much you can guess about
 the user with that, though.

 In any case, opening this to decide/review which ones of the usages of
 RemoteSettings we need or not. The `RemoteSettings` one is probably a
 subset of the requests happening in background, but I guess it's a start.
 I'm listing files where `RemoteSettings` are used. My understanding is
 that just calling `RemoteSettings('acollectionname')` will start the
 syncing mechanism, meaning that there will be requests polling in
 background 'from time to time'.


 * `browser/components/newtab/{lib/ASRouter.jsm, lib/FaviconFeed.jsm,
 lib/PersonalityProvider.jsm, lib/SiteClassifier.jsm}`
   * These should not be run if we disable Activity Stream (#31575).

 * `toolkit/components/normandy/lib/RecipeRunner.jsm`
   * I think this will not be run, since the `RemoteSettings` is created
 lazily when `gRemoteSettingsClient` is accessed, and that should not
 happen since we have `datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled = false`.

 * `toolkit/components/search/SearchService.jsm`
   * Used to update the "ignore list settings" which can be used to
 remotely "ignore" search engines? I think we can remove this one.

 * `browser/components/preferences/browserLanguages.js`
   * There is a dump for this one in `services/settings/dumps/main
 /language-dictionaries.json`. It seems to be a mapping of locale to
 dictionary ids. We probably have to keep this one if we want to allow
 changing UI language in `about:preferences`, via Mozilla's language packs.

 * `netwerk/url-classifier/UrlClassifierSkipListService.jsm`
   * If I understand it correctly, this is used for content blocking, to be
 able to skip some steps ("features") for specific urls. I guess to be able
 to fix antitracking breakage remotely? We should not need this one if we
 don't plan to make it possible to enable content blocking/mozilla's
 antitracking.

 * `security/manager/ssl/RemoteSecuritySettings.jsm`
   * Intermediate certificate preloading. There is #30682 to decide what to
 do with this.

 Finally some blocklists, I think some of them we already have in esr60,
 but not all? Not completely sure, but I would say it's better to keep
 these?

 * `services/common/blocklist-clients.js`
   * onecrl (already in esr60).
   * pinning blocklist (related to HPKP? not sure if it's in esr60).

 * `toolkit/mozapps/extensions/Blocklist.jsm` (these were already in esr60)
   * extensions blocklist
   * plugins blocklist
   * gfx blocklist

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/31740>
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/>
The Tor Project: anonymity online
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