From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Changing user agent on eww [OT] Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 20:50:16 -0500 Message-ID: References: <16166511.vzeQlYYo3r@descartes> <87ob32mf2a.fsf_-_@gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1390528240 3457 80.91.229.3 (24 Jan 2014 01:50:40 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 01:50:40 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: trentbuck@gmail.com (Trent W. Buck) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jan 24 02:50:48 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1W6Vuu-0003VQ-2n for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 24 Jan 2014 02:50:44 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:44045 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W6Vut-0007Ev-IC for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 20:50:43 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:35695) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W6Vul-0007Ec-3l for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 20:50:41 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W6Vuf-0003hQ-4b for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 20:50:35 -0500 Original-Received: from ironport2-out.teksavvy.com ([206.248.154.181]:28876) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W6Vuf-0003h3-0W for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 20:50:29 -0500 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: Av4EABK/CFHO+Jkg/2dsb2JhbABEvw4Xc4IeAQEEAVYjBQsLNBIUGA2IQgbBKQSRCgOIYZwZgV6DFQ X-IPAS-Result: Av4EABK/CFHO+Jkg/2dsb2JhbABEvw4Xc4IeAQEEAVYjBQsLNBIUGA2IQgbBKQSRCgOIYZwZgV6DFQ X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.84,565,1355115600"; d="scan'208";a="45955993" Original-Received: from 206-248-153-32.dsl.teksavvy.com (HELO pastel.home) ([206.248.153.32]) by ironport2-out.teksavvy.com with ESMTP/TLS/ADH-AES256-SHA; 23 Jan 2014 20:50:27 -0500 Original-Received: by pastel.home (Postfix, from userid 20848) id 275006019C; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 20:50:17 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <87ob32mf2a.fsf_-_@gmail.com> (Trent W. Buck's message of "Fri, 24 Jan 2014 10:52:29 +1100") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 206.248.154.181 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:168990 Archived-At: > Hmm... I wonder if https://panopticlick.eff.org/ rates "no UA" as being > *more* identifiable than spoofing it to something commonplace? :-) BTW, I was recently thinking about this "http header fingerprinting" problem and was wondering if anybody has tried to randomize their header. More specifically, change part of the header for each request. An obvious option is to add a counter to the "user-agent", and to add a "blur" factor to the language options. E.g. my "en-us,fr-ch;q=0.8,es-ar;q=0.6,en;q=0.4,de;q=0.2" appears to be very rare, but if it keeps changing from en-us,fr-ch;q=0.80000234,es-ar;q=0.60000765,en;q=0.40000345,de;q=0.20000123 to en-us,fr-ch;q=0.80000983,es-ar;q=0.60000923,en;q=0.40000186,de;q=0.20000236 to ... then a naive fingerprinting will be fooled into thinking it's coming from a different user. Stefan