Where's Vladuz? Wouldn't Ebay Inc like to Know!

The now legendary Romanian Hacker known as Vladuz hasn't been seen on any of the eBay Inc auction sites lately, however, it is interesting to note that, although his eBayCaptcha program was removed from the Mozilla FireFox plugins pages (at eBay's request?), it is now back online and available for download with a note added by Vladuz reading:

Some users (those who are unable to read pure open source code) are concerned about the security threats you might be exposing yourself by downloading this add-on.

A quick Google for 'Vladuz' will quickly reveal how he apparently got inside various staff systems at eBay and was able to post screenshots online. He later appeared in several eBay forums usinh the pink stripe reserved for staff members!

The updated page at Mozilla.org also carries a statement from Mike Shaver, Director of Ecosystem Development for Mozilla saying:

We have reviewed the add-on in question, and do not believe that it poses a risk to the user's security, as it doesn't transmit any data other than the "captcha token" to the service's web site. (Captchas are not a security measure that is meant to affect human users at a browser, so the process by which the form entry is filled should not affect the site's security - this add-on is roughly equivalent to asking someone to come to your computer and tell you what the captcha image says. The existence of this add-on does not affect whether the captcha system is subject to mechanical decoding, it simply seems to take advantage of the fact that this specific system is in order to simplify the login process for users of the site.) Ultimately, the user is in control of their browser and web experience, and the choice to streamline a login process is left in their hands. We caution all users to be careful when installing software, whether from our site or any other, of course.

Potential users will note that the registration process for the program has been removed. I've not tried the add-on but will you?

A lengthy and detailed discussion about the Vladuz V eBay affair is to be found here.