How is Facebook different from other advertising networks. All of them track you across the web, on any site that use them. Why is FB a special case?
Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says
141–150 of 208 posts
Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says
#142Firefox has a pretty neat feature I discovered recently: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec... It lets you run multiple sessions in one window, where each tab belongs to a specific session with separated cookies and such. I've got a bunch of tabs where I'm logged in to Facebook, another set where I'm logged in to Google and the rest of them where I'm not logged in to either. Of course they c…
Privacy Badger is also good for things like this: you can be logged into Facebook, but Privacy Badger will block requests to Facebook from third-party sites. https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
None of these measures protect you against tracking, though. And if they don't, why use them? It's better to be honest with yourself and admit how effective tracking is nowadays.
Your user agent plus unique plugin installations plus fonts installed equals a unique fingerprint across IP addresses. The above isn't an exhaustive list, either. There are dozens of tricks to track you.
Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Privacy Badger is also good for things like this: you can be logged into Facebook, but Privacy Badger will block requests to Facebook from third-party sites. https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
None of these measures protect you against tracking, though. And if they don't, why use them? It's better to be honest with yourself and admit how effective tracking is nowadays. Your user agent plus unique plugin installations plus fonts installed equals a unique fingerprint across IP addresses. The above isn't an exhaustive list, either. There are dozens of tricks to track you.
Facebook can't track you by those metrics if a filter like Privacy Badger blocks requests to their servers.
Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use the Tor browser for just Facebook. Stymies IP tracking, and I expect it to do more of the right things to deal with fingerprinting too. Plus it's super slow, encouraging me to not spend too much time on Facebook...
Why not just quit Facebook?
Messenger is the default mode of social organizing among almost all my friends, because everyone has it. I barely ever touch Facebook proper these days.
Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Privacy Badger is also good for things like this: you can be logged into Facebook, but Privacy Badger will block requests to Facebook from third-party sites. https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
Privacy Badger is great and goes way beyond other anti-tracking and ad blockers. They also keep an eye on a lot of the CDNs to make sure they're not running sneaky stuff like canvas finger-printing or using local storage to bypass various protections.
I just wish Privacy Badger didn't force DNT to be enabled. Not only does the entire concept mean trusting the advertising companies implicitly, the header serves to differentiate your traffic.
Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says
#146Firefox has a pretty neat feature I discovered recently: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec... It lets you run multiple sessions in one window, where each tab belongs to a specific session with separated cookies and such. I've got a bunch of tabs where I'm logged in to Facebook, another set where I'm logged in to Google and the rest of them where I'm not logged in to either. Of course they c…
The container tabs feature can also be enabled through the Firefox Test Pilot website (which has lots of other cool experimental features too).
Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like my Linux user agent is nearly trackable across IP addresses, so few people I know run Linux with Firefox version whatever... but yeah same here: cookies are a non-issue for me. I use a different solution though: self-destructing cookies. Once you closed a tab for more than X seconds (I configured 90 seconds I think), it deletes all cookies (and localstorage etc.) from that domain.
As a Firefox on Linux user I checked one of those sites that tries to estimate how many bits each public aspect of your setup reveals about you. It turned out available fonts was by far the most unique aspect of my setup.
The only surefire way is to disable javascript, extensions, cookies, etc. https://browserleaks.com has a pretty good breakdown of the different techniques you can use. There's another JS technique that probes the hardware to fingerprint a browser too.
http://yinzhicao.org/TrackingFree/crossbrowsertracking_NDSS1...
Use Tor Browser even if your not using Tor if you're looking for better privacy. It's modified to mitigate as much as possible. Facebook is just bad. Avoid it at all costs if you value privacy. And it's not just facebook. Sites like facebook, google, etc also use several 3rd party "advertising" (i.e. data gathering) companies to gather data and build profiles on users and share that data with each other. Even on your regular use browser I would highly recommend uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger.
Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says
#148My general fix for web tracking cookies:
HTTP requests sent from my browser page when viewing Foo.com to Bar.com have no cookies. Javascript is available to create an explicit pop-up requesting permission to share your cookies with Bar.com.
When I go to Foo.com, my relationship is with Foo.com. I'm okay with being tracked by Foo.com when I'm on Foo.com, but if bar.com is going to track me then I want to be asked.
That said, Foo and Bar could still share information about me directly without going through my browser, but without the cookie feature it would be very hard for Foo and Bar's profiles on the person Pxtl are the same person.
Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of these measures protect you against tracking, though. And if they don't, why use them? It's better to be honest with yourself and admit how effective tracking is nowadays. Your user agent plus unique plugin installations plus fonts installed equals a unique fingerprint across IP addresses. The above isn't an exhaustive list, either. There are dozens of tricks to track you.
Facebook can't track you by those metrics if a filter like Privacy Badger blocks requests to their servers.
Is it really that effective? I admit I assumed it was hard to dodge the global advertisement apparatus, but maybe it's possible.
Example: jQuery is sometimes hosted on Google CDNs. You can't block that request without breaking the site, right? But that request sends all your info.
Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says
#150Proper English should have been: "Facebook may track your browsing even after...". The judge can rule about lawfulness, otherwise it looks like they are a investigative reporter that just found out about the technical capability to track users in such a way.
I tried s/can/may/ above but it sounds archaic to my ear. It may be proper English but if it's fallen out of common usage, putting it up would be distracting too.