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Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

zdnet.com

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Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#31

Post by Swenrekcah »

ehsankia wrote: post #28
burtonator wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apps need it to determine where to place elements. If it wasn't you would still be able to reverse engineer it by sticking elements outside the viewport and seeing if they're hidden or not. Turns out anonymity is super freaking hard. :-/

I don't get it. Don't the majority of people browse at full screen, on common devices which all have the same fullscreen dimensions? Who out there browses to a size, resizes there window, then browses to another website, then resizes again and so on? That makes no sense.

I would actually really like an answer to this question, I’ve often thought about it!

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#32

Post by trumped »

burtonator wrote: post #24
trumped wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Havent they thought about not broadcasting the window size... wtf. We are doomed apparently.

Apps need it to determine where to place elements. If it wasn't you would still be able to reverse engineer it by sticking elements outside the viewport and seeing if they're hidden or not. Turns out anonymity is super freaking hard. :-/

apps? do we consider websites apps now?

but either way if you have the JS, CSS and HTML, you should know where to put elements.

Are nyc (news yc com) people part of the problem?

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#33

Post by joshred »

ehsankia wrote: post #28
burtonator wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apps need it to determine where to place elements. If it wasn't you would still be able to reverse engineer it by sticking elements outside the viewport and seeing if they're hidden or not. Turns out anonymity is super freaking hard. :-/

I don't get it. Don't the majority of people browse at full screen, on common devices which all have the same fullscreen dimensions? Who out there browses to a size, resizes there window, then browses to another website, then resizes again and so on? That makes no sense.

Does that matter? Don't devs cater to the outliers?

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#34

Post by renholder »

burtonator wrote: post #24
trumped wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Havent they thought about not broadcasting the window size... wtf. We are doomed apparently.

Apps need it to determine where to place elements. If it wasn't you would still be able to reverse engineer it by sticking elements outside the viewport and seeing if they're hidden or not. Turns out anonymity is super freaking hard. :-/

>Apps need it to determine where to place elements.

This determination can't be done client-side? In other words, if I resize the window, it's going to send the new size to determine where to place the elements in the "new" area?

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#36

Post by lucasmullens »

ehsankia wrote: post #28
burtonator wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apps need it to determine where to place elements. If it wasn't you would still be able to reverse engineer it by sticking elements outside the viewport and seeing if they're hidden or not. Turns out anonymity is super freaking hard. :-/

I don't get it. Don't the majority of people browse at full screen, on common devices which all have the same fullscreen dimensions? Who out there browses to a size, resizes there window, then browses to another website, then resizes again and so on? That makes no sense.

I'm not sure what percent of people customize their dock height on macOS, but that setting uses a slider, which would cause a bunch of unique heights for a maximized browser.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#37

Post by newscracker »

Every time there's something about online privacy with browsers, it's mostly Firefox or Safari. I wondered if Chrome had resisting fingerprinting on its radar (guessing that it wouldn't be in Google's interests to add any feature that would thwart profiling users online), and I found this [1] confirming my guess (emphasis mine):

> Since we don't believe it's feasible to provide some mode of Chrome that can truly prevent passive fingerprinting, we will mark all related bugs and feature requests as WontFix.

I haven't read all the analyses in the links in that article, but this sounds defeatist and lazy, much unlike a stance that Chromium would take on security or performance on the web.

Contrast the above with what this article says about Firefox:

> Firefox's upcoming letterboxing feature is part of a larger project that started in 2016, called Tor Uplift.

> Part of Tor Uplift, Mozilla developers have been slowly porting privacy-hardening features developed originally for the Tor Browser and integrating them into Firefox.

If you value online privacy, your best choice is Firefox (though it requires some additional manual configuration). Safari comes second (its extensions directory could use more love). The choice where you can add more of your influence to is Firefox — by using it, evangelizing it and by donating (if feasible) to it.

[1]: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/docs...

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#38

Post by tedunangst »

renholder wrote: post #34
burtonator wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apps need it to determine where to place elements. If it wasn't you would still be able to reverse engineer it by sticking elements outside the viewport and seeing if they're hidden or not. Turns out anonymity is super freaking hard. :-/

> Apps need it to determine where to place elements. This determination can't be done client-side? In other words, if I resize the window, it's going to send the new size to determine where to place the elements in the "new" area?

document.Write("")

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#39

Post by nightski »

ehsankia wrote: post #28
burtonator wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apps need it to determine where to place elements. If it wasn't you would still be able to reverse engineer it by sticking elements outside the viewport and seeing if they're hidden or not. Turns out anonymity is super freaking hard. :-/

I don't get it. Don't the majority of people browse at full screen, on common devices which all have the same fullscreen dimensions? Who out there browses to a size, resizes there window, then browses to another website, then resizes again and so on? That makes no sense.

As a user with an ultrawide monitor I have several browser windows open and arranged in various configurations at all times and often resize them.

Probably not a super common scenario, but not ultra rare either.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#40

Post by Swenrekcah »

joshred wrote: post #33
ehsankia wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. Don't the majority of people browse at full screen, on common devices which all have the same fullscreen dimensions? Who out there browses to a size, resizes there window, then browses to another website, then resizes again and so on? That makes no sense.

Does that matter? Don't devs cater to the outliers?

It matters because if 99% of people have the same 5 configurations and only the outliers are identifiable, then this method would not be as valuable for spying as it is reported to be.
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