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No boundaries: Exfiltration of personal data by session-replay scripts

freedom-to-tinker.com

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Re: No boundaries: Exfiltration of personal data by session-replay scripts

#2
Does anyone know if ublock origin blocks this kind of stuff? Yet another reason to never disable it. I'm starting to realize it's a lot more than an ad blocker, but more like a firewall to protect the client against malicious sites with crypto miners, trackers and this stuff...

Re: No boundaries: Exfiltration of personal data by session-replay scripts

#3

Does anyone know if ublock origin blocks this kind of stuff? Yet another reason to never disable it. I'm starting to realize it's a lot more than an ad blocker, but more like a firewall to protect the client against malicious sites with crypto miners, trackers and this stuff...

Hi, one of the authors here. We discuss this in the last section of the post. uBlock Origin uses lists to determine which requests to block. We tested the two largest, EasyList and EasyPrivacy, and both fail to block scripts from FullStory, Smartlook, and UserReplay.

Re: No boundaries: Exfiltration of personal data by session-replay scripts

#6
DAMMIT. Once again the question that immediately come to mind is "Why the FUCK do browsers facilitate this shit?"

C'mon you stupid web devs on HN tell me again all your excuses to need these capabilities. Sorry to generalize to all those of you who don't do this, but many of you still want those capabilities that have opened the door. And those browser devs... It's like they compete to sell out the users by adding "features".

Re: No boundaries: Exfiltration of personal data by session-replay scripts

#7

Does anyone know if ublock origin blocks this kind of stuff? Yet another reason to never disable it. I'm starting to realize it's a lot more than an ad blocker, but more like a firewall to protect the client against malicious sites with crypto miners, trackers and this stuff...

Hi, one of the authors here. We discuss this in the last section of the post. uBlock Origin uses lists to determine which requests to block. We tested the two largest, EasyList and EasyPrivacy, and both fail to block scripts from FullStory, Smartlook, and UserReplay.

How about NoScript, RequestPolicy, and Privoxy?

Were the blocking capabilities of any of these tested by your team?

Re: No boundaries: Exfiltration of personal data by session-replay scripts

#8
post #6

DAMMIT. Once again the question that immediately come to mind is "Why the FUCK do browsers facilitate this shit?" C'mon you stupid web devs on HN tell me again all your excuses to need these capabilities. Sorry to generalize to all those of you who don't do this, but many of you still want those capabilities that have opened the door. And those browser devs... It's like they compete to sell out the users by adding "f…

[deleted]

Re: No boundaries: Exfiltration of personal data by session-replay scripts

#9
post #6

DAMMIT. Once again the question that immediately come to mind is "Why the FUCK do browsers facilitate this shit?" C'mon you stupid web devs on HN tell me again all your excuses to need these capabilities. Sorry to generalize to all those of you who don't do this, but many of you still want those capabilities that have opened the door. And those browser devs... It's like they compete to sell out the users by adding "f…

> but many of you still want those capabilities that have opened the door

Rest assured the majority of (web) developers does not like this crap a bit. Most of the pressure to add hundreds of analytics toolkits, trackers or these snoopers come from marketing - they (or worse, the C-level execs) get convinced that they need to integrate tool XYZ to "stay competitive" or "improve their customer retention" or whatever buzzword goes today, and the devs at the bottom of the chain are left to implement it.

Re: No boundaries: Exfiltration of personal data by session-replay scripts

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, one of the authors here. We discuss this in the last section of the post. uBlock Origin uses lists to determine which requests to block. We tested the two largest, EasyList and EasyPrivacy, and both fail to block scripts from FullStory, Smartlook, and UserReplay.

How about NoScript, RequestPolicy, and Privoxy? Were the blocking capabilities of any of these tested by your team?

Assuming it's used correctly ,noscript/requestpolicy should block these as they are 3rd party s
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