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I propose peer-to-peer networked browsing. Whenever someone else visits a website, it loads on your browser, with your cookies. Their browser anonymously and se

by mygo 7y ago

I propose peer-to-peer networked browsing. Whenever someone else visits a website, it loads on your browser, with your cookies. Their browser anonymously and securely sends the URL to your browser. It runs in the background, loading fully rendered web pages headlessly. And also these URLs never make it on to your browsing history. In fact you do not ever see the URLs at all, for the privacy of the network. They exist only for the trackers. Solved.

johnday 7y ago
Seems like a good way to get arrested.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
progval 7y ago
So... Tor but with you sending your cookies to everyone else?
- mygo 7y ago
  You don't send your cookies everyone else, they stay on your machine. The only people who see your cookies are the websites your machine visits.
dspillett 7y ago
I though of something similar some ago: rather than loading whole pages of sites users don't visit themselves, share cookies for tracking sites so every now and then my google ad cookies get swapped with someone random, my facebook tracking cookies with someone else, etc. This would get around the "background visiting something you really don't want anyone thinking you deliberately accessed" because you only load what you would have loaded anyway, just with different tracking cookies each time. Thinking it through though there are potentially massive problems, the first of which is that I can think of ways to circumvent it to a large extent with deeper fingerprinting, and if I can no doubt the ad servers could if they the system became popular enough for them to care. Other issues would include making sure useful cookies were not swapped out causing both security and usability issues for the participants.
- mygo 7y ago
  yeah swapping cookies would require some sort of predictable way of swapping the cookies. -- with your idea you don't want to swap out all of your cookies, since some websites actually need those to function, just the tracking ones. And of course you also don't want to swap out cookies that contain sensitive information like "first name last name address", which some websites may use because they have designed their website with the idea that your cookies will not be shared.
  - dspillett 7y ago
    > because they have designed their website with the idea that your cookies will not be shared Or they were designed by people with little knowledge of relevant security matters. Or little care for security matters: all too often people throw together a proof-of-concept (naively leaving out thought of concerns like that, as they can be addressed in proper development later if the PoC is successful) then find it being rushed into production without the required review/refactor...

by mygo 7y ago

johnday 7y ago

Seems like a good way to get arrested.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

progval 7y ago

So... Tor but with you sending your cookies to everyone else?

mygo 7y ago
You don't send your cookies everyone else, they stay on your machine. The only people who see your cookies are the websites your machine visits.

dspillett 7y ago

I though of something similar some ago: rather than loading whole pages of sites users don't visit themselves, share cookies for tracking sites so every now and then my google ad cookies get swapped with someone random, my facebook tracking cookies with someone else, etc. This would get around the "background visiting something you really don't want anyone thinking you deliberately accessed" because you only load what you would have loaded anyway, just with different tracking cookies each time. Thinking it through though there are potentially massive problems, the first of which is that I can think of ways to circumvent it to a large extent with deeper fingerprinting, and if I can no doubt the ad servers could if they the system became popular enough for them to care. Other issues would include making sure useful cookies were not swapped out causing both security and usability issues for the participants.

mygo 7y ago
yeah swapping cookies would require some sort of predictable way of swapping the cookies. -- with your idea you don't want to swap out all of your cookies, since some websites actually need those to function, just the tracking ones. And of course you also don't want to swap out cookies that contain sensitive information like "first name last name address", which some websites may use because they have designed their website with the idea that your cookies will not be shared.
- dspillett 7y ago
  > because they have designed their website with the idea that your cookies will not be shared Or they were designed by people with little knowledge of relevant security matters. Or little care for security matters: all too often people throw together a proof-of-concept (naively leaving out thought of concerns like that, as they can be addressed in proper development later if the PoC is successful) then find it being rushed into production without the required review/refactor...