8 ms·
Browser fingerprints are turning up in court cases now. Probably not wise of EFF to frame it as "covering your tracks". It's more like "closing your blinds".
by n0nc3 6y ago
Browser fingerprints are turning up in court cases now. Probably not wise of EFF to frame it as "covering your tracks". It's more like "closing your blinds".
https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/17/exmicrosoft_engineer_arrested_fraud/ https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/17/exmicrosoft_engineer_...
https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/07/17/us_v_kvashuk.pdf https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/07/17/us_v_kvashuk.pdf
- filmgirlcw 6y agoJust a hunch, but I bet that a legal advocacy group chooses the names for their programs pretty carefully.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ksm1717 6y agoI mean it was formerly called panopticlick
- surround 6y agoI never understood what that name meant.
- kibwen 6y agoIt was based on "panopticon": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon "Although it is physically impossible for the single guard to observe all the inmates' cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that they are motivated to act as though they are being watched at all times."
- FillardMillmore 6y agoFirst read about the Panopticon in Foucault's "Discipline and Punish". It was designed by Jeremy Bentham, the mind behind utilitarianism - in fact, I believe it was only put into practice in one prison, which Fidel Castro and Raul Castro were imprisoned in before the Cuban revolution. All this is somewhat tangential to the discussion at hand, but still quite interesting. The parallels between the Internet/modern security state and the Panopticon design are obvious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidio_Modelo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidio_Modelo
- deadwing0 6y agoThat name didn't mean anything to me, either.
- saagarjha 6y ago“Closing your blinds” doesn’t have “track” in its name.
- totalZero 6y agoConsidering that it's an anti-tracker tool, I think it's an appropriate and easily justifiable name.
- colechristensen 6y agoIt’s not about being justifiable, it’s about what a jury will think when the prosecutor parades a “cover your tracks” tool you used in front of them. Sometimes you just don’t want to have to try to win that argument.
- totalZero 6y agoI'd be happy to make that argument. It's circumstantial evidence at best, and would be a waste of time in a criminal trial. "Move to strike that so-called "evidence," your honor. It is irrelevant and thus inadmissible, because "Cover Your Tracks" is the name of a website that tells users whether their computers appear unique to advertising companies. Not to mention that the EFF regularly files friend-of-the-court briefs with the Supreme Court and is a trustworthy nonprofit dedicated to keeping the internet safe and fair." Juries are made of regular people. The overwhelming majority of households in the USA have broadband internet. Regular people understand that advertisers track internet users in order to sell more ads. Also, scare-mongering and preying on someone's lack of familiarity with a website is only useful when there isn't someone else present to quickly explain it to them.
- n0nc3 6y agoTake a look at the linked case. The prosecutor made a big deal of the fact that the defendant used a subversion server for version control. It was doubly evil because it was a subversion server in gasp Germany. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/09/michael-lewis-goldman-sachs-programmer https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/09/michael-lewis-goldma...