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> But history tells us that literally everything will be used for fingerprinting I don't think you realize how right you are. Fingerprinting is eventually goin

> But history tells us that literally everything will be used for fingerprinting I don't think you realize how right you are. Fingerprinting is eventually going to be a lost cause. In 10 years or so, we will have the tech to fingerprint anyone just by their writing style (some companies even claim to be able to do this already today). What do you do then? Ban posting stuff online?

gruez 7y ago
>In 10 years or so, we will have the tech to fingerprint anyone just by their writing style (some companies even claim to be able to do that already today). ...given a large enough corpus of text. I doubt that you're able to pick up much from a dozen 1 sentence replies on reddit, for instance. You could even use some sort of neural network based sentence transformer to scramble the structure without significantly altering the meaning.
- throwaway_bad 7y ago
  I am not sure it has to be too large. It only takes 33 bits of information to identify 1 person out of 7 billion. How many bits did you lose just by talking about neural networks in that one sentence? How many bits did you lose from the timing/time zone of your comment? By the language of your comment?
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    I imagine that there's a lot of information in the specific cadence of typing, in addition to the final text. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_dynamics
    - gruez 7y ago
      As a low tech solution, you can always compose the contents in a separate window and paste it in when you're done. Hardened browsers (eg. Firefox with resistfingerprinting) can frustrate attempts by throttling key events (key events get coalesced into 1s/5s/10s intervals).
      - eitland 7y ago
        First time I hear about this (edit: Firefox with resistfingerprinting) and I'm the kind of person who finds this interesting. Which means anyone who does this will probably have made themselves unique, or - I guess- at least narrow down the scope of possible users more than the typing speed would do.
      - phkahler 7y ago
        This is another browser stupidity. Dont send anything until the submit button is pressed. It's the browsers job to implement the text edit box and spell check, not every website.
        jrockway 7y ago
        Being able to see keystrokes in Javascript is pretty useful for things like autocomplete. Say you want to send an invoice to "Foo Bar, Inc.". Do you really want to type that every time? Do you want to type "Foo" and then click submit, and then be taken to search results? Why make a 700ms task into a 5s task, especially when you're doing it hundreds of times a day. There are hardened browsers that will make the script wait for a while to get the key events. That seems like the right solution; most people using controlled enterprise apps don't have to deal with huge amounts of input lag, while people that are paranoid won't be profiled by their typing cadence.
        phkahler 7y ago
        How limiting would it be to have auto complete implemented in the browser? Probably not quite as nice as Google but still useful.
  - gruez 7y ago
    >How many bits did you lose just by talking about neural networks in that one sentence? How many bits did you lose from the timing/time zone of your comment? By the language of your comment? uhh, probably 2 or 3 at most? Given the demographics of Hacker News (technical background, mostly American), probably half the site have the attributes you have listed.
minitech 7y ago
Provide tools to anonymize writing, probably.
tinus_hn 7y ago
How does that help companies trying to track what I search for on webshops?
- inert 7y ago
  Imagine light beacons in any graphical media same as the audio beacons that already exist.
  - tinus_hn 7y ago
    This is about technology that identifies people based on their writing style which is claimed to be some kind of panopticon that can be used for tracking you everywhere you go.
kofejnik 7y ago
> we will have the tech to fingerprint anyone just by their writing style we're far beyond that; I have successfully fingerprinted users by buttons they press in Office 365

gruez 7y ago

>In 10 years or so, we will have the tech to fingerprint anyone just by their writing style (some companies even claim to be able to do that already today). ...given a large enough corpus of text. I doubt that you're able to pick up much from a dozen 1 sentence replies on reddit, for instance. You could even use some sort of neural network based sentence transformer to scramble the structure without significantly altering the meaning.

throwaway_bad 7y ago
I am not sure it has to be too large. It only takes 33 bits of information to identify 1 person out of 7 billion. How many bits did you lose just by talking about neural networks in that one sentence? How many bits did you lose from the timing/time zone of your comment? By the language of your comment?
- sokoloff 7y ago
  I imagine that there's a lot of information in the specific cadence of typing, in addition to the final text. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_dynamics
  - gruez 7y ago
    As a low tech solution, you can always compose the contents in a separate window and paste it in when you're done. Hardened browsers (eg. Firefox with resistfingerprinting) can frustrate attempts by throttling key events (key events get coalesced into 1s/5s/10s intervals).
    - eitland 7y ago
      First time I hear about this (edit: Firefox with resistfingerprinting) and I'm the kind of person who finds this interesting. Which means anyone who does this will probably have made themselves unique, or - I guess- at least narrow down the scope of possible users more than the typing speed would do.
    - phkahler 7y ago
      This is another browser stupidity. Dont send anything until the submit button is pressed. It's the browsers job to implement the text edit box and spell check, not every website.
      - jrockway 7y ago
        Being able to see keystrokes in Javascript is pretty useful for things like autocomplete. Say you want to send an invoice to "Foo Bar, Inc.". Do you really want to type that every time? Do you want to type "Foo" and then click submit, and then be taken to search results? Why make a 700ms task into a 5s task, especially when you're doing it hundreds of times a day. There are hardened browsers that will make the script wait for a while to get the key events. That seems like the right solution; most people using controlled enterprise apps don't have to deal with huge amounts of input lag, while people that are paranoid won't be profiled by their typing cadence.
        phkahler 7y ago
        How limiting would it be to have auto complete implemented in the browser? Probably not quite as nice as Google but still useful.
- gruez 7y ago
  >How many bits did you lose just by talking about neural networks in that one sentence? How many bits did you lose from the timing/time zone of your comment? By the language of your comment? uhh, probably 2 or 3 at most? Given the demographics of Hacker News (technical background, mostly American), probably half the site have the attributes you have listed.

minitech 7y ago

Provide tools to anonymize writing, probably.

tinus_hn 7y ago

How does that help companies trying to track what I search for on webshops?

inert 7y ago
Imagine light beacons in any graphical media same as the audio beacons that already exist.
- tinus_hn 7y ago
  This is about technology that identifies people based on their writing style which is claimed to be some kind of panopticon that can be used for tracking you everywhere you go.

kofejnik 7y ago

> we will have the tech to fingerprint anyone just by their writing style we're far beyond that; I have successfully fingerprinted users by buttons they press in Office 365