Re: Browser fingerprinting?

From	Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon@gmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.php
Subject	Re: Browser fingerprinting?
Date	2013-09-18 05:06 +0000
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<l1bcd9$95v$3@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	(1 earlier) <l0tvb5$2ot$1@dont-email.me> <f4f539loti3ds3elv7s5qifjnv3o9ham1k@4ax.com> <l1076e$a9s$1@speranza.aioe.org> <vmn939pmm184ciferi83kb1gbklgv370l4@4ax.com> <5238c14a$0$15882$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl>

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On Tue, 17 Sep 2013 22:53:30 +0200, Marc van Lieshout wrote:

> On 15-09-13 00:11, Gilles wrote:
>> On Fri, 13 Sep 2013 19:30:18 -0400, Twayne <nobody@spamcop.net> wrote:
>>> If it were easy to do, it'd also be widely publicized and available.

>> Thanks for the feedback.

> It IS easy to do and widely available.

No it's not.

> Look at the firefox add-on called SecretAgent. It's at:
> https://www.dephormation.org.uk/?page=81

> It has some 150 browser identification strings aboard (Including Amaya,
> Dillo, Bluefish), spoofs x-forwarded-for and via, spoof ETags and send
> random Accept: headers.

That's spoofing, not fingerprinting.

Spoofing is easy. Fingerprinting is not. Fingerprinting is attempting to 
uniquely identify visitors to a site at the site server. Spoofing is  
trying to tell the server you're someone different in some way to who you 
really are. They're not the same thing, and while spoofing is easy, 
fingerprinting accurately and reliably is incredibly difficult.

If I visit your website today using firefox on my unix pc over my adsl 
connection, and tomorrow using chrome on my android tablet over it's 3g 
connection, how are you going to fingerprint me? I don't need to use 
anything as "technical" as spoofing the browser id. You lost the game as 
soon as I started playing!

-- 
Denis McMahon, denismfmcmahon@gmail.com

Thread

Browser fingerprinting? Gilles <nospam@nospam.com> - 2013-09-12 23:56 +0200
  Re: Browser fingerprinting? Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon@gmail.com> - 2013-09-12 22:26 +0000
    Re: Browser fingerprinting? Gilles <nospam@nospam.com> - 2013-09-13 00:38 +0200
      Re: Browser fingerprinting? Gilles <nospam@nospam.com> - 2013-09-13 00:43 +0200
        Re: Browser fingerprinting? Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon@gmail.com> - 2013-09-12 23:29 +0000
          Re: Browser fingerprinting? Gilles <nospam@nospam.com> - 2013-09-13 09:23 +0200
            Re: Browser fingerprinting? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2013-09-13 09:32 -0400
    Re: Browser fingerprinting? Twayne <nobody@spamcop.net> - 2013-09-13 19:13 -0400
      Re: Browser fingerprinting? Christoph Michael Becker <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2013-09-14 01:30 +0200
  Re: Browser fingerprinting? jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com - 2013-09-12 22:19 +0000
  Re: Browser fingerprinting? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2013-09-12 20:31 -0400
    Re: Browser fingerprinting? "J.O. Aho" <user@example.net> - 2013-09-13 06:59 +0200
  Re: Browser fingerprinting? Fiver <numeralfive@gmail.com> - 2013-09-13 05:04 +0200
    Re: Browser fingerprinting? Michael Vilain <vilain@NOspamcop.net> - 2013-09-12 22:49 -0700
      Re: Browser fingerprinting? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2013-09-13 09:35 -0400
      Re: Browser fingerprinting? Martin Leese <please@see.Web.for.e-mail.INVALID> - 2013-09-13 08:42 -0600
      Re: Browser fingerprinting? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2013-09-15 20:57 +0200
    Re: Browser fingerprinting? Gilles <nospam@nospam.com> - 2013-09-13 09:22 +0200
      Re: Browser fingerprinting? Twayne <nobody@spamcop.net> - 2013-09-13 19:30 -0400
        Re: Browser fingerprinting? Gilles <nospam@nospam.com> - 2013-09-15 00:11 +0200
          Re: Browser fingerprinting? Twayne <nobody@spamcop.net> - 2013-09-15 16:27 -0400
            Re: Browser fingerprinting? "Peter H. Coffin" <hellsop@ninehells.com> - 2013-09-15 21:07 -0500
            Re: Browser fingerprinting? Gregor Kofler <usenet@gregorkofler.com> - 2013-09-16 11:36 +0200
              Re: Browser fingerprinting? Twayne <nobody@spamcop.net> - 2013-09-17 20:02 -0400
                Re: Browser fingerprinting? "Peter H. Coffin" <hellsop@ninehells.com> - 2013-09-17 22:47 -0500
            Re: Browser fingerprinting? Norman Peelman <npeelman@cfl.rr.com> - 2013-09-16 06:13 -0400
              Re: Browser fingerprinting? Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon@gmail.com> - 2013-09-16 11:03 +0000
                Re: Browser fingerprinting? Twayne <nobody@spamcop.net> - 2013-09-17 20:11 -0400
              Re: Browser fingerprinting? Twayne <nobody@spamcop.net> - 2013-09-17 20:06 -0400
                Re: Browser fingerprinting? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2013-09-18 01:33 +0100
          Re: Browser fingerprinting? Marc van Lieshout <invalid@example.com> - 2013-09-17 22:53 +0200
            Re: Browser fingerprinting? Twayne <nobody@spamcop.net> - 2013-09-17 20:20 -0400
            Re: Browser fingerprinting? Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon@gmail.com> - 2013-09-18 05:06 +0000
              Re: Browser fingerprinting? Scott Johnson <noonehome@chalupasworld.com> - 2013-09-18 06:09 -0700
                Re: Browser fingerprinting? "J.O. Aho" <user@example.net> - 2013-09-18 18:24 +0200

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