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Most Web Browsers Leave Your 'Fingerprints' All Over the Web

by Amar Toor on May 18, 2010 at 12:30 PM

broswer fingerprints
When it comes to the Internet, we'd all like to think that we're more flying squirrels than slugs, gliding seamlessly over the Web without leaving so much as a shadow of a trail behind us. But, in reality, we've all had to resign ourselves to the hard truth that no matter how hard we try, we're pretty much guaranteed to leave some sort of digital slime, er... footprint as we surf. According to a new study, though, we may be leaving a trail more permanent than we'd ever imagined, thanks to our browsers.

According to a press release from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an "overwhelming majority" of Internet browsers contain special configurations that quietly assign a unique "fingerprint" to each individual Web surfer. The implication, of course, is that these fingerprints could be easily used to track a person's online behavior. The EFF announced its findings after conducting an experiment in which volunteers visited a site called Panopticlick, which automatically analyzes a user's operating system, browser and plug-ins. After comparing the collected information to a database of over a million other browser configurations, researchers determined that 84-percent of the browser configurations were "unique and identifiable," meaning that the majority of users have been unknowingly leaving distinct fingerprints all over the Web.

Although the participants in this experiment were kept anonymous, Senior Staff Technologist Peter Eckersley argues that in the real world, companies and websites aren't likely to offer the same privacy protection. "Several companies are already selling products that claim to use browser fingerprinting to help websites identify users and their online activities," Eckersley says. "This experiment is an important reality check, showing just how powerful these tracking mechanisms are."

The most distressing thing about all of this is that we can't really change it. Although EFF acknowledges that some plug-ins could limit the information that your browser shares with the sites you visit, it remains exceedingly difficult to reconfigure your browser in order to completely mask your path. For now, EFF recommends that we institute change from the ground-up, by insisting that operating systems come equipped with greater protection. It may take some time to see results, but at least we now have a better idea of how these systems work. From: EFF, via: Lifehacker]

Tags: browser, browsing, configuration, eff, Electronic Frontier Foundation, ElectronicFrontierFoundation, fingerprint, history, privacy, PrivacySettings, top, web

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