From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.ciao.gmane.io!not-for-mail From: Tomas Nordin Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help,gmane.emacs.w3m Subject: Re: Browser Fingerprinting Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2020 21:19:40 +0200 Message-ID: <873694mu9f.fsf@fliptop.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me> References: <87lfmx8frv.fsf@ebih.ebihd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="ciao.gmane.io:159.69.161.202"; logging-data="103969"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: emacs-w3m@namazu.org To: Emanuel Berg , help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Wed Apr 15 21:20:17 2020 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1jOna4-000Qv0-DO for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 15 Apr 2020 21:20:16 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:54272 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jOna3-0003rO-Em for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 15 Apr 2020 15:20:15 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:57112) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jOnZa-0003r3-JD for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 15 Apr 2020 15:19:48 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1jOnZZ-0004Ue-5O for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 15 Apr 2020 15:19:46 -0400 Original-Received: from mout01.posteo.de ([185.67.36.65]:45388) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1jOnZY-0004Te-JF for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 15 Apr 2020 15:19:45 -0400 Original-Received: from submission (posteo.de [89.146.220.130]) by mout01.posteo.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id B22A016005F for ; Wed, 15 Apr 2020 21:19:41 +0200 (CEST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=posteo.net; s=2017; t=1586978381; bh=QYMHY/s2UbZf7E5qsT0+wN8yfzCq/B/ar0bJqgNs9zw=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:Date:From; b=I18FmNWnPLypBxDBHR/8KbpHbNAsKj1jPaKu72KKykAUvnt46EMs/k8Nn6bADft9o UyxczE9kJYEV0a543k4VgG3QYlEDUyFtOIGjXc1eqhJo1eJWp9K80OrzBxq7+artcf A/x8FOCr1kdJZCA8PN5Uk7vWyyLvUpGhnm3M/4voePkm+ks/YE7zjYyQ5aRWFOw7mZ AG5jQJZ9QT2W2r9T4aMbFIhxRlnTXJK+bMvf7VA51ztCu4rMZk6U/eD0yJ+iyb9UJy fVVOlTBV8GS4xK6/kxhANJLvfMs1+SnsPIlryboVUHVcwR5O4KvqES27zcyU6Dcbbs zM20RZaO1X5TA== Original-Received: from customer (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by submission (posteo.de) with ESMTPSA id 492XH05q0Wz9rxk; Wed, 15 Apr 2020 21:19:40 +0200 (CEST) In-Reply-To: <87lfmx8frv.fsf@ebih.ebihd> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] [fuzzy] X-Received-From: 185.67.36.65 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "help-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.help:122837 gmane.emacs.w3m:10484 Archived-At: Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor writes: > Here is an interesting article on so called "Browser > Fingerprinting" [1]. This can be of some concern to > people using uncommon browsers like Emacs-w3m. I did this test at https://panopticlick.eff.org in 2017 with emacs w3m. I was then unique among 216 118 browsers. I think the count is tested browser the last N days. I did it again now and was unique among 175 561 browser the last 45 days with 17.42 bits of identifying information (emacs w3m). Here are some more stats from that test: Test Result Is your browser blocking tracking ads? =E2=9C=93 yes=20 Is your browser blocking invisible trackers? =E2=9C=93 yes=20 Is your browser accepting Do Not Track commitments? =E2=9C=97 no=20=20 Does your browser protect from fingerprinting? =E2=9C=97 no=20=20 > Because Emacs-w3m doesn't support JavaScript, one should > be safe from all that save for the cookies, but they can > be be disabled with > > (setq w3m-use-cookies nil) didn't turn that off... > Then there is also the User-Agent field in the HTTP > request which browser supplies voluntarily. > Because Emacs-w3m isn't the most common of browsers, > this field can be used to identify YOU - possibly. > Inhibit with > > (setq w3m-add-user-agent nil) Didn't do that. > Now, check out the progress on [2] :) Here I get ... full fingerprint is unique among the 1 936 960 collected so far. > (The language is still "en" - however I don't think > anyone can be tracked using that data...) > > Of course, the IP is still there, because otherwise the > server won't know where to send the requested HTML. > I think it is much more likely that tracking will be > done using that, than the browser fingerprint! Maybe. EFF explained to me at the time that browser fingerprinting is more effective since IP can change over time and can be fiddled with with VPN and so on. (Of course browser can change as well but anyway) > But that's not a browser issue, people who look for that kind of > anonymity will probably use VPN or Tor or be on some other *net > altogether, besides the internet... > > Even if you feel you have nothing to hide, and you are > not paranoid, it can be a good feeling not to give > anything to these bozos anyway :) Browser fingerprinting for tracking users ought to be illegal. It's just wrong, no matter you have something to hide or not. Edward Snowden said something I agree with -- saying that you don't care about privacy because you don't have anything to hide is like saying you don't care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. Best regards -- Tomas