[PLUG] [PLUG-TALK] How do web servers identify visitor devices?

[Russell Senior]

Although the idea of browser fingerprinting was not new to me, I did find
the link to https://panopticlick.eff.org/ interesting and somewhat
illuminating.

Followups should (?) probably go to plug-talk.

-- 
Russell Senior
russell at personaltelco.net

On Sun, Feb 26, 2023 at 3:42 PM Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at portlandia-it.com>
wrote:

> Unfortunately my experience in "technical blog posts" is that most of them
> are crap, they are put together by people who run scraping software that
> rips off content from other people's sites then assembles it to try to make
> money off advertising on their sites.
>
> Unless the technical post is part of a forum that has a lot of
> participation on it to where people with more knowledge/experience can
> either add to it or refute it, usually it's just not that good.
>
> Ted
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PLUG [mailto:plug-bounces at lists.pdxlinux.org] On Behalf Of Ben
> Koenig
> Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2023 1:19 PM
> To: Portland Linux/Unix Group <plug at lists.pdxlinux.org>
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] [PLUG-TALK] How do web servers identify visitor
> devices?
>
> None of this is news. That entire blog post looks like it written to
> appeal to someone who spent the last 30 years not asking how the internet
> works then freaking out after realizing what is possible. No joke, I read
> the following quote from that article and nearly fell out of my chair.
>
> "What’s ironic about device fingerprinting is that the more
> privacy-centered add-ons you install on your browser (e.g. Privacy Badger,
> Do Not Track Me, Ghostery to name a few) in a bid to protect the remnants
> of your privacy, the easier it becomes to identify you because of the
> uniqueness of your browser’s configuration."
>
> ROFLMAO. It's so brilliantly stupid that it cannot be refuted by logical
> means. That whole article is an accurate example of human intelligence
> after decades of inadvertent lead exposure. Nice.
>
> -Ben
>
>
> ------- Original Message -------
> On Sunday, February 26th, 2023 at 10:21 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt <
> tedm at portlandia-it.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Why is this even necessary to look at nonsense like the plugins, both
> HP, Dell, and Lenovo computers make their motherboard serial numbers
> available via BIOS calls and those serial numbers are unique. Hard disks
> also have unique serial numbers and of course the LAN MAC addresses and
> Bluetooth BD_ADDR are unique. The machine's ARP cache is not protected
> either so if they really want to fingerprint they can look at the netmask
> in use, setup a loop and ping every IP in the network then pull all the MAC
> addresses out of the ARP cache and then if they really want to get clever
> they can match the MACs and see if any other machines on the local network
> that they have fingerprints for are online.
> >
> > The entire hoo-ha over Intel putting serial numbers in it's CPUs a few
> years back was complete baloney, a red herring to distract the masses.
> >
> > The clearcode article is just barely scraping the surface and what they
> say is being collected sounds like amateur hour.
> >
> > Ted
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: PLUG [mailto:plug-bounces at lists.pdxlinux.org] On Behalf Of
> Michael Rasmussen
> > Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2023 10:46 AM
> > To: Portland Linux/Unix Group plug at pdxlinux.org
> >
> > Subject: Re: [PLUG] [PLUG-TALK] How do web servers identify visitor
> devices?
> >
> >
> >
> > Fingerprint computes avail themselfs to a variety of items that, taken
> together, come close to uniquely identifing your computer.
> >
> > From:
> >
> https://clearcode.cc/blog/device-fingerprinting/#What-information-is-collected-to-create-a-device-fingerprint
> >
> > They list:
> >
> > * IP address
> > * HTTP request headers
> > * User agent string
> > * Installed plugins
> > * Client time zone
> > * Information about the client device: screen resolution, touch support,
> operating system and language
> > * Flash data provided by a Flash plugin
> > * List of installed fonts
> > * Silverlight data
> > * List of mime-types
> >
> > For more information you can check out the description of it on
> > Wikipedia:
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_fingerprint
> >
> > * Timestamp
> > *
> >
> > --
> >
> > Michael Rasmussen
> > Be Appropriate && Follow Your Curiosity
>