201–210 of 524 posts
When I switched off fingerprinting in this browser, the font size here on Hacker News changed. I suppose it just uses the user agent to set a certain font size, or does Hacker News track based on fingerprinting?
It's important to know that the mentioned "resistFingerprinting" breaks a lot of the web. Examples include the back button, uploading photos on some websites uploads random data instead of the photo, etc.
(I'm guessing it was too much implementation work to separate out this feature: to preserve normal, expected UI behavior client-side, while presenting a fake pagezoom value to scripts. That would degrade only a handful of (poorly-designed, script-layout) websites, rather than the whole accessible browser experience).
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Chrome does give access to localStorage/sessionStorage in Incognito and this can be used to communicate between tabs on the same domain, but just like cookies and cache this data is wiped if you close the Incognito instance. It's certainly a mystery, because you'd expect any capability fingerprinting (some combo of UA, extensions, CPU/GPU specs, IP etc) to give an identical result between profiles, so it does seem th…
Then, could not we a get a trace of the properties it uploads to the server by analyzing what is executed in the javascript? Sure it has some sort of submit endpoint where it throws the individual values to.
It looks like it is using heavy obfuscation.
You can try https://www.amiunique.org/fp to get a view of all params can used to track you
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WGET can be pretty trivially told to send custom headers.
Try to do that to a site with CF bot protection cranked up... Not happening without a custom build/custom ssl proxy that mimics the SSL fingerprint of Chrome.
There are three options:
1. Prevent/Stop it: This ship sailed long ago. Not to be grim about it but pandoras box got opened.
2. Fight it: Tool up, change your print, your behavior, your place. Build focused VM's that you use per topic. Simply do a WHOLE lot less. In the grand scheme, its a lot of work for low return. Note: there are exceptions.
3. Increase Noise: The whole point of most data collection is to sell more to you. Because most people are sheep, a fairly simple model can be surprisingly accurate (over targeting is an issue). Don't be a sheep, diversify, make more noise in the system, search out side your comfort zone and change it up often.
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Implying they actually stop tracking when you press "Reject"
They may not, but if you're in/from the EU and press "Reject" and they still track you, they're breaking the law.
Tech companies routinely get fined for what may seem like massive amounts to us.
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-7-biggest-fines-the-eu-h...
If "breaking the law" meant something they would try to avoid doing it so often.
Microsoft in the 90s was recognized guilty of abusing their monopoly. What were the consequences? nothing. This sort of thing used to mean something, see: Standard Oil v United States. But the current world is a world that belongs to megacorporations.
Tracking people against their will is a drop in the ocean of what corporations get away with.
This, in many ways, is like a billionaire getting a ticket that doesn't amount to more than the hundreds of dollars for bad parking. The billionaire doesn't care.
Law only has meaning when the punishment is coercive.
Surely if your website collects data using browser fingerprinting this is covered by GDPR and you have to tell your visitors/ask for permission? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/gdpr-and-browser-finge...