Unborn again technologist

Game and Tool developer working with Godot and NixOS.

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  • 16 Comments
Joined 29 days ago
Cake day: February 5th, 2025
  • madame_gaymes@programming.devtoPrivacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com•Is running Librewolf without disabling fingerprinting worth it?English
    1·
    3 days ago

    To Note

    First, take all this with a grain of salt. Although I’m a systems engineer, I am not an expert in browser fingerprinting.

    Most of the data on that page is to fine-tune your anti-fingerprinting setup, but understand that fingerprinting is a fairly new, deeeeeeep, and confusing topic. This is why I mention to use both EFF’s tool and CreepJS. EFF’s tool is a little more generic and doesn’t go super far into the weeds. CreepJS takes extra steps to try and guess if the browser is lying or attempting to skirt around fingerprinting in some ways.

    Just remember that anything you add to your browser (like extensions) and some settings will only serve to make you more unique. For instance, using lesser-known browsers means there are less people to be lumped in with, so you look more unique to the broader scope of internet users. There are many other factors as well (as seen in CreepJS) like the viewport resolution, your GPU, and how much access your browser has to your system. For instance, when I use a browser installed via Flatpak on my Linux machine, CreepJS can’t figure out what my GPU is. If I use a browser installed by my distro’s package manager, it can see a lot more about the hardware of my system.

    Before I get into some things to pay attention to in CreepJS, one of the best things you can do to help stop tracking is to install and utilize the NoScript extension to stop JavaScript dead in its tracks. Sites will break, but you will start to understand just how endemic the issue of overbloated tracking is out there in the wide web. Also note, this is not the end-all solution, as fingerprinting doesn’t just rely on JavaScript.

    CreepJS info

    To keep it simple, I would pay attention to the stuff at the top of the page, like:

    FP (fingerprint) ID

    This is an ID that gets assigned to the session/browser by CreepJS. Some times it changes after clearing cookies and what not. Other times it never changes. However, this is not telling of whether or not you have been uniquely identified, you need to consider other info on the page.

    Visits

    This is a count of how many times this particular FP ID has visited/refreshed the CreepJS page. The higher the count, the more you look like others (i.e., the less you unique you are, good thing). When I use Mullvad’s Browser+VPN installed via Flatpak, this count is way up there, almost touching 1000 visits. When I use LibreWolf with the same VPN, the count is only 3 and they are all me.

    First

    This is the date of the first time this FP ID visited CreepJS. If your visits count is high, and this date is several weeks ago, there’s a good chance you’re being lumped in with other people. However, if this date along with the Visits count match up to you using CreepJS, then you have definitely been uniquely identified.

    Information under the Worker heading

    This info is about the hardware of your computer. The less it shows, the better. Windows will pretty much always show you everything, but it gets muddier with Linux distros. For instance, with the Mullvad Browser+VPN example, it only tells me I’m running Linux_x86_64, which is incredibly generic. No other info shows up. In LibreWolf, though, it tells me a lot more about my system and includes some GPU information.

    The rest of the data

    If you’re that kind of person, I would peruse the CreepJS documentation (link on the site) and read more about what’s going on. There’s a lot of factors involved, and admittedly I don’t have a full grasp of every detail. I only know what I know from reading and running my own testing on various machines.

  • madame_gaymes@programming.devtoPrivacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com•Teslas Monitor Everything—Including You | WIREDEnglish
    3·
    5 days ago

    If there was a new car with modern emissions, that had no cameras or excessive electronics, then I’d be all over it (assuming it’s even close to affordable). For now, I will simply do what I can to not drive as much as possible, and do my own maintenance to make sure that replaced parts and fluids are properly disposed of and I can reclaim pieces from junkyards or otherwise keep them from entering landfills.

    I don’t mind it being almost 30 years old, because I know how to maintain it and parts are everywhere (see junkyard comment above). It’s kinda like your body, just because you’re old doesn’t mean you have to be infirm. Sure, if you go decades with no fitness regimen you will be, but there are many ways to mitigate that.

    Also, I have cameras in my car, but I put them there and I know where that data ends up. I’m not against some of the tech, just the companies that implement it greedily and poorly.

    In terms of pollutants, you’re not wrong, but arguably there are many, many other things churning out far more pollution than my little hoopty (coal plants, trains derailing that carry vinyl chloride, deep sea oil drilling, nuclear weapons testing after-effects, etc.). It’d be great if we could rely on regulation, but from what I see it’s not working very well, and in the USA everything is just getting completely stripped away. IMO, the real vehicles that need to be addressed are semi-trucks and their pollutants. Again, far far more than my tiny ass vehicle at the sheer number of semis on the roads just to keep capitalism afloat.

    No way I would trust a company to “do right by me” under any circumstance at this point. It’s always been lose-lose for the common folk, and the onus keeps getting put on us to reduce our footprint while fat cats defeat what I can do over a month in just an hour of running their business.

    ETA: Let me ask you this. If there was perfect regulation implemented regarding cameras, would you actually trust Tesla/Elon to stay inline?