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Services where security matters already manage it: they have a handful of contact points for each user, and they alert when an unknown browser/device/profile lo

Services where security matters already manage it: they have a handful of contact points for each user, and they alert when an unknown browser/device/profile logs into the service. You want that centralized and made universal? An internet passport? Goodbye vpn services. Goodbye, tor. Goodbye doing anything that's not in your permanent browsing profile stored by advertisers, google, facebook, twitter.

manigandham 10y ago
A standard UUID generated at the OS level and passed through seamlessly through a browser? Yes. Client-side control means that you can turn it off depending on TOR, private-mode, VPN, or whatever else. The technical aspects though would make the web faster and easier to deal with.
- harshreality 10y ago
  So you turn it off, and half the web stops working for you because websites don't want to serve you content unless their ad networks receive your unique hardware id from some mandatory hardware TPM? Then, since a TPM is effectively mandatory once the web can't be used without it, all media content can be DRM'd with less customer push-back. I get that the web is a mess, but is this the best idea anyone can come up with to fix it? And does this actually fix it?
  - manigandham 10y ago
    It's just a UUID number. Private browsing mode just generates a new UUID for that session by that browser. Otherwise use the default system UUID. And at any time, you can reset that default system UUID. Easy and seamless. Why turn it off? If you do, then the networks would just generate their own ID numbers and we're back to the same scenario as today. There's nothing technically wrong with not using it but having a stable API to program against helps a lot and is the main reason this would improve the web. Android and iOS get somewhat close to this, although both are broken and unfinished. I'm not sure why this requires any hardware TPM or DRM though.

manigandham 10y ago

A standard UUID generated at the OS level and passed through seamlessly through a browser? Yes. Client-side control means that you can turn it off depending on TOR, private-mode, VPN, or whatever else. The technical aspects though would make the web faster and easier to deal with.

harshreality 10y ago
So you turn it off, and half the web stops working for you because websites don't want to serve you content unless their ad networks receive your unique hardware id from some mandatory hardware TPM? Then, since a TPM is effectively mandatory once the web can't be used without it, all media content can be DRM'd with less customer push-back. I get that the web is a mess, but is this the best idea anyone can come up with to fix it? And does this actually fix it?
- manigandham 10y ago
  It's just a UUID number. Private browsing mode just generates a new UUID for that session by that browser. Otherwise use the default system UUID. And at any time, you can reset that default system UUID. Easy and seamless. Why turn it off? If you do, then the networks would just generate their own ID numbers and we're back to the same scenario as today. There's nothing technically wrong with not using it but having a stable API to program against helps a lot and is the main reason this would improve the web. Android and iOS get somewhat close to this, although both are broken and unfinished. I'm not sure why this requires any hardware TPM or DRM though.