Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/07/tor-uplift.html
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Yes, this and lots more of this.
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One thing I have noticed was that some WAF rules are being set up to recognise Tor and to block it. Those implementing it are trying to protect their own access points to back office stuff, but it is out there.
The most common real-world application of browser fingerprinting that I have noticed, though was bot management. Browser fingerprints are used not to target people, but to identify malicious traffic and redirect it to a honeypot.
Now, I don’t think Firefox will cause problems for WAF protection with this, so good for them. It just ups the game for recognising the crawlers and other bots.
If you’re running a mainstream browser full-screen, isn’t it already terribly likely that its viewport dimensions are the same as those of a zillion other surfers?
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It is not just the browser size, but several variables like your OS and browser version and your location that are used to identify you.
Each of them contribute a little to make you identifiable.
While those variables are shared by many users, you probably won’t be identified just because of them.
But combined with several other, those variables might be the straw the break the camel’s back.
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a test page for seeing how unique your browser fingerprint is. Here’s part of my results showing how many pieces of data are used to form a fingerprint. Indeed my combination of variables is unique, at against the last 200,000 or so other tests that were performed in the last 45 days.
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I can tell you that this is going to drive web designers absolutely bugnuts mad. Leaving aside the tracking issues (you’d best believe every web marketing/SEO agency on the internet is going to try and find a workaround) people are already used to the idea that you can turn an Illustrator design into a pixel-perfect web page. The bosses are going to ask about those ugly gray bars around the edge of the page, and it’s going to be hard to explain that Firefox is doing that against their will.
I used to work for a web design firm and they were insistent on all the bells, whistles and beautiful alpha-shaded rounded blurred shadows working on every browser from IE6 up (I imagine they’ve since revised their supported browser list). Not being able to control the “experience” at every stage will make some companies either abandon Firefox support or death march their developers into a “solution” of some sort.
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