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A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking

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Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking

#181

Post by al_borland »

reenorap wrote: post #107

How do we get our browser to stop sending all this information? It's really maddening.

I tried it with a VPN running and in the Mullvad browser and it got all the big stuff wrong.

Where are you was sent to another location due to the VPN, this was all it really impacted. When you arrived was wrong because of the Mullvad browser, even without the VPN enabled it reports that I'm in Reykjavik, which I'm not. What you brought with you, it got the resolution wrong, as the browser locks itself to various resolutions to prevent this kind of fingerprinting. GPU and Battery both say "kept back", I assume this means it couldn't get anything, because when I run in Safari it says Apple GPU.

Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking

#182

Post by Cider9986 »

pixel_popping wrote: post #127
Cider9986 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They track us around the web.

But anybody knows (in tech I mean) that a browser client leak a lot of things and sustained tracking is easy even cross-browsers (and cross-devices too with more advanced techniques), including history (easy to know which websites were visited with timing analysis in loops and iteration), it falls on the responsibility of the user to achieve privacy, but it requires heavy sacrifices that frankly most users are not wi…

I would never use NordVPN–I think their marketing is deceptive and they don't accept private payments, among other issues, but there is a big difference between the VPN collecting data and just their website. Bitwarden has a privacy respecting pw manager, but their website uses analytics.

Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking

#184

Post by shimman »

cortesoft wrote: post #162
pfortuny wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My students are essentially forced to use MS services. So... there is that. So am I, come to think of it.

That seems more of an issue with the school, though, rather than the actual web request. In this case, there IS a prior agreement between the school and MS, so there can be additional expectations about how that works.

I didn't know the browser made an agreement between myself and it. Here I am thinking that I am forced to use monopolistic tech because I a US citizen have zero say in the direction of technology in the country, that's decided by undemocratic financiers gambling with pension funds in SF. Silly me.

Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking

#185

Post by shimman »

Matheus28 wrote: post #158
scotty79 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browser volunteering an angle at which I'm holding my phone is a bit surprising.

Why? Some web apps might want to present a different interface if you’re in landscape.

You don't need an angle for that. That is highly invasive and can be used to target unique individuals. Why not default to a pro-human oriented mindset rather than pro-corporation?

Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking

#187

Post by wtallis »

Matheus28 wrote: post #158
scotty79 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browser volunteering an angle at which I'm holding my phone is a bit surprising.

Why? Some web apps might want to present a different interface if you’re in landscape.

That's much more reliably conveyed by looking at the viewport dimensions.

Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking

#188

Post by jrumbut »

cortesoft wrote: post #149

Maybe it's just because I am old, or have worked on internet software for almost 30 years, but none of this seems surprising or even concerning? Someone sets up a server that accepts connections to it and then someone sends a connection request to it. There has been no agreement on anything, no expectations or rules established. No one forces the server to accept any connection request it gets, and no one forces some…

The location it chose was laughably inaccurate (and since I'm the kind of person who posts here I know why). Censoring the IP address was a little cheesy, but down at the bottom it gets better.

It knew how much my phone was charged and it made correct inferences about my device. It accurately read my gyroscope, how I interacted with the touch screen, and it demonstrated (not new knowledge to me but probably interesting to the general public) how these things could be used to identify you and also to make inferences about you (if you are sitting, standing, lying down, etc).

It starts slow but it got interesting.

Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking

#190

Post by shimman »

jwally wrote: post #156
cush wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of fingerprinting this page reveals pales in comparison to what actually happens in the wild

its ease is also vastly inflated. If it was as simple as this site makes it out to be, companies like fingerprint.com don't exist.

Don't know about easy but their JS lib doing this is quite good:

https://github.com/fingerprintjs/fingerprintjs

Honestly surprised to see it licensed as MIT now too. It was something less permissive before. They aren't doing anything too crazy, more like being the first ones to be open about it.

I couldn't imagine what else companies like Google or Meta or TikTok can extract out of it that no one else can't. Integrations aren't exactly hard to make, quality is hard yes, but making half assed plumbing is sufficient too.

Those advertisers benefit from monopolistic markets with zero regulation while owning the platforms they sell advertising on that requires their explicit malware in order to use, what is unique about their finger printing versus what fingerprintjs provides?

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