- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
Amidst the glossy marketing for VPN services, it can be tempting to believe that the moment you flick on the VPN connection you can browse the internet with full privacy. Unfortunately this is quite far from the truth, as interacting with internet services like websites leaves a significant fingerprint. In a study by [RTINGS.com] this browser fingerprinting was investigated in detail, showing just how easy it is to uniquely identify a visitor across the 83 laptops used in the study.
As summarized in the related video (also embedded below), the start of the study involved the Am I Unique? website which provides you with an overview of your browser fingerprint. With over 4.5 million fingerprints in their database as of writing, even using Edge on Windows 10 marks you as unique, which is telling.
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The only real advantage you gain is being able to watch things outside your region. Without lots of work, you’re pretty easily traceable on the modern internet.
I remember in 1996 my neighbor was in one of these fancy new things on the internet called a “chat room”.
He got into an arguement with someone. It got heated. Until the other guy threatened to show up at my neighbors house.
My neighbor scoffed and laughed.
Then the guy put in my neighbors real address. To this day, that still scares me. And back then internet crime wasn’t taken seriously. In fact doxxing back then may not yet have even been a crime.
FYI:
https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/doxxing-free-speech-and-first-amendment
In the US, “doxxing” laws are pretty much state-by-state and many may be violating the first amendment.
Today, yes. In 1996 “doxxing” wasn’t a term. The internet was so new to people that nobody knew what it could even do.
I’ll give you a great example. I remember watching a news report fall of 2000, where K*B Toys was trying this untested idea. Could they use the internet to sell things? The experts said no, and that the internet was a fad. It simply wasn’t a medium you could use for commercial things…ebay aside.
In 1996 Google didn’t even exist yet. I don’t think Amazon was even a bookstore yet. The internet in those days was primitive, and the wild west of the technology realm.
Most vendors are not going to trace you like that. They can, but it’s actually kind of nontrivial and not “easy.”
I’m more thinking about government. I gave up on trying to avoid ad tracking forever ago. But if you think a VPN keeps you safe posting “anonymously”, it doesn’t. That’s more what I’m referring to.
The other major advantage is your ISP can’t build a profile on you. Considering they know who you are and where you live, that’s a pretty important air gap to me.
If the NSA wants you, they will get you. But I can hide from most of you with just a little email relay and a VPN
I can hide from everyone, I just walk into the woods.
The woods are where i can find people though
Those aren’t people anymore. They’re taxidermied corpses. There’s a difference.
Also, stop doing that.
I can’t stop myself
Heeeeey. Former kid, current adult, and future crazy old man here. Quick question. Do they still have 1 box of communal porn in the woods? Every woods had one when I was a kid, but I haven’t been in the woods ever since we had to kill that bear.
Just wondering if woods porn is still a thing.
No, we’re more into woods erotic geocaching these days.
Sadly, I’ve not come upon such a cache since the before times.
Does anyone know if Firefox’s claimed Anti fingerprinting technology is any good?
it’s useless. test it out with creepjs
I’m not looking to be anonymous, I want access to Stargate Atlantis that Amazon Prime is geo blocking from me.
For that, VPN works as advertised.
Yep. That’s how I watch F1 too.
here is a fingerprinting test you can trust https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
fingerprinting is nasty, i suggest canvas blocker extension because it gives them fake readouts
This is why you use a separate browser for different activities and don’t cross contaminate.
Pfft, I have 12 firewalls, good luck decrypting these. 🤓
I’ll just get 3 hackers to my keyboard, just wait.
Good luck I’m behind 7 proxies
I’m here with multi-hop VPN with the first two hops staying in-country and the rest all random + a shit load of DNS blocking lists and browser extensions + blocking Google. I use different VPN providers too. I’m also introducing variable delays to my traffic to make NetFilter data less helpful.
That’s the point. It doesn’t matter how many middle layers there are, if you’re using a web browser, there are hundreds of pieces of information that can still be used to uniquely identify you. Do you have WebGL enabled? If so, you could be identified with 100 constantly changing proxies.
I bought a used laptop from a yard sale and only use public Wi-Fi and never use the laptop for anything with my name on it.
Pfft amateur, I break into my local Applbee’s after 2AM and use their POS terminal browser to look at used cars.
What a pointless article.
Every time I use that site it says I am unique. So is that good? Surely if I was trackable, it would match me against the previous times I’d been there.
Or maybe the site is just spouting a load of clickbaity nonsense?
Yes, your browser is probably generating brand new canvas and other fingerprints every visit, which is a good thing.
Until someone invents real-life Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics from the cyberpunk genre, where doing shit you dont like leads them to have their equipment destroyed with electricity surge, nothing you do online is private nor is there any consequences from them enumerating everything about you to sell or use maliciously.
For me I like to prevent fingerprinting by:
Librewolf(private and less intrusive defaults) + noscript (blocking useless JavaScript) + jsshelter (Javascript sanitization) + Ublock Origin(blocking trackers and ads)Your fingerpeint is that you aren’t fingerprinted. If you think a website is like “Gosh darn it those rapscallions foiled me again! Guess I can’t track them now!” You’re sorely mistaken. Get a user agent switcher and pretend to be a windows, chrome user to blend in with the rest of the masses.
Good explanation.
Does anonymous mode browsing+VPN improve this? I would think it would
Part of the reason Tor is good is because it generates the same fingerprint for all users (part of the reason you shouldn’t install additional extensions on it, by the way). Mullvad browser tries to do this but without the Tor network.
