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Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says

theguardian.com

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Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says

#161

Post by Lazy_Killer »

>Davila said that plaintiffs could have taken steps to keep their browsing histories private, for example by using the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out tool or using “incognito mode”

I just used the WebChoices "opt-out". And my guess is that the judge has no idea how it works.

1. It tracks your browser, it "scans" your browser so it knows which browser not to track. A catch 22 that, im sure the judge was unaware of.

2. 1/2 of the opt-outs where unavailable, meaning that they did not receive my request. Meaning that they will continue to track me unless I keep coming back and trying to send them my information.

3. Of those company's that did not receive my request, one was facebook. Whose "opt-out" is "currently unavailable".

My guess is that on appeal they will get a trial.

Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says

#162

Post by Radio_Killer »

At least you can go without Facebook. You probably won't have much of a social life, but who needs that anyway.

The problem is that you can't go without Internet service, and when the ISP starts doing these things, your only options to protect yourself will be to either not connect to the net or use a VPN.

If you choose the latter, make sure its a non-US VPN. That's what I plan to do. The non-US VPN will not only stop the likes of AT&T and Comcast from mining surfing habits, but it will also piss off the intelligence community that is watching everyone without a warrant or probable cause.

Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says

#163

Post by odammit »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #72
m_eiman wrote: post #15

Firefox 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…

Old Opera used to have each tab being a separate environment. For some reason we are mostly back to "private windows" now, which aren't separate at all between each other.

Safari in private mode operates that way if you're on Mac.

Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says

#164

Post by pyre »

JetSpiegel wrote: post #100
pyre wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, Facebook could design their social media widgets in a way that doesn't require the user to send a GET request to Facebook unless the user actively clicks to share.

Also know as a link. That's not Web 3.0 enough.

Most of these sites don't want you to navigate away from their page. They would rather you can share without leaving their site (i.e. a dialog pops up that allows you to create your Facebook "share" post, and submit it).

Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says

#165

Post by dmix »

Karunamon wrote: post #145
civilitty wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're worried about browser fingerprinting? Does any Firefox extension effectively counter that?

From my understanding blocking 3rd party JS is largely insufficient for accomplishing this, regardless of DNT settings.

You may be right regardless that it's better to appear as much like a stock browser as possible, in terms of privacy settings, so DNT should stay disabled. But in practical terms it might not make of a difference.

Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says

#166

Post by rdslw »

j1f4 wrote: post #105
lucb1e wrote: post #52

Earlier 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.

UserAgent is still top culprit (16 bits of identifying information) followed by browser plugins (12bits) then WebGl (12b), canvas (9b), language (if not english nor chinese) and then fonts at 5bits.

Total is around 20bits (due to overlaps).

YMMV.

Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says

#167

Post by mahyarm »

m_eiman wrote: post #15

Firefox 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…

I do something similar with chrome users. I like it better because each 'user' is a separate window and I can color scheme which one i'm in with browser themes. The setup takes a while initially although.

Having multiple container tabs on the same window can be hard to manage & track, at least with the way brave presented it with their numbered session tabs.

Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says

#168

Post by DavideNL »

brainfire wrote: post #18
m_eiman wrote: post #15

Firefox 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…

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...

...in case you want to block all Facebook ip's to prevent any tracking (the method described is for macOS' firewall): https://www.perpetual-beta.org/weblog/blocking-facebook-on-o...

Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says

#169

Post by problems »

dmix wrote: post #165
Karunamon wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're worried about browser fingerprinting? Does any Firefox extension effectively counter that? From my understanding blocking 3rd party JS is largely insufficient for accomplishing this, regardless of DNT settings. You may be right regardless that it's better to appear as much like a stock browser as possible, in terms of privacy settings, so DNT should stay disabled. But in practical terms it might not make of a…

Simple blockers actually do a lot of good here - because many of the things that will fingerprint you are not first party sites but 3rd party ad scripts.

Re: Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says

#170

Post by problems »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #149
mintplant wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, it's really that effective - blocking the facebook like button doesn't break most websites.

And typically a request for something like jquery from a CDN will contain little more than your IP address and cookies. You can even prevent the cookies from being sent if you want. The only way they could get away with more than this would be to modifying the resulting script to grab more info from your machine.

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