5 ms·

So, do the remaining cookies truly not contain data which can identify a specific user to Facebook?

nikcub 15y ago
Facebook say they do not I would prefer they deleted all cookies, since the user/browser can still be uniquely identified
sp332 15y ago
You can use this page to see how "unique" your browser is. https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ It doesn't use cookies.
- anonymoushn 15y ago
  Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 1,777,057 tested so far That is a bit unsettling.
  - mirkules 15y ago
    Using Firefox with NoScript produces (OS X 10.6): "Within our dataset of several million visitors, only one in 27,775 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours." But turning on Javascript, but leaving FlashBlock on, produces the same message as yours. Interesting...
    - code_duck 15y ago
      Definitely, most of the identifiability comes from data only available from JavaScript such as the combination of screen resolution and available fonts.
- keithpeter 15y ago
  I got the same number as anonymous below me. The biggest cause of uniqueness was the installed fonts reported by the browser. I'm on Linux and we have some weird ones....
  - sp332 15y ago
    Yeah, between plugins and fonts, most browsers show up as "unique" in that tool which are merely unusual. I'm using a Firefox alpha build, and it says that alone is enough to identify me, even though obviously it isn't.
    - true_religion 15y ago
      I think its the ordering of the installed fonts that matters. Your browser doesn't report the fonts on your computer in alphabetical order.
- cousin_it 15y ago
  Most interesting link I've seen today, thanks! So as long as you log in to Facebook often enough (more often than you install new browser plugins or fonts or whatever), they can cookieless-track you perfectly when you're logged out, by remembering the browser fingerprint you had when you were logged in. And even if the fingerprint changes a little bit, they could use something like Levenshtein distance, combined with statistics of frequently visited sites, to have a good chance of identifying you anyway. In the hypothetical world where Facebook was an evil monster of surveillance, of course. I'm not talking about the real world here ;-) So what can you do when faced by a hypothetical monster like that? Disabling third-party cookies is only the first step. Is there any reasonable way to anonymize your browser fingerprint?
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    Use a different browser?
  - MartinCron 15y ago
    Is there any reasonable way to anonymize your browser fingerprint? Maybe not totally anonymize, but a lot of the data that gets used for browser fingerprinting relies on flash to work, so if you run without flash on by default (click to flash, or whatever) that should help.

Facebook say they do not I would prefer they deleted all cookies, since the user/browser can still be uniquely identified

sp332 15y ago

You can use this page to see how "unique" your browser is. https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ It doesn't use cookies.

anonymoushn 15y ago
Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 1,777,057 tested so far That is a bit unsettling.
- mirkules 15y ago
  Using Firefox with NoScript produces (OS X 10.6): "Within our dataset of several million visitors, only one in 27,775 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours." But turning on Javascript, but leaving FlashBlock on, produces the same message as yours. Interesting...
  - code_duck 15y ago
    Definitely, most of the identifiability comes from data only available from JavaScript such as the combination of screen resolution and available fonts.
keithpeter 15y ago
I got the same number as anonymous below me. The biggest cause of uniqueness was the installed fonts reported by the browser. I'm on Linux and we have some weird ones....
- sp332 15y ago
  Yeah, between plugins and fonts, most browsers show up as "unique" in that tool which are merely unusual. I'm using a Firefox alpha build, and it says that alone is enough to identify me, even though obviously it isn't.
  - true_religion 15y ago
    I think its the ordering of the installed fonts that matters. Your browser doesn't report the fonts on your computer in alphabetical order.
cousin_it 15y ago
Most interesting link I've seen today, thanks! So as long as you log in to Facebook often enough (more often than you install new browser plugins or fonts or whatever), they can cookieless-track you perfectly when you're logged out, by remembering the browser fingerprint you had when you were logged in. And even if the fingerprint changes a little bit, they could use something like Levenshtein distance, combined with statistics of frequently visited sites, to have a good chance of identifying you anyway. In the hypothetical world where Facebook was an evil monster of surveillance, of course. I'm not talking about the real world here ;-) So what can you do when faced by a hypothetical monster like that? Disabling third-party cookies is only the first step. Is there any reasonable way to anonymize your browser fingerprint?
- Vivtek 15y ago
  Use a different browser?
- MartinCron 15y ago
  Is there any reasonable way to anonymize your browser fingerprint? Maybe not totally anonymize, but a lot of the data that gets used for browser fingerprinting relies on flash to work, so if you run without flash on by default (click to flash, or whatever) that should help.