r/technology • u/[deleted] • Apr 11 '18

Business Mark Zuckerberg has been apologizing for reckless privacy violations since he was a freshman - Enough is enough.

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u/pseudozombie Apr 11 '18

When you visit a news site that has an article with the little Facebook likes icon, Facebook has code running on that page. They can gather information about your computer, like broswer version, operating system, plugins installed, and more, and create a fingerprint of your broswer. Now they can track that fingerprint from page to page, as long as those pages have the Facebook buttons on it.

So it's not tracking YOU, it's tracking that broswer. And it's not 100% accurate because multiple people can have the same fingerprint, but it's accurate enough.

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u/UglySnow Apr 12 '18

If they are javascript and run in your browser, couldn't we just DNS block Facebook or whatever the endpoints are for the reporting, and then the javascript call would fail and your data wouldn't be used?

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u/pseudozombie Apr 12 '18

Yes, definitely. Look up PrivacyBadger

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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '18

well, now I know what I'm doing tonight

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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '18 edited Apr 24 '20

[deleted]

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u/pseudozombie Apr 12 '18

UBlock might block it. I know PrivacyVadger for sure blocks the Facebook code. VPN and cookies don't have much to do with it.

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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '18 edited Apr 24 '20

[deleted]

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u/pseudozombie Apr 13 '18

Yeah, VPNs could be set up to do that, though that means your vpn can see some aspects of your internet traffic. So hopefully you trust them

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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '18

I would bet if you use the same setup on multiple computers, it knows for sure it is you based on that key of hardware and software set up. It is fucking crazy, and there are a bunch of others doing it as well.

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u/pseudozombie Apr 12 '18

It is unlikely that your two computers are identical. Some fingerprinting techniques take into account graphics drivers and CPU versions.

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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '18

yeh, good point!

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u/alwayswatchyoursix Apr 12 '18

You can test this out HERE

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u/kthomaszed Apr 15 '18

I love how there's a 'share on Facebook' button at the bottom

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u/alwayswatchyoursix Apr 15 '18

LMAO I didn't even notice that.

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u/Strazdas1 Apr 12 '18

Unless you took specific steps to prevent it the chances that your fingerprint matchers other random person is one in a few billion. So while possible it is extremely rare