4 ms·

I’ve been on a team doing fingerprinting research (specifically entropy sources). It’s amusing that you’re 100% unique and browsing HN commenting about fingerpr

I’ve been on a team doing fingerprinting research (specifically entropy sources). It’s amusing that you’re 100% unique and browsing HN commenting about fingerprinting. (You’re exactly a demographic that would be unique.) Most people aren’t unique, far from it. Consider iPhone 14 Pro Max users browsing through a 5G connection. All the users in the same cell look exactly the same. If I had to guess, based on what I know about you (what I mentioned in the previous paragraph), I would guess that you built your own computer. This almost guarantees a unique fingerprint. With the deprecation of 3rd party cookies, we will definitely see an increase in fingerprint-based tracking. That being said, it’s going to look different than unique cookies (and it doesn’t explain OP’s situation. (Or it might actually be that simple. Your fingerprint might be unique between IP re-addressing, and that’s all it is.)

jerf 3y ago
I'm on Linux in Brave, so in general that I'm unique didn't surprise me. As you say, that part is expected. Stock Dell laptop, though. Quite a lot of the specific details did surprise me though, to the point of wondering if there's a bug somewhere in their code determining percentages. "Audio context": "sampleRate : 44100, state : suspended" 0.05%? Gyroscope is a green check (I don't even 100% know what that means) and that's 0.13%? "Battery": "charging : true, chargingTime : 0, level : 1", 0.08%? (And is that even useful for fingerprinting over any significant period of time anyhow?)
- iudqnolq 3y ago
  I suspect their database is very small and doesn't include many normal people. I also think they aren't taking into account the dimension of time: they say that the latest version of chrome is unusual.
AmericanChopper 3y ago
I’m pretty skeptical of this of this fingerprint test. I’m on a 5G connection, in a major city with a completely default current gen iPhone, and it seems to think I’m 100% unique. Which I don’t believe for a second.
- driscoll42 3y ago
  There's only 1.9 million samples in their database, and to be fair, the people who go to that site to test their fingerprint, are probably the kind of user who is going to have a unique fingerprint, notsomuch a common user. So a common user going there is likely a bit unique.
  - archiewood 3y ago
    Im in Firefox and it tells me 43% of the fingerprints are Firefox. So seems very skewed!
- comfypotato 3y ago
  I responded to a similar comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424919 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424919
nerdbert 3y ago
I tried the amiunique fingerprinter with my iPhone, software updated to the latest version, stock Safari browser, and it said I was unique among all however many users had tried before.
- comfypotato 3y ago
  If I remember correctly, that site was actually used to publish an early paper about fingerprinting. Their database is simply people who visit their site. You probably are unique among people who have visited! I doubt it sees much traffic anymore. This would explain the parent being unique also now that I think of it. There are a few studies that used sites like that and got lots of traffic (by advertising on sites like HN) from non-normal users. There was a landmark study done in France that measured fingerprints through a government website. The general population was much less unique. Edit: found the AmIUnique paper: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=Proceedings+of+the+Proceedings—2016+IEEE+Symposium+on+Security+and+Privacy+(SP)&title=Beauty+and+the+Beast:+Diverting+Modern+Web+Browsers+to+Build+Unique+Browser+Fingerprints&author=P.+Laperdrix&author=W.+Rudametkin&author=B.+Baudry&pages=878-894&doi=10.1109/SP.2016.57&#d=gs_qabs&t=1687383556046&u=%23p%3DDYTAHCgCYpUJ https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=Proceeding...

jerf 3y ago

I'm on Linux in Brave, so in general that I'm unique didn't surprise me. As you say, that part is expected. Stock Dell laptop, though. Quite a lot of the specific details did surprise me though, to the point of wondering if there's a bug somewhere in their code determining percentages. "Audio context": "sampleRate : 44100, state : suspended" 0.05%? Gyroscope is a green check (I don't even 100% know what that means) and that's 0.13%? "Battery": "charging : true, chargingTime : 0, level : 1", 0.08%? (And is that even useful for fingerprinting over any significant period of time anyhow?)

iudqnolq 3y ago
I suspect their database is very small and doesn't include many normal people. I also think they aren't taking into account the dimension of time: they say that the latest version of chrome is unusual.

AmericanChopper 3y ago

I’m pretty skeptical of this of this fingerprint test. I’m on a 5G connection, in a major city with a completely default current gen iPhone, and it seems to think I’m 100% unique. Which I don’t believe for a second.

driscoll42 3y ago
There's only 1.9 million samples in their database, and to be fair, the people who go to that site to test their fingerprint, are probably the kind of user who is going to have a unique fingerprint, notsomuch a common user. So a common user going there is likely a bit unique.
- archiewood 3y ago
  Im in Firefox and it tells me 43% of the fingerprints are Firefox. So seems very skewed!
comfypotato 3y ago
I responded to a similar comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424919 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424919

nerdbert 3y ago

I tried the amiunique fingerprinter with my iPhone, software updated to the latest version, stock Safari browser, and it said I was unique among all however many users had tried before.

comfypotato 3y ago
If I remember correctly, that site was actually used to publish an early paper about fingerprinting. Their database is simply people who visit their site. You probably are unique among people who have visited! I doubt it sees much traffic anymore. This would explain the parent being unique also now that I think of it. There are a few studies that used sites like that and got lots of traffic (by advertising on sites like HN) from non-normal users. There was a landmark study done in France that measured fingerprints through a government website. The general population was much less unique. Edit: found the AmIUnique paper: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=Proceedings+of+the+Proceedings—2016+IEEE+Symposium+on+Security+and+Privacy+(SP)&title=Beauty+and+the+Beast:+Diverting+Modern+Web+Browsers+to+Build+Unique+Browser+Fingerprints&author=P.+Laperdrix&author=W.+Rudametkin&author=B.+Baudry&pages=878-894&doi=10.1109/SP.2016.57&#d=gs_qabs&t=1687383556046&u=%23p%3DDYTAHCgCYpUJ https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=Proceeding...