Judge: FBI does not have to disclose Firefox leak to Mozilla

A US judge has ruled that the FBI does not have to disclose a Firefox leak to Mozilla. The investigative service used the vulnerability in the Firefox-based Tor browser to track down suspects in a child pornography case.

A week ago, Mozilla demanded in court that the FBI disclose the leak, because there is a risk that it will be used by others. The FBI had previously denied this request. Reuters writes that the judge has rejected the request and that in its decision it has determined that Mozilla should address its request to the US government. The US Department of Justice had asked the judge last week to deny the request to ensure national security.

It is not certain that the vulnerability is actually present in Firefox, but Mozilla and ACLU researcher Christopher Soghoian assume that. The vulnerability is said to have been used to identify suspects in the ‘Playpen’ child pornography case, although they took advantage of the anonymity provided by the Tor browser. During the investigation, the site was hosted by the FBI for two weeks to identify the 214,898 members.

Mozilla wants to find out the vulnerability, because according to the company this is the safest way to fix it and protect users.