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Interesting but this method is limited to the URLs that you list in the javascript (in this case linklist.js). More of a specific validation to see if the user
by CheckHook 12y ago
Interesting but this method is limited to the URLs that you list in the javascript (in this case linklist.js). More of a specific validation to see if the user has visited the links you provide rather than a total data scrape.
To full scrape the users history you would have to list every URL in existence.
Great proof of concept though.
- frantzmiccoli 12y agoRebuilding the full user history would be impossible, but finding a few compromising websites would be easy.
- jengamaster 12y agoWould have been a greater one if linklist.js contained links to more sites than Github, Reddit and Hackernews... I mean I could have guessed those by assuming that I visited that page via Hackernews.
- frantzmiccoli 12y agoMy point was to actually show something to the testers, I reduced the scope on purpose.
- mikeash 12y agoThere are a lot of attacks like this, and it's serious enough that browsers attempt to mitigate them by e.g. preventing JavaScript from reading out the computed properties of a visited link element. Three sites is obviously too small to do much, but if you splat in a list bigger list of popular web sites you can learn a lot about your visitors.
- cissou 12y agoFor ad related purposes, it makes it easy to see if you've visited competitors' websites (3-5 of them), therefore meaning that you're actively looking for business, instead of just bouncing on the page with no intent of buying anything.