Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Non-technical people deserve to have their personal data stolen Nobody said that. "My defenses work" != "my defenses should be necessary".
"On the other hand if you insist on using JS, Gmail, Google search, Facebook etc. then you're fair game and you only have yourself to blame if your personal data is stolen."
Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought
451–460 of 524 posts
Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought
#452Ha! I followed the instructions and went to fingerprint.com and it all 'crashed' because I had JavaScript turned off—that's my normal default setting. I have five different browsers on my smartphone and three on the PC all sans JS and none of them are Chrome. Also, normal operation is to automatically delete all cookies at session's end. My smartphone and PCs are de-googleized and firewalled and I never see ads in my…
Before you get all jubilant, note that they have fingerprinting techniques which don't use JS[0]. It was able to identity me. Contrary to popular opinion, disabling JS doesn't protect you from fingerprinting. They describe their approach[1]. They use HTTP headers and conditional request triggered by CSS conditional media queries to gather data. Something like @media(...) {background: url(/tracking/$clientid)}. But in…
I didn't detail every protection I've put in place or the post would have been too long. However, I'd suggest that spreading my browsing over at least eight browsers (and I actually use more than two machines and do so at different locations and with different ISPs) effectively reduces my profile across the net.
I also use randomized browser user agents and clean links, occasionally I'll even cut-and-paste links between multiple browsers in a single session. I often do this on HN not to hide from HN but for convenience when multitasking. (Having worked in surveillance professionally, this modus operandi just comes naturally, it's now second nature for me to work this way.)
Working with multiple browsers and multiple machines also solves the problem when on rare occasions I have to use JS. That said, I never watch YouTube with a JS-enabled browser, instead I'll use NewPipe or similar. There are other measures I could list but you get the idea. Oh, and I never use the internet on a smartphone with a SIM enabled, instead the SIM resides in a separate portable router and my 'real' phone is a dumb feature phone, it's only capable of making phone calls.
I really don't care if some stuff leaks but I've satisfied myself it's pretty trivial, as frankly, I've not had one indication over the past 20 or so years that I've been targeted as a result of fingerprinting. It's not necessary to make things completely watertight, I'm not trying to hide from the NSA or GCHQ, etc. (and it'd be unsuccessful and a complete waste of time to bother trying).
Moreover, even if something were to leak, I'm simply not a revenue-making target—that means I never respond to any targeted marketing because I simply never receive any.
Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought
#453Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought
#454Ha! I followed the instructions and went to fingerprint.com and it all 'crashed' because I had JavaScript turned off—that's my normal default setting. I have five different browsers on my smartphone and three on the PC all sans JS and none of them are Chrome. Also, normal operation is to automatically delete all cookies at session's end. My smartphone and PCs are de-googleized and firewalled and I never see ads in my…
To me this seems extremely elitist. Non-technical people deserve to have their personal data stolen because they don't know about javascript for example?
Right, it probably is. But the issue of stolen personal data has been around for so long that nontechnical people have had years to develop political lobbying and to swing elections to put a stop to it.
The fact is that most people don't give a damn about such matters, if most did then the problems would be behind us by now.
Thus, unfortunately, with the internet it's every man and woman for him or herself. QED!
Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hah! I used to embed invisible pixels for our marketing department decades ago.
This should automatically qualify one to lose their internet privileges. Not just the fact that you did it, but your cavalier attitude towards it with the lack of regret for having done it
Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought
#456I dont think this is a proper way to test it. It matters more how unique your fingerprint is than how consistent or reproducible it is. Just testing if you get the same fingerprint back on your second visit doesn't tell you much if you don't know how many people "share" your fingerprint. As a silly example, if you gave all users the same fingerprint, it would be very consistent but also useless as a tracking method.
On the demo they have previous visits from your fingerprint listed (so you can get an idea of how common the fingerprint is... at least once enough people have tried the demo). Mine had two visits listed which are not mine when using Safari and private relay. On Firefox there were none (and it tracked in normal and private mode).
Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought
#457Until everyday people realize they’re being stalked, I don’t know what will change. I am seriously thinking about trying to go through the proposition process in my state to forbid selling of data (this should already run afoul of wiretapping laws, imho). I thought having an ad campaign that targeted subgroups very specifically and boldly might be enough drum up public interest. Something like: “Hello $name from $cit…
Techie people are convinced non-techie people don't know they're being tracked. They do! Ask your smart non-techie friends what they think about online privacy. I guarantee you they'll say something like "yeah, I know it's probably tracking me, but whachya gonna do".
Thanks to this disconnect, we have so many privacy campaigns with a message like "Did you know you can be uniquely identified on the web?", but so few (none?) that actually proceed to explain why that's bad, and what someone could do with that information. That's the missing piece. Give average people an actual reason to dislike or fear tracking, not just the mere curio that it exists.
Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought
#458Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of those APIs should be default closed. Incognito should definitely be default closed.
Which then pushes a lot of web use-cases into mobile apps locked to a few corporate platforms that make tracking much much easier. Yes, even iOS.
Asking for users permission should and is slowly becoming the default on phones as well.
Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought
#459We use web fingerprinting and adjacent methods to crack down on ID sharing for our SaaS that charges (per person). I make no apologies for this practice.
How does that work out for you? This doesn't strike me as a good use of fingerprinting: - Since you charge per person, what about people that use multiple machines and browsers (with presumably different fingerprints)? - On the other hand, unless two people share the same workstation and computer account, how do you expect to use fingerprints to detect license abuse?
Re: Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
You make it sound like he said something mildly insensentive. He was "cancelled" for making pro-cp comments, and for literal decades of being a creep. https://twitter.com/_sagesharp_/status/1173637138413318144
And how does that invalidate his technical expertise? More importantly, was he charged and convicted with anything? I am getting really tired of this public opinion tribunal, where mere accusation is enough to get a person out of their position. This is not how this is supposed to work at all.
The only questionable thing he did was try to rationalise pedophilia, which he has since changed his mind about. Given that he's clearly _not all there in the head_ (i.e neurodiverse) and assuming he hasn't tried to access child pornography or similar I couldn't care less. All of the other accusations against him are nonsense[0] and all center around unsubstantiated rumors of him being a "creep." People being anti-Stallman is insane to me considering how much he has contributed and advocates for not only free software but also gender equality.
[0] https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-agai...