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Researchers have proposed a cross-browser fingerprinting technique that uses OS and hardware-level features. The researchers claim to have successfully identified 99.24% of users in their dataset compared to 90.84% for the state of the art of single-browser fingerprinting.
Researchers have recently developed the first reliable technique for websites to track visitors even when they use two or more different browsers. This shatters a key defense against sites that identify visitors based on the digital fingerprint their browsers leave behind.
State-of-the-art fingerprinting techniques are highly effective at identifying users when they use browsers with default or commonly used settings. For instance, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's privacy tool, known as Panopticlick, found that only one in about 77,691 browsers had the same characteristics as the one commonly used by this reporter. Such fingerprints are the result of specific settings and customizations found in a specific browser installation, including the list of plugins, the selected time zone, whether a "do not track" option is turned on, and whether an adblocker is being used.
Until now, however, the tracking has been limited to a single browser. This constraint made it infeasible to tie, say, the fingerprint left behind by a Firefox browser to the fingerprint from a Chrome or Edge installation running on the same machine. The new technique—outlined in a research paper titled (Cross-)Browser Fingerprinting via OS and Hardware Level Features—not only works across multiple browsers. It's also more accurate than previous single-browser fingerprinting.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Wednesday February 15 2017, @03:47AM
What VMs do people commonly use to run a browser, not that it wouldn't make too much a difference?
You know, perhaps the macbook users are a step ahead as they have less hardware choices. Now you just need to uncouple your Apple hardware from your Apple ID without removing Apple's software. And then accept all of Apple's default choices.
Perhaps I should start browsing the web with just telnet. But then I'd be identified by my typing rate and reoccurring typos.
You know, we might just be too damn smart for our own good. We should have been clever instead of smart and when presented with the challenge, respond with a "sounds plausible in a small group setting, but across society I don't think that is possible given the availability of commodity hardware and automatic updates and so forth." *wink**wink* instead of going, "sure, I'd love to identify myself, friends, family, and everyone for better marketing and government tracking! Sounds like a great idea because everybody makes rational, reasonable decisions firmly based on logic and everybody like me." What comic books have taught me is that logical, smart people are often the most sinister and misguided.
Netcraft confirms it, privacy is dead.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base