HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinter
browserleaks.com
HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinter
1–10 of 13 posts
Re: HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinter
#2Note that this is browser fingerprinting, not necessarily the user of the browser. Useful to detect spoofed User-Agent strings, not sure to what end though.
Re: HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinter
#3Seems strange that it couldn't identify my pretty-stock Safari 8.0.3...
Re: HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinter
#4General Conclusion It is very likely that you are using [Firefox] on [Windows]
(Aurora/Developer Edition on Arch Linux)
I understand that they can figure out that I'm running some variation of FF, but .. why would it think this is Windows?
Re: HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinter
#5Interesting, but needing User-Agent string to determine the fingerprint in the first place makes it a lot less useful in my mind.
Re: HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinter
#6General Conclusion It is very likely that you are using [Firefox] on [Windows] (Aurora/Developer Edition on Arch Linux) I understand that they can figure out that I'm running some variation of FF, but .. why would it think this is Windows?
It looks like they haven't got any logic, they just did the experiment on a bunch of known systems and checked what the resulting image was.
Re: HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinter
#7General Conclusion It is very likely that you are using [Firefox] on [Windows] (Aurora/Developer Edition on Arch Linux) I understand that they can figure out that I'm running some variation of FF, but .. why would it think this is Windows?
Are you 9B6288AF? (1/41051)
I am also using FF Developer Edition on Arch Linux.
It says Firefox on Linux to me.
Re: HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinter
#8Interesting, but needing User-Agent string to determine the fingerprint in the first place makes it a lot less useful in my mind.
It doesn't need it, it stores the User Agent beside the unique fingerprint to tell people with the same fingerprint what browsers they (probably) have.
If it really doesn't work without UA, then it's just the website not expecting someone to have disabled it.
Re: HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinter
#9I think some of the comments re: browser agent are missing the point. I think the poster was not focused on whether it can identify the system or browser type, but instead as a technique to provide a potentially unique (or somewhat unique) fingerprint that a user can't eliminate easily. So, a site could use this code (along with other techniques) to identify your browser and even if you delete a set cookie, detect that it's the same browser.
They may discover, btw, that it's not as unique as they think it is, but combined with other techniques, can be a tracking attribute that is difficult to disable.
It doesn't seem resilient to change in the underlying system from my cursory view (if I change my graphics card, resolution, or color depth, does this id change?) but like https://panopticlick.eff.org/, it's useful and a good cautionary tale to see the variety of ways your browser can be uniquely distinguished, with and without the use of cookies.
BTW, the icons on the left side of the browserleaks page are actually a menu and offer other "leaks" of info from the browser: some well known, others more subtle.
Re: HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinter
#10Note that this is browser fingerprinting, not necessarily the user of the browser. Useful to detect spoofed User-Agent strings, not sure to what end though.
The fingerprint is really on the browser, graphics driver (os-specific), and graphics hardware. Other sources of information could be used to increase the probability that the fingerprint is unique to the user.