Browser Privacy & Fingerprinting
Ivan Szekely writes in email:
A team of young researchers – my colleagues – at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics