4 ms·
Take a look at the results on http://www.areweprivateyet.com/ http://www.areweprivateyet.com/ The methodology is described here: https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/
by thirsteh 12y ago
Take a look at the results on http://www.areweprivateyet.com/ http://www.areweprivateyet.com/
The methodology is described here: https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2011/09/tracking-trackers-self-help-tools https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2011/09/tracking-trackers...
Even the DNT header, which is widely recognized as a failure since it relies on the perpetrators to regulate themselves, protects you better against tracking than blocking third-party cookies. It's just too easy to track people by other means, and the companies that aren't already doing it will certainly start if a meaningful number of people suddenly block third-party cookies.
The only pragmatic and effective way to avoid being tracked today is to use something like uBlock (more efficient ABP + noscript) with the third-party script and frame blocking features enabled (whitelisting third-party scripts/frames only on those sites that break something you want to see at the cost of possibly being tracked by something the block lists don't catch.)
- erglkjahlkh 12y agoThank you for good links. What is also somewhat scary is font enumeration. It is somewhat uncommon to find two computer with the exactly same set of installed fonts. I have noticed that especially on Windows platform many applications bundle their own fonts, and the resulting sets are very good for fingerprinting systems.
- thirsteh 12y agoIndeed. Some interesting research is being done on this: https://github.com/ghostwords/chameleon https://github.com/ghostwords/chameleon
- gsnedders 12y agoAlso, it's worthwhile noting the DNT header just provides another piece of input to the fingerprinting matrix.
- pdkl95 12y agoI doubt anybody really expected the DNT header to actually stop anything. Sometimes there is value in stating your position clearly, and the DNT header provides a standard, unambiguous way of doing that. It is a lot harder to claim that your users wanted tracking as a "feature" (or that asking their opinion was to difficult or impossible) when lots of of the HTTP requests have a header that explicitly states users' opinion.
- thirsteh 12y ago...and it's completely pointless when your browser enables DNT by default, putting us back to square one.
- wtallis 12y agouBlock can block scripts, but that doesn't make it a replacement for NoScript, which has quite a few features beyond simple script blocking.