Check how trackable your computer is on the web

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TTY · #1 Post by **TTY** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 10:32 am

Check how unique your browser configuration is - and how trackable your computer is on the web - with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Panopticlick tool.
Help EFF Research Web Browser Tracking:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/01/he ... r-tracking

comptechexpert · #2 Post by **comptechexpert** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 10:50 am

Great find thanks.

Temetka · #3 Post by **Temetka** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 6:14 am

Interesting find.

I ran their "test" and it reported that only 1 in 552 configurations matched mine.

I keep my browser locked down very tightly, so this comes as no surprise to me.

#4 Post by **Harryc** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 7:22 am

"Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 740,196 tested so far."

Temetka · #5 Post by **Temetka** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 7:31 am

I just installed Google Chrome and am playing around with it.

I have loaded the following extensions:

Adblock, FlashBlock, and GooglePreview

I got the same result as harry above me did.

However...

Chrome seems to be leaking more identifying bits of information, which I do NOT like.

Specfically:

Under my current FF setup their test will only return the top 2 pieces of information.

Under Chrome the almost everything is shown except for:

- System Fonts.

Do I blame Google? Maybe. I've been using Firefox for years and have a pretty good lockdown on it as far as security is concerned and I've been using Chrome for maybe 10 minutes. I do like browser so far as it is very fast, faster than firefox is on my X41T and it ties in with my gmail account allowing me to sync my bookmarks which is all kinds of pure win. So give me a few months with Chrome and some time to tweak it and configure it just the way I like and we will see if it performs as admirably as Firefox does.

I may or may not have found a new browser.

Temetka · #6 Post by **Temetka** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 8:43 am

With regards to browser security:

NoScript and Adblock Plus are the 2 minimum addons for any browser that I will be using.

Adblock plus is available for Chrome while NoScript is a not.

Too bad google you almost had me switching browsers. I will keep Chrome installed (for now)and check back periodically to see if NoScript is being added to your browser. If on that fateful day that support for this addon arrives, I will give your software another try. Until then I bid you good day sir.

craigmontHunter · #7 Post by **craigmontHunter** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 11:10 am

Harryc wrote:"Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 740,196 tested so far."

Same here - 740, 628. I noticed that if i refeshed the page, I was still unique, even though the counter kept going up?

Jack

dsvochak · #8 Post by **dsvochak** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 11:21 am

My result:
Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 740,665 tested so far.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 19.5 bits of identifying information.

The important part of this for those who are concerned is the information regarding "browser fingerprint". From https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/01/p ... nd-privacy

"How much entropy is needed to identify someone?
As of 2007, identifying someone from the entire population of the planet required:
S = log2 (1/6625000000) = 32.6 bits of information.
Conservatively, we can round that up to 33 bits.
So for instance, if we know someone's birthday, and we know their ZIP code is 40203, we have 8.51 + 23.81 = 32.32 bits; that's almost, but perhaps not quite, enough to know who they are: there might be a couple of people who share those characteristics. Add in their gender, that's 33.32 bits, and we can probably say exactly who the person is."

killer · #9 Post by **killer** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 1:19 pm

Some interesting stuff there, dsvochak.

I tried the test and had a similar result to you:

"Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 740,912 tested so far.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 19.5 bits of identifying information."

BTW, I use IE8.

ajkula66 · #10 Post by **ajkula66** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 10:32 pm

What's up with 19.5 bits...

Got that one myself, working from the X60s...

t140568 · #11 Post by **t140568** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 5:16 am

Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 741,883 tested so far.
Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 13.03 bits of identifying information.

dsvochak · #12 Post by **dsvochak** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 8:11 am

What's up with 19.5 bits

A “bit” in this context is a unit of measurement of information. For a basic discussion see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantities_of_information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(i ... on_theory)

Generally, 33 "bits" of information are sufficient to identify a particular person. See also:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/09/wh ... entifiable

Scary, isn't it?

ThinkRob · #13 Post by **ThinkRob** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 4:25 pm

dsvochak wrote: Generally, 33 "bits" of information are sufficient to identify a particular person. See also:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/09/wh ... entifiable

Scary, isn't it?

