Meta and Yandex are de-anonymizing Android users’ web browsing identifiers - Ars Technica
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Tracking code that Meta and Russia-based Yandex embed into millions of websites is de-anonymizing visitors by abusing legitimate Internet protocols, causing Chrome and other browsers to surreptitiously send unique identifiers to native apps installed on a device, researchers have discovered. Google says it's investigating the abuse, which allows Meta and Yandex to convert ephemeral web identifiers into persistent mobile app user identities.
The covert tracking—implemented in the Meta Pixel and Yandex Metrica trackers—allows Meta and Yandex to bypass core security and privacy protections provided by both the Android operating system and browsers that run on it. Android sandboxing, for instance, isolates processes to prevent them from interacting with the OS and any other app installed on the device, cutting off access to sensitive data or privileged system resources. Defenses such as state partitioning and storage partitioning, which are built into all major browsers, store site cookies and other data associated with a website in containers that are unique to every top-level website domain to ensure they're off-limits for every other site.
De-anonymising Yandex
Me: Ha! Good thing I am not Russian!
De-anonymising Meta
Me: Damn..and it is hard for me to let go because my social circle use Meta-owned social media and couldn't care less about privacy....I am toast...
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We found that browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and Edge are susceptible to this form of browsing history leakage in both default and private browsing modes. Brave browser was unaffected by this issue due to their blocklist and the blocking of requests to the localhost; and DuckDuckGo was only minimally affected due to missing domains in their blocklist.
Aside from having uBlock Origin and not having any Meta/Yandex apps installed, anyone aware of additional Firefox settings that could help shut this nonsense down?
I know that people here generally like to shit on Brave, but it seems that the claim "Privacy by default" has held up in this context.
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Tracking code that Meta and Russia-based Yandex embed into millions of websites is de-anonymizing visitors by abusing legitimate Internet protocols, causing Chrome and other browsers to surreptitiously send unique identifiers to native apps installed on a device, researchers have discovered. Google says it's investigating the abuse, which allows Meta and Yandex to convert ephemeral web identifiers into persistent mobile app user identities.
The covert tracking—implemented in the Meta Pixel and Yandex Metrica trackers—allows Meta and Yandex to bypass core security and privacy protections provided by both the Android operating system and browsers that run on it. Android sandboxing, for instance, isolates processes to prevent them from interacting with the OS and any other app installed on the device, cutting off access to sensitive data or privileged system resources. Defenses such as state partitioning and storage partitioning, which are built into all major browsers, store site cookies and other data associated with a website in containers that are unique to every top-level website domain to ensure they're off-limits for every other site.
Its russian, i've never used it and never will. Surprised so many
️'s advocated for it.. -
Using such a unique browser version is very de-anonymizing.
Could add a user agent spoof?
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Could add a user agent spoof?
Even then, most tracking is done through fingerprinting.
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Well, it's always been a cat and mouse game.
Just earlier today, I got a pop-up on YouTube about how they would block me after 3 videos because I use an ad blocker. Jump to now and everything is fine again. Thank you, uBlock Origin!
If you happen to use BlockTube, disable it. It's currently triggering the adblock detection.
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De-anonymising Yandex
Me: Ha! Good thing I am not Russian!
De-anonymising Meta
Me: Damn..and it is hard for me to let go because my social circle use Meta-owned social media and couldn't care less about privacy....I am toast...
I used to be in your situation and one day I just told everyone I was leaving and if they want to contact me they would have to use Signal. You can't change most people's minds and Meta knows it, that's how they keep their monopoly
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Are you suggesting something like LineageOS is a better choice?
(Seriously asking: I've got a new-to-me Pixel that I'm looking to switch to a degoogled-ish ROM on, and Graphene and Lineage were the two front-runners.)
If it's a Pixel anyway, GrapheneOS has a few nice security and privacy features that LineageOS doesn't have (yet?).
I think both are pretty great and much better than most alternates.
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That's the fun part. They come preinstalled!
I'm so quick to install a custom ROM, I forgot the Meta spyware comes pre-installed on many phones. Ugh.
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I am assuming all of this trash is blocked by uBlock Origin?
