Block Fingerprinting with Firefox • Hacker News Board

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#51

Post by abdullahkhalids » Thu, May 30, 2019, 9:02 PM UTC

Twirrim wrote: post #42

xvector wrote: post #15

Can someone paste their results (or at least bits of fingerprinting entropy) from https://panopticlick.eff.org with the latest Firefox? With the fancy new anti-fingerprinting Safari on macOS Mojave I get just over 14.5 bits of entropy with the most entropic source being my canvas fingerprint (1 in 600). With Safari on iOS I get 11.71 bits of entropy, with the most entropic value being my screen size and color depth.

Interestingly enough, uBlock Origin actually stops that site from working, seems to break the fingerprinting step. If i disable uBlock, I get 16.63 bits of identifying information. Likewise the canvas fingerprint is the biggest, in my case 1 in 101154.

I have ublock origin. The website works fine. I have all the default filters on.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#52

Post by ycombonator » Thu, May 30, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

Is there a test to check whether a site is fingerprinting ?

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#53

Post by banachtarski » Thu, May 30, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

Serious question. Suppose we have this. I suppose my expectation is that instead of seeing the same ad over and over again, now I'm seeing effectively a random one.

Why is this necessarily better? I guess personally, I've always thought that regulating the content of the ads, rather than the usage of sufficiently anonymized data for ad targeting.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#54

Post by wybiral » Thu, May 30, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

I've been really impressed with Firefox Quantum for the steps they've taken towards privacy and transparency.

This definitely seems like the edge that Mozilla will have when trying to stand out against Chromium-based browsers going forward (especially now that everyone else seems to base their browser off of Chromium).

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#55

Post by herrvogel- » Thu, May 30, 2019, 9:07 PM UTC

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #46

xvector wrote: post #15

Can someone paste their results (or at least bits of fingerprinting entropy) from https://panopticlick.eff.org with the latest Firefox? With the fancy new anti-fingerprinting Safari on macOS Mojave I get just over 14.5 bits of entropy with the most entropic source being my canvas fingerprint (1 in 600). With Safari on iOS I get 11.71 bits of entropy, with the most entropic value being my screen size and color depth.

17.62 bits on firefox, 11.0 on Tor, 17.63 on chrome. On firefox, the big contributors are HTTP headers (my native language is announced), hash of WebGl fingerprint and time zone. On Tor big contributors are hash of webGL fingerprint, screen size. On chrome, they are system fonts, hash of canvas fingerprint, user agent, and time zone. I am not too concerned about the fingerprinting in firefox since I have strict block…

> Based on the small amount of data facebook has on me ...

How did you get all data, that facebook has on you?

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#56

Post by samirm » Thu, May 30, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #15

Can someone paste their results (or at least bits of fingerprinting entropy) from https://panopticlick.eff.org with the latest Firefox? With the fancy new anti-fingerprinting Safari on macOS Mojave I get just over 14.5 bits of entropy with the most entropic source being my canvas fingerprint (1 in 600). With Safari on iOS I get 11.71 bits of entropy, with the most entropic value being my screen size and color depth.

> 9.93 bits of identifying information.

with this new setting turned on + uBlock Origin + NoScript

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#57

Post by ChrisSD » Thu, May 30, 2019, 9:09 PM UTC

ngokevin wrote: post #32

OJFord wrote: post #2

> You probably wouldn’t appreciate someone tracking your moves in real life. There’s no reason to accept it online. Great to read something like this on mozilla.org.

Kind of funny though, the vast majority of Mozilla's money comes from the ads and tracking industry, just one step removed.

The irony is they tried diversifying their income. But people don't want their browser to ask for donations (that's nagging). They don't want their new tab page pre-populated with websites on a new install (even if their browsing overwrites them). They don't want "fun" additions to advertise TV shows (even if they're opt-in).

But they're happy to pay via google's search and tracking. Mozilla doesn't have a lot of options open to them.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#58

Post by jeena » Thu, May 30, 2019, 9:09 PM UTC

banachtarski wrote: post #53

Serious question. Suppose we have this. I suppose my expectation is that instead of seeing the same ad over and over again, now I'm seeing effectively a random one. Why is this necessarily better? I guess personally, I've always thought that regulating the content of the ads, rather than the usage of sufficiently anonymized data for ad targeting.

Ads that are not targeted don't have such huge impact on you as the targeted ones and therefor they don't trick you to buy something you don't need as easily which is good for you and the environment.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#59

Post by treve » Thu, May 30, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

banachtarski wrote: post #53

Serious question. Suppose we have this. I suppose my expectation is that instead of seeing the same ad over and over again, now I'm seeing effectively a random one. Why is this necessarily better? I guess personally, I've always thought that regulating the content of the ads, rather than the usage of sufficiently anonymized data for ad targeting.

Getting a targeted advertising that is likely relevant to you is probably one of the few positives of tracking.

The issue people have with tracking is not 'what ad am I getting on a given website'. To get a targeted ad they need to maintain a database of privacy infringing information. 3rd parties having this data, and what they might do it with it (or who they might lose the data to) is what many people have an issue with.

Being served a targetted ad is just a strong signal that someone out there has this private data on you.

For example, chances are that google has a pretty rich database of your location history. If not you specifically, they do for most people. You can probably imagine a few different scenarios where someone else obtaining that data could be bad for someone. You're trusting google with it, but is that trust warranted?

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#60

Post by wybiral » Thu, May 30, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #15

Can someone paste their results (or at least bits of fingerprinting entropy) from https://panopticlick.eff.org with the latest Firefox? With the fancy new anti-fingerprinting Safari on macOS Mojave I get just over 14.5 bits of entropy with the most entropic source being my canvas fingerprint (1 in 600). With Safari on iOS I get 11.71 bits of entropy, with the most entropic value being my screen size and color depth.

I wonder if these fingerprint checks look for the more stealthy and sinister approaches, like localhost port scanning [1] and specific CSS selector behavior...?

[1] https://twitter.com/davywtf/status/1132026581038190592