Tuesday, May 18, 2010

EFF Research: Browsers Leave Your Fingerprints all Over the Web

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Who needs biometrics?  Net-Security.org reports that  "an overwhelming majority of web browsers have unique signatures - creating identifiable "fingerprints" that could be used to track you as you surf the Internet," according to research by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).


The findings were the result of an experiment EFF conducted with volunteers who visited a website that anonymously logged the configuration and version information from each participant's operating system, browser, and browser plug-ins - information that websites routinely access each time you visit - and compared that information to a database of configurations collected from almost a million other visitors.  EFF found that 84% of the configuration combinations were unique and identifiable, creating unique and identifiable browser "fingerprints." Browsers with Adobe Flash or Java plug-ins installed were 94% unique and trackable.
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