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Agreed: fingerprinting is using ways one browser or device consistently differs from others to derive a stable identifier. Several others on this list are also
by jefftk 6y ago
Agreed: fingerprinting is using ways one browser or device consistently differs from others to derive a stable identifier.
Several others on this list are also not used for fingerprinting, and are instead detecting robots/spam/abuse. Unfortunately, there isn't any technical way for the public to verify that, because client-side all it looks like is collecting a bunch of high-entropy signals.
All the major browsers have said they intend to remove identifying bits to where fingerprinting is not possible, which will also make these other uses stop working.
- AlotOfReading 6y agoThat was always a short-term hack anyway. The limiting case is that spammers simply pay humans somewhere to continue whatever "abuse" was formerly automated, as currently happens with captchas.
- thu2111 6y agoAlmost all spam is not profitable enough to pay humans to do every step manually, so if you make it that expensive, it's the same thing as winning.