AliExpress runs silent WebAudio fingerprinting that breaks Bluetooth multipoint

Post by john_strinlai » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 7:12 PM UTC

Bjartr wrote: post #220

lxgr wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there are two levels of fingerprinting here, and a lot of the confusion is downstream of not properly distinguishing them: There's the kind that tries to find out what browser vendor, OS, and sometimes hardware you use, and the kind that tries to identify you across visits, unrelated origins etc. I agree that the former is probably inherently impossible to avoid to a large extent, but the latter is both a…

I've only encountered the latter described as fingerprinting. Which makes sense side, like fingerprints, the information is being used to uniquely identify an individual. The former is traditional analytics and is not enough to uniquely identify an individual. Not all analytics are as privacy invasive as fingerprinting.

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 7:14 PM UTC

mgerdts wrote: post #244

retrac wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the Bluetooth; when Bluetooth connects most hearing aids reduce the environmental volume slightly so you can hear the streaming content. Some app has started to play audio (perhaps silently). I notice it on some websites. How much HAs reduce environmental sounds when streaming is configurable by the way, but only by the audiologist if you don't have your own programmer. I don't like the effect and prefer to just…

Is this tunable per hearing program? When in an even moderately noisy environment I find myself switching to AirPods if I’m streaming. I would love for the HA to give separate controls for BT audio vs ambient like AirPods do.

Post by MattGrommes » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 7:23 PM UTC

VladVladikoff wrote: post #223

lxgr wrote: post #157

I wish such shenanigans would simply trigger the little speaker icon most browser display on tabs these days. Given that they don't (at least in my experience), I'm assuming "playing silent audio" is a sufficiently common thing for websites to do to have motivated browsers into doing the slightly more complicated thing of actually analyzing audio streams for content... Now I wonder, does this also allow websites to c…

Recently I have been getting a request from chrome for access to local network devices. I can’t figure out which site I’m visiting is doing this, because the request doesn’t specify which tab. I would LOVE a little icon for something like that.

Post by ajsnigrutin » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 7:40 PM UTC

emctech wrote: post #169

lxgr wrote: post #157

I wish such shenanigans would simply trigger the little speaker icon most browser display on tabs these days. Given that they don't (at least in my experience), I'm assuming "playing silent audio" is a sufficiently common thing for websites to do to have motivated browsers into doing the slightly more complicated thing of actually analyzing audio streams for content... Now I wonder, does this also allow websites to c…

I wonder if it is something firefox and chrome devs need to look at because if it is accessing the audio device surely it should be notified to the user.

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 7:51 PM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #175

mgerdts wrote: post #59

With my previous hearing aid I noticed that visiting a wide variety of web sites would cause a change in the amplification of environmental noise. I always assumed it was doing something with Bluetooth, and probably not for a good reason. This is with an iPhone 13 and one Kirkland/phonak hearing aid. I haven’t noticed this recently, but I also now have two newer Phonak hearing aids and a few iOS updates have happened…

It seems far more likely that your cheap hearing aids are sensitive to certain RF frequencies and the background javascript is causing different patterns of load on the phone's CPU. I would suspect that this only happens when you're charging and it is likely the charger or cable not being properly shielded.