5 ms·

Additionally, the STUN attempts are supposedly gone since yesterday: https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadgerchrome/issues/431#issuecomment-121360707 https://gi

• joosters 11y ago
  Wow, so if I'm reading that right, they wrote a tracker that generates a new request every 5 seconds? These scumbags are ruining the web. And they wonder why people use ad blockers...
  • droopybuns 11y ago
    It is scenarios like this that make me unhappy with net neutrality principles that suggest all packets are equal. We are still very early in the age of the Internet. People are sending all sorts of trashy traffic. There is ample opportunity to optimize but net neutrality means we have to treat it all the same. It's nuts.
    • MichaelGG 11y ago
      No. Net neutrality means the ISPs cannot "optimize" this stuff. Everyone else is welcome to do so. That's the entire point.
  • bri3d 11y ago
    It sounds like the requests were a bug: https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadgerchrome/issues/431#issuecomment-120668943 https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadgerchrome/issues/431#iss... This looks like it's trying to exercise every dark corner of the user's browser in order to ensure that the browser is a real, eyeball-facing browser and not just a URL fetcher, PhantomJS/SlimerJS, or a clickjacking plugin being used to fraudulently click ads. I think it's easy to see both sides here: tools like this are a powerful way to detect and combat botnets and click fraud, but if/when weaponized they're also a form of browser fingerprinting which is a nasty way to ruin anonymity across the web. IMO there are a lot of bigger targets on the Taxonomy of Bad Internet Things: malware-serving bottom-tier ad networks, "wrapped download" sites, clickjacking, and especially cross-site correlative "analytics" companies come to mind as being more sinister to privacy than Dan Kaminsky going botnet hunting.
    • joosters 11y ago
      Their motives might be good, but if their actions are indistinguishable from the bad guys, then there's still a problem.
      • meowface 11y ago
        I'd argue that collecting unique information from your browser does not necessarily make you "the bad guys". Lots of legitimate anti-fraud products used on bank/investment websites collect that information and detect/prevent account takeovers before fraudsters can steal money and identities, for example. What can make it bad is: 1. What you do with that information. 2. Who or what you share it with. 3. How far your reach extends. An ad network which can place that code on multiple websites can put itself in a position of power and track devices, and thus browsing habits, of individuals. However, if you have fingerprinting code only on your own website, and don't share that information with any other people/companies/websites, and use it solely to detect malicious bots, users, and behaviors, then I don't really think it's bad. It's like the difference between a gas station owner pointing a closed circuit camera at the door and someone flying a surveillance drone over a whole state. Both are surveillance, but one kind is much less ethical.
        • JoshTriplett 11y ago
          If it's possible to collect enough information from your browser to uniquely identify you, your browser needs fixing.
          • meowface 11y ago
            I would agree, but there are very few browsers out there to which that doesn't apply.
    • userbinator 11y ago
      This looks like it's trying to exercise every dark corner of the user's browser in order to ensure that the browser is a real, eyeball-facing browser and not just a URL fetcher, PhantomJS/SlimerJS, or a clickjacking plugin being used to fraudulently click ads. It sounds like it would be quite easy to circumvent just by running a real browser... especially with lightweight VMs.