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Browser fingerprinting is where JavaScript or other means are used to scrape uniquely identifying information from the browser metadata and functions such as how it draws a canvas object. In it's latest release Apple will defeat browser fingerprinting by making all Mac users look alike to advertisers and websites that use fingerprinting to track users. Apple can afford to do this as it doesn't have skin in the online advertising game.
[This is likely only going to be for the Safari browser. - Ed]
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Latest Apple Release to Defeat Browser Fingerprinting in Safari
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Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected.
-- Spock, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 14 2018, @05:53PM (20 children)
Apple is trying to undermine Google and Facebook's business model. They want it so that only Apple can really track what users of their products are doing.
I wouldn't be surprised in the least if Microsoft tries to do the same to Edge/Explorer.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @06:02PM (10 children)
Is that a general comment, or a criticism? Regardless of the motivations, I think this is overall a good thing. I would hope other browsers follow suit.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @06:15PM (6 children)
Sounds like criticism to me. While I applaud the stated goal I think they OP has a good point, this way Apple can silo the data of millions of users. Data is valuable, they will now be able to gatekeep the targeting data for advertisers and Apple users are a prime audience that is willing to pay excessive amounts of money for things.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Immerman on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:21PM (5 children)
*IF* Apple is recording peoples browsing activities (is there any evidence of this?), I'd say siloing is *still* a good thing - the more separate, secret silos such data is spread across, the more difficult it is for malicious actors (advertisers, governments, etc) to use that data to manipulate the population at large. And even on a personal level - if advertisers have to buy my data from Apple, rather than collecting it themselves for (practically) free, then fewer advertisers will find it worth their while to try to target me specifically with their behavior manipulation engines (aka ads).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:28PM (4 children)
They are a malicious actor themselves for siloing data in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:29PM
You're right: your data wants to be free!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:44PM (2 children)
No, they're malicious for *collecting* it (assuming they are. Evidence?). Your browsing habits are nobody's business but yours. Siloing such data would just make them profiteers, in a manner that actually benefits the users at least slightly compared to selling it or spreading it around.
But again- do we have any evidence that they're actually collecting such data, rather than just making it much more difficult for others to do so? Because the two are basically unrelated, and defending people's privacy seems to me to fall pretty clearly on the side of "good". Even if they're only defending it from other parasites, while mining it themselves, it's *still* good - they could far more easily just continue to let everybody mine it, and let you suffer the subtle price of having far more parasites tracking you.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 14 2018, @08:36PM (1 child)
My evidence that they'll be collecting and siloing it is the following:
1. They can, and basically nobody has either the ability or inclination to stop them (a small number of techies might filter out the traffic, but that's a blip among their customer base).
2. They believe it's profitable for them to do so.
And that makes the decision very very simple for management.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday August 15 2018, @01:25AM
That's not evidence - that's reasoning. Sound perhaps, but still not evidence. And we are talking about one of the very few tech companies in the world that has actively fought government spying on citizens, rather than bending over backwards to make it easier for them like most do.
And yes - it would be very hard for many to stop them, especially among their target customer base, but it would be very easy for them to be exposed, and for now at least they seem to be embracing the privacy thing as a marketing tool.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 14 2018, @06:20PM (2 children)
If all browsers follow suit, that only kinda helps protect your privacy if you are not running an operating system with spyware installed, which means not Apple and not Microsoft. Otherwise, all that's shifted is which megacorp has control of advertising targeting aimed at you.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @05:26AM (1 child)
Mozilla has been doing a bit in this direction for a while. E.g. accepting anti-fingerprinting patches from the Tor project (Tor's "uplift" project to get as much of Tor browser into upstream Firefox as they can).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:43PM
Palemoon has had inbuilt canvas poisoning for a long time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nwf on Tuesday August 14 2018, @06:32PM (3 children)
I don't think they care about undermining Google and Facebook. I think they've heard complaints from non-technical users that find the web advertising model very creepy and of no value. They are responding to those users' complaints and are trying to make the web better for them. This does help them look better in the press, for sure, but it's definitely in keeping with their recent privacy push.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @08:14PM (1 child)
Will it improve the actual experience? The only ads with a sufficiently universal appeal are from porn and viagra right? How many people want more of that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:09PM
Irrelevant. I know the url for pornhub by heart. How will advertizing help here?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday August 15 2018, @01:10AM
Don't they already all look alike? Whenever I see a latte-sipping hipster kitted out with iEverything-you-can-buy I immediately know, "Apple user".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 14 2018, @08:41PM (2 children)
Others have already asked for citations about Apple tracking it's users. I don't know - I've never heard of it. I've avoided Apple products, primarily because they are expensive compared to comparable stuff.
But - Apple recently stood up to Gubbermint over the case of the Inland shooter. The G-men said, "Apple, we want you to unlock this phone." Apple said, "We can't do it." Eventually the phone was unlocked, but apparently without the cooperation of Apple. Apple's stance was that they don't install trash on their phones, there is no back door, and even if they have a genuine terrorist, Apple can't break the encryption.
Now, unless all of that was just hot air, released for public relations at the behest of Marketing droids, WTF would Apple be tracking users?
Yeah, I know, I can't say that they aren't. But without citations, you can't say that they are.
Despite the whole closed garden nonsense, and all the idiot phanboy bullshit, it seems that Apple thinks of their customers in a much better light than any of the competition.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @11:37AM (1 child)
How about https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html#surveillance [gnu.org] for starters?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:03PM
Your link is informative. But, some of that has to be salted a little. It is gnu.org, after all. The gnu philosophy is preferable to MS and many other major actors in the field of software. But, these guys might be considered extremists in regards to libre software. They're pretty good hearted, and well intentioned, but sometimes, you have to wonder how firmly they are anchored to reality.
As for Apple's many sins - well - those who choose to live in a cathedral might expect to live by the dictates of the priests and priestesses. Those of us who live in the bazaar - or the bizarre, if you wish - don't have to worry about those dictates.
But, I'll admit. Now and then I look at the cathedral, and wonder about converting. Life in the cathedral isn't as bad as life with MS, IMO. But, then I look around, and remember that priests and priestesses don't like assholes like me very much. I would soon get into far more trouble than the experience was worth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @11:19PM
Since Macs comprise something of like 5% of the PC market, I'm not sure how Apple doing this would undermine anyone's market.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Tuesday August 14 2018, @11:26PM
Apple's money doesn't come from advertising. It comes from selling products to its customers, not selling its customers to marketers.
Now that Apple is using this as a differentiator in the market, there is a disincentive for Apple to track their users in the way that FB and Google do.
See also: Apple Pay (the payment scheme where Apple and the banks get less information about your purchasing habits than other payment methods)