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

[Ben Koenig]

Discussions regarding the technical implementation of device fingerprinting are perfectly on topic IMO.

The ethical nature of such technology is another subject of debate and is probably better on plug-talk. Conversations like this can split both ways ;)

My somewhat toxic rant largely revolves around the articles blatant misunderstanding of how anonymity works. He made a perfectly sane statement about data collection/aggregatioon and then proceeded to make a completely contradictory claim.  
-Ben


------- Original Message -------
On Sunday, February 26th, 2023 at 4:08 PM, Russell Senior <russell at personaltelco.net> wrote:


> 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