Check that "Filter lists > Privacy > Block outsider intrusion into LAN" is enabled and you should be fine
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Tracking code that Meta and Russia-based Yandex embed into millions of websites is de-anonymizing visitors by abusing legitimate Internet protocols, causing Chrome and other browsers to surreptitiously send unique identifiers to native apps installed on a device, researchers have discovered. Google says it's investigating the abuse, which allows Meta and Yandex to convert ephemeral web identifiers into persistent mobile app user identities.
The covert tracking—implemented in the Meta Pixel and Yandex Metrica trackers—allows Meta and Yandex to bypass core security and privacy protections provided by both the Android operating system and browsers that run on it. Android sandboxing, for instance, isolates processes to prevent them from interacting with the OS and any other app installed on the device, cutting off access to sensitive data or privileged system resources. Defenses such as state partitioning and storage partitioning, which are built into all major browsers, store site cookies and other data associated with a website in containers that are unique to every top-level website domain to ensure they're off-limits for every other site.
Meta should be broken up and its leadership barred from working in tech (or politics)
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Even then, most tracking is done through fingerprinting.
Yeah it makes me laugh when people talk about "don't use cookies" or "block ads" like companies didn't switch to more advanced techniques (like hell, I saw a paper where they could fingerprint you just simply by how you interact with the webpage) 15 years ago.
There is no way to use the modern web without getting fingerprinted.
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Meta should be broken up and its leadership barred from working in tech (or politics)
and its leadership barred
from working in tech (or politics) -
Yeah it makes me laugh when people talk about "don't use cookies" or "block ads" like companies didn't switch to more advanced techniques (like hell, I saw a paper where they could fingerprint you just simply by how you interact with the webpage) 15 years ago.
There is no way to use the modern web without getting fingerprinted.
Well “block ads” is also shorthand for “block as many 3rd-party requests as possible while maintaining the desired content” which absolutely improves your privacy and prevents a lot of fingerprinting scripts from ever loading.
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Well “block ads” is also shorthand for “block as many 3rd-party requests as possible while maintaining the desired content” which absolutely improves your privacy and prevents a lot of fingerprinting scripts from ever loading.
That's the thing though, websites have gone away from "fingerprinting scripts" and have started finger printing you by what you serve, how and when you access it, and other things that they can all collect purely on the server side. The rest is just for advertising and data collection for improvements.
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I'd nail my foot to the floor before I installed WhatsApp.
So you got all your friends, family and coworkers and acquaintances using Signal?
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Not sure about the "nightly" part (as opposed to beta or stable), but yes.
I prefer nightly because about:config is accessible unlike on the mainline version. Does Beta also allow that?
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That's the thing though, websites have gone away from "fingerprinting scripts" and have started finger printing you by what you serve, how and when you access it, and other things that they can all collect purely on the server side. The rest is just for advertising and data collection for improvements.
All of this is far easier to subvert than tracking scripts (and cookies and port scans) which literally as evidenced by the article in the OP are not techniques that companies have "gone away" from at all, at least not by entirely replacing them.
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So you got all your friends, family and coworkers and acquaintances using Signal?
Most of the people I talk to regularly, yes. I also use Discord for less private stuff, less personal contacts, and for video chat when I play D&D. I text with my wife and one friend who I mostly discuss D&D with. Both of them have Signal if I needed to reach out to them privately or while abroad. For the record, I would like to get off Discord but audio and video quality are really important to me and I haven't found a good replacement yet.
I also have a seperate (company paid) phone for all work communications. There's ups and downs to that but it definitely contributes to my ability to be restrictive in what apps I put on my phone.
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We found that browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and Edge are susceptible to this form of browsing history leakage in both default and private browsing modes. Brave browser was unaffected by this issue due to their blocklist and the blocking of requests to the localhost; and DuckDuckGo was only minimally affected due to missing domains in their blocklist.
Aside from having uBlock Origin and not having any Meta/Yandex apps installed, anyone aware of additional Firefox settings that could help shut this nonsense down?
I feel like that's all you need. You don't have their apps installed, so the problem is already solved. If you use uBlock Origin to block their trackers, the problem is solved. So you've solved it twice.