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys 11.34 bits of identifying information.

Nope.

#14 Post by **BillMorrow** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 3:17 am

using my main desktop i get this result:

Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 324 tested so far.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 8.34 bits of identifying information.

Because our dataset is still quite small, you might want to check back later for a more accurate measurement of your browser's uniqueness.

i'm wondering why there have only been 324 tests..

TTY · #15 Post by **TTY** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 4:23 am

BillMorrow wrote:i'm wondering why there have only been 324 tests..

Seems as if they have reset the counter.

emeraldgirl08 · #16 Post by **emeraldgirl08** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 7:16 am

Just feed peeps paranoia guys!

I got "unique among the 710" tested so far. I got a 9.47 bits of info...

I'm wondering if Linux makes a difference as I'm on XP now? :head scratch:

sarbin · #17 Post by **sarbin** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 7:10 pm

i just got:

Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 2,559 tested so far.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 11.32 bits of identifying information.

and after a refresh 5 minutes later:

Within our dataset of several thousand visitors, only one in 1,284 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys 10.33 bits of identifying information.

betcha i'm being compared to myself...

and after 5 more minutes...

Within our dataset of several thousand visitors, only one in 857 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys 9.74 bits of identifying information.

crashnburn · #18 Post by **crashnburn** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 8:55 pm

Ive been using Chrome, Chromium and SRWare Iron (Chromium secured).

They show me 10.4 bits of info. and way too much stuff about whats on my machine on browser.

ThinkRob · #19 Post by **ThinkRob** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 7:26 am

crashnburn wrote:Ive been using Chrome, Chromium and SRWare Iron (Chromium secured).

They show me 10.4 bits of info. and way too much stuff about whats on my machine on browser.

Personally I'm too cautious to want to run a browser that will happily execute JS from anyone and doesn't allow me to control what cross-site requests it issues...

visionviper · #20 Post by **visionviper** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 12:31 pm

EFF wrote: Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 7,817 tested so far.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 12.93 bits of identifying information.

Not too bad for a bone stock browser (Chrome).

craigmontHunter · #21 Post by **craigmontHunter** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 12:39 pm

I tried again, and now I am getting divide by zero errors? I am unique though.

#22 Post by **rkawakami** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 12:41 pm

Ah, shouldn't one want to have a non-unique (aka, "common") fingerprint??? Or am I missing something here????

edit 2:53pm PDT: So here's my results:

Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 8,072 tested so far. Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 12.98 bits of identifying information.

Guess I should dump some of my Firefox plug-ins and find out what unique fonts I've installed and can those too

. Both are reporting 12.98 bits of identifiable information.

beGi · #23 Post by **beGi** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 2:13 pm

"...only one in 3,966 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours. Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys 11.95 bits of identifying information."

That's quite unusual since i have a lot of plugins and addons...

Temetka · #24 Post by **Temetka** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 3:48 pm

rkawakami wrote:Ah, shouldn't one want to have a non-unique (aka, "common") fingerprint??? Or am I missing something here????

True.

However the less information that they can track the better. By feeding them less bits to chew on this removes you (hopefully) from the low hanging internet fruit usually targeted by "The Bad Guys."

ThinkRob · #25 Post by **ThinkRob** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 4:35 pm

Temetka wrote: However the less information that they can track the better. By feeding them less bits to chew on this removes you (hopefully) from the low hanging internet fruit usually targeted by "The Bad Guys."

That's why I run Iceweasel with:

HeaderControl - mangles referrer headers, kills User-Agent string, mangle accept-language headers, etc. on a site-by-site basis

CS Lite - fine-grained cookie control -- I only accept cookies from a handful (< 20) sites.

RequestPolicy - stops cross-domain requests (thereby neutering almost all sites' analytics)

NoScript - well-known -- all sorts of control over JS

Perspectives - helps prevent MITM attacks

CipherFox - prevents use of weak ciphers

ABP - stellar ad-blocking

I leave a very, very small footprint.

neenee · #26 Post by **neenee** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 3:43 pm

Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 756,187 tested so far.

Interesting

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