Looks like this has been known since 2019.
https://www.nymeria.io/blog/linkedins-war-on-email-finder-ex...
LinkedIn checks for 2953 browser extensions
111–120 of 263 posts
Re: LinkedIn checks for 2953 browser extensions
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
The webpage would have to scan the entire UUID space to create this fingerprint, which seems unlikely.
Just have a database of UUIDs. Seems pretty trivial to generate and sort as it's only 16 bytes each.
Re: LinkedIn checks for 2953 browser extensions
#113I wrote a blog post recently about the technique used by LinkedIn to do extension probing, as well as other ways to do it with less side effects https://blog.castle.io/detecting-browser-extensions-for-bot-...
Nice write up, definitely exactly this.
Re: LinkedIn checks for 2953 browser extensions
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wont someone think of poor little LinkedIn, a subsidiary of one of the largest data brokers in the world?
Why frame what you are trying to say like that? Businesses of all sizes deserve the ability to protect their businesses from abuse.
When they scrape, it’s innovation. When you scrape, it’s a felony.
Re: LinkedIn checks for 2953 browser extensions
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
The webpage would have to scan the entire UUID space to create this fingerprint, which seems unlikely.
Just have a database of UUIDs. Seems pretty trivial to generate and sort as it's only 16 bytes each.
lol
Let's go a step further and just iterate through them on the client. I plan on having this phone well past the heat death of the universe, so this is guaranteed to finish on my hardware.
function* uuidIterator() {
const bytes = new Uint8Array(16);
while (true) {
yield formatUUID(bytes);
let carry = 1;
for (let i = 15; i >= 0 && carry; i--) {
const sum = bytes[i] + carry;
bytes[i] = sum & 0xff;
carry = sum > 0xff ? 1 : 0;
}
if (carry) return;
}
}
function formatUUID(b) {
const hex = [...b].map(x => x.toString(16).padStart(2, "0"));
return (
hex.slice(0, 4).join("") + "-" +
hex.slice(4, 6).join("") + "-" +
hex.slice(6, 8).join("") + "-" +
hex.slice(8, 10).join("") + "-" +
hex.slice(10, 16).join("")
);
}
Re: LinkedIn checks for 2953 browser extensions
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do they respect my data? Why do they get to track me across sites when I clearly don't want them to but someone can't scrape their data when they don't want them to. Why should big companies get the pass but individuals not? They clearly consider internet traffic fair game and are invasive and abusive about it so it is not only fair to be invasive and abusive back, it is self defense at this point.
They don’t need to track your web browser when they’re owned by Microsoft, because they track every action at a lower level.
Weird, I don't use Windows as an OS but have linkedin. I'd believe the concern and disregard of Linkedin's concern is fair game.
Re: LinkedIn checks for 2953 browser extensions
#117So every Chrome extension that wants to avoid being detected this way needs to proxy fetch() on the target site, imagining someone with a bunch of them installed having every legit HTTP request on the target site going through a big stack of proxies
Re: LinkedIn checks for 2953 browser extensions
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why frame what you are trying to say like that? Businesses of all sizes deserve the ability to protect their businesses from abuse.
Do they respect my data? Why do they get to track me across sites when I clearly don't want them to but someone can't scrape their data when they don't want them to. Why should big companies get the pass but individuals not? They clearly consider internet traffic fair game and are invasive and abusive about it so it is not only fair to be invasive and abusive back, it is self defense at this point.
Because you signed up to a set of terms and conditions saying LinkedIn can use your data in this way
Re: LinkedIn checks for 2953 browser extensions
#119Chrome is the new IE6. Google set themselves up to be the next Microsoft and is "ad friendly" in all the creepy ways because that's what Google IS an ad company. All they've contributed to security is diminishing the capability of adblockers and letting malware to do bad things to you as consumers.
Imagine being the nerd that is still using Chrome in the YOL 2026.
Re: LinkedIn checks for 2953 browser extensions
#120We live in the best timeline.