From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: ng0 Subject: Re: [PATCH] gnu: icecat: correct useragent to GNU GuixSD. Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 12:52:29 +0000 Message-ID: <87lgyzlxwy.fsf@we.make.ritual.n0.is> References: <878tv0un7w.fsf@gnu.org> <993e9fdb-97b1-9238-8079-1f78bd553b0f@openmailbox.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:43709) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bihmB-0002lN-Ij for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Sep 2016 08:52:56 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bihm6-00015q-L9 for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Sep 2016 08:52:55 -0400 Received: from aibo.runbox.com ([91.220.196.211]:55229) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bihm6-00015f-EI for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Sep 2016 08:52:50 -0400 In-Reply-To: <993e9fdb-97b1-9238-8079-1f78bd553b0f@openmailbox.org> List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: Brendan Tildesley , guix-devel@gnu.org Hi, Brendan Tildesley writes: > On 2016-09-10 19:18, Jan Nieuwenhuizen wrote: >> Hi! >> >> Attached simple patch fixes spreading of theh terribly ignoring lie that >> I would be running Windows NT. >> >> I'm probably displayng unimaginable ignorance here but it's beyond me >> why a project like Firefox would hardcode such a default. >> > The user agent is a string that is freely provided to websites when you > connect. Changing the default user agent in Guix's Icecat to Guix means > that all Guix Icecat users will suddenly be identifiable by this datum, > and automated surveillance networks will pick this up, bulking our > browsing behaviour with other instances of the same user id, using that > to serve up advertising to us on sites or whatever, I haven't really > read much on this. > This is the current Icecat user string followed by the user string of my > version of Tor browser: > > Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0 > Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0 > > If we had Icecat 45 already, we would be helping Tor users be less > trackable, but as you can see, just 4 characters are different, which is > all that is needed to break anonymity. Perhaps there are still some > people using Tor Browser 38 that we are assisting, but I suspect not > many. I can't see how the version number would affect website behaviour > realistically, so perhaps we could maintain our instance of Icecat > patched with the latest Tor user agent instead, in order to assist Tor > users? On the other hand it is kinda *bleh* to be advertising myself as > a Windows user, skewing statistics, so It'd be nice to have a Linux, > GNU/Linux, or Guix user agent, so that published OS usage statistics > will display our mighty existence! User agents being changeable is > meaningless unless there is at least one large cluster of users with > some arbitrary string that can be chosen to hide with, so there may be > greater value in keeping "Windows NT". I'm not sure, what do others think? > > I agree and I am against applying this patch. -- ng0 For non-prism friendly talk find me on http://www.psyced.org