Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Browser Fingerprint Detector

fingerprint.goldenowl.ai

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 70 posts

Re: Browser Fingerprint Detector

#41

Post by socalgal2 »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #37

Ah... I was here wondering why browsers don't just run sites in a built-in virtual containers..allowing the same reports of the same hardware for everyone. especially for WebGL and canvas fingerprinting. I suppose someone might say it is about performance of going through a virtual layer? I understandit might break specialized 3D web-apps...but for common web-browsing? idk. Do people regularly use web-based app that…

people regularly use Google Maps and video conferencing apps (Zoom, Meet, FB Messenger, ...) all of which use the GPU. Maps to be able to customize the map based on what your point of interest is. VC apps to do background blur, addons, etc...

Re: Browser Fingerprint Detector

#42

Post by ranger_danger »

everdrive wrote: post #21

I'm deeply confused by a lot of the privacy discourse here. There seems to be opposing goals between preventing the fingerprinting mechanisms and just preventing uniqueness. Under the "preventing uniqueness" model, my Linux computer with custom Firefox and no fonts, and no js, etc. is the "most fingerprint-able" because it's the most unique. Whereas grandma on Windows and Chrome is "less unique," and therefore in som…

The comment by gruez is accurate IMO.

Creepjs actually tries to detect what your browser is lying about and takes that into consideration (or not) based on its heuristics.

I'm still not aware of any FOSS browser (with JS actually enabled and functioning) that can produce a random fingerprint ID on every refresh of the creepjs test site.

But please prove me wrong.

Re: Browser Fingerprint Detector

#43

Post by aerostable_slug »

everdrive wrote: post #21

I'm deeply confused by a lot of the privacy discourse here. There seems to be opposing goals between preventing the fingerprinting mechanisms and just preventing uniqueness. Under the "preventing uniqueness" model, my Linux computer with custom Firefox and no fonts, and no js, etc. is the "most fingerprint-able" because it's the most unique. Whereas grandma on Windows and Chrome is "less unique," and therefore in som…

I used to work in adtech a long while back. We found that our system could effectively target people who tried not to be targeted. By that I mean we realized a better ROI that without said targeting and click-throughs & conversions were happening for our customers at a nice rate.

At the end of the day the object of the exercise is generally less about building a perfect profile of a person and a lot more about getting said person to buy something. We found our system worked very well at figuring out what ads worked on privacy-conscious people and our customers saw a nice ROI from it.

In fact, it turns out pro-privacy technically skilled people cluster nicely and it's entirely possible to sell them stuff, and their attempts to be less 'profileable' than normal actually helped our mission (which was advertising, an endeavor that in my experience doesn't GAF about violating a given person's privacy in the way the pro-privacy crowd often thinks it does).

Take from that what you will.

Re: Browser Fingerprint Detector

#44

Post by gruez »

throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #34
gruez wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- Firefox sends some dummy data when making use of privacy.resistFingerprinting, and so you should get a unique fingerprint _every time_ you visit a site, so the fact alone that you're unique might potentially not matter if you're _differently_ unique every time you visit the site. Is there a flaw in this line of thinking? Yes, because those randomized results can be detected, and that can be incorporated into your…

Advertisers try to reidentify and match you against their database, the less information you give them and the more randomized it is, the less certain they can be, its you again. If i use my locked down firefox with a VPN where potentially a hand full other brills like me come out on the other end, i am not concerned about them building a profile of me.

>Advertisers try to reidentify and match you against their database, the less information you give them and the more randomized it is, the less certain they can be, its you again.

This assumes the randomization is done properly, otherwise it just turns into a signal of "installs privacy extensions", which can still be used for targeting, as a sibling commenter has mentioned.

Re: Browser Fingerprint Detector

#45

Post by chipsrafferty »

dylan604 wrote: post #10
maelito wrote: post #5

This is why privacy must be enforced by states, their laws and a powerful public enforcement agency. You cannot expect people to technically protect themselves from tracking. (you can invite them to not use abusing services though)

> (you can invite them to not use abusing services though) First, you'd have to define how one can determine what an abusive service is. Is Facebook an abusive service? Is some random website that happens to use FB's SDK an abusive service? How does a normie internet user find out the site they are using has abusive code? Some plugin/extension that has a moderated list that prevents a page from loading and instead lo…

> Is Facebook an abusive service?

Yes

> Is some random website that happens to use FB's SDK an abusive service?

Yes

Re: Browser Fingerprint Detector

#46

Post by chipsrafferty »

malshe wrote: post #40
elenchev wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes but then you become a "suspicious user" and you have to fill 100 CPATCHAs every day at this point browser fingerprinting is a feature, not a bug

I second this. I tried to use Tor browser for a day in place of my regular browser. Many websites wouldn't open and the ones that dud asked me to fill in thousand captchas.

Even the unmodified Firefox browser with a few of the privacy settings turned on break a lot of sites.

Re: Browser Fingerprint Detector

#47

Post by everdrive »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #43
everdrive wrote: post #21

I'm deeply confused by a lot of the privacy discourse here. There seems to be opposing goals between preventing the fingerprinting mechanisms and just preventing uniqueness. Under the "preventing uniqueness" model, my Linux computer with custom Firefox and no fonts, and no js, etc. is the "most fingerprint-able" because it's the most unique. Whereas grandma on Windows and Chrome is "less unique," and therefore in som…

I used to work in adtech a long while back. We found that our system could effectively target people who tried not to be targeted. By that I mean we realized a better ROI that without said targeting and click-throughs & conversions were happening for our customers at a nice rate. At the end of the day the object of the exercise is generally less about building a perfect profile of a person and a lot more about gettin…

Can you describe in more detail what sort of techniques were used to target and track people? What sort of privacy mitigations were feckless?

Re: Browser Fingerprint Detector

#48

Post by everdrive »

ranger_danger wrote: post #42
everdrive wrote: post #21

I'm deeply confused by a lot of the privacy discourse here. There seems to be opposing goals between preventing the fingerprinting mechanisms and just preventing uniqueness. Under the "preventing uniqueness" model, my Linux computer with custom Firefox and no fonts, and no js, etc. is the "most fingerprint-able" because it's the most unique. Whereas grandma on Windows and Chrome is "less unique," and therefore in som…

The comment by gruez is accurate IMO. Creepjs actually tries to detect what your browser is lying about and takes that into consideration (or not) based on its heuristics. I'm still not aware of any FOSS browser (with JS actually enabled and functioning) that can produce a random fingerprint ID on every refresh of the creepjs test site. But please prove me wrong.

I've never heard of creepjs, are there more resources about it and where it's used?

Re: Browser Fingerprint Detector

#49

Post by everdrive »

socalgal2 wrote: post #38
everdrive wrote: post #21

I'm deeply confused by a lot of the privacy discourse here. There seems to be opposing goals between preventing the fingerprinting mechanisms and just preventing uniqueness. Under the "preventing uniqueness" model, my Linux computer with custom Firefox and no fonts, and no js, etc. is the "most fingerprint-able" because it's the most unique. Whereas grandma on Windows and Chrome is "less unique," and therefore in som…

You are correct, the discussion is often unthoughtful and spun. > the bulk of the population an advertiser would actually care about would be the huge middle of the bell curve on Chrome using Windows The middle of the bell curve in the USA would be an iPhone and there is very little you can customize. So many people have the same model with the same settings that trying to track by fingerprinting is effectively usele…

I definitely agree with you point, but I think that's what I'm wondering about? Can it actually be filtered out, and are tracking companies actually do this in practice, or is it like when someone says they bridge an airgap by making two computer's RF spectrum do funny things? Possible in a lab, yes. Something most people need to worry about? No.

I'm not saying this _isn't_ the case for tracking -- I just don't have much of a way to know what techniques are actually being employed in real life.

Post reply on HN