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Show HN: GlassBox – what the browser reveals, and how identifiable you are

glassbox.codecanary.org

21–30 of 73 posts

Re: Show HN: GlassBox – what the browser reveals, and how identifiable you are

#23
post #8

It's horrifying to see that our browsers give up anything at all. I feel like we need a new model where we just get served the content, and we don't serve up anything to the content provider. I feel ill.

How would you prevent that? If you want to use a feature, you need to know if that feature is available. So you add methods/functions to ensure that you can fail gracefully when something is not available. That availability is the fingerprint. I don't blame the browsers as much as asshats using the tool for malicious purposes. We're not going to ban hammers because someone uses them for things other than driving nail…

need to license swe just like real engineers and make them have a responsibility to the public

Re: Show HN: GlassBox – what the browser reveals, and how identifiable you are

#24
post #3

This doesn’t seem right. 1 in 6.2 billion for Firefox on an iphone, not including ip/network uniqueness? Seems more plausible that anti-fingerprinting is throwing it off?

Some of the data seems straight-up wrong. I know this computer has more RAM than reported and it's definitely not on a 4G network either.

It got facebook pixel wrong. I see zero DNS requests to facebook.com on NextDNS

Re: Show HN: GlassBox – what the browser reveals, and how identifiable you are

#25
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the data seems straight-up wrong. I know this computer has more RAM than reported and it's definitely not on a 4G network either.

The APIs it's relying on to show you that information do implement some anti-fingerprinting mechanisms - things like available memory will be put into rough buckets rather than returning the exact amount you have.

[dead]

Re: Show HN: GlassBox – what the browser reveals, and how identifiable you are

#28

Pretty sure someone else also promoted Claude to make something like this and posted it a few weeks back.

Recently discussed prompts:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48727059 [flagged] What any website can see about you

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48062178 A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49182352 Show HN: Modern Browsers Don't Need the Cookie Anymore

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46517654 [flagged] Show HN: DevicePrint – device fingerprinting without cookies

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46037031 Show HN: Explore what the browser exposes about you

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45169286 Browser Fingerprint Detector

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49359153 A live browser fingerprinting and bot detection playground

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46674460 Show HN: Anti-Detect.com – Browser Fingerprint Scanner

There are definitely more! Could this be HN's favourite prompt?

Re: Show HN: GlassBox – what the browser reveals, and how identifiable you are

#29

Interesting work! Would randomnize the least frequent used fonts, apis and settings be an way to anti-fingerprinting?

Fun fact: some malware won't execute if it sees a Russian/Ukrainian keyboard layout, because the authors avoid hitting victims in their own jurisdiction.

Re: Show HN: GlassBox – what the browser reveals, and how identifiable you are

#30
post #23
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you prevent that? If you want to use a feature, you need to know if that feature is available. So you add methods/functions to ensure that you can fail gracefully when something is not available. That availability is the fingerprint. I don't blame the browsers as much as asshats using the tool for malicious purposes. We're not going to ban hammers because someone uses them for things other than driving nail…

need to license swe just like real engineers and make them have a responsibility to the public

And what about SWE from outside whatever jurisdiction that body issues those licenses? You cannot regulate your way out of tech problem if everyone is not subject to said regulations. Why people keep making comments like this is beyond me.
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