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For the most part, I only use Windows VMs when I need Excel for >50MB spreadsheets. Or to test Windows VPN clients. Your analysis strikes me as implausible. Fe
by mirimir 7y ago
For the most part, I only use Windows VMs when I need Excel for >50MB spreadsheets. Or to test Windows VPN clients.
Your analysis strikes me as implausible. Few adversaries could see all of those parameters. For example, it's typically Tor through a nested VPN chain. So it'd be nontrivial for a local observer to know that I'm using Tor. Or for a remote observer to know that I'm using VPNs.
And seriously, why would I use my meatspace timezone? But actually, I do sometimes, just to be more random. Also, my sleep schedule is highly irregular, as one can tell from my HN posting history.
- tripzilch 7y agoIt turns out that people's irregular sleep patterns are in fact not quite as irregular when you actually measure them. On the other hand, I believe HN posting history just says "X days ago" for posts older than a day, so you can't get fine grained schedules from that (I might have graphed yours, otherwise, just to see).
- mirimir 7y agoRight, you'd need to scrape HN real-time to get a detailed posting history. About sleep schedule. I really don't have one. I work and sleep when I feel like it. And I nap. And I have modafinil and zolpidem available. And coffee. If you charted my waking and sleeping times long-term, you'd find pretty much a random walk. I can be up as much as 30-40 hours, or as little as ~1 hour. And I can be sleeping for anywhere from ~1 hour to maybe 15 hours or more.
- zaarn 7y agoYou're more likely to sleep at night than not, that's sufficient to establish your timezone with good accuracy. Fefe, a german blogger, had this analysis done using his posting history on his blog, allowing readers to not only determine his timezone, but when he was travelling and where.
- tripzilch 7y agothen, if I were to make a wild guess I'd say you're in Scandinavia or other high latitude place :)
- zaarn 7y agoWindows telemetry will know it's Tor. Irregular sleep schedules are usually very regular when looked at over a long time.
- mirimir 7y agoOK, Microsoft knows that some persona uses Tor. So what? Sure, mine is "regular". In the sense of regularly random.
- zaarn 7y agoAs mentioned, this lets microsoft single you out as an individual that is using Tor, among other signals. That makes you quite identifiable.
- mirimir 7y agoSure, "identifiable". But they still have no clue who I am. Which is all that concerns me.
- zaarn 7y agoAre you sure? Because the step between "identifiable" and "your personal identity" is short. Recent studies found that social graphs between social networks for the same person almost perfectly match. If you have a social network account (Facebook/Twitter/Netflix/Amazon/etc.) and you also have a social network account in the VM (HN) then someone can match those identities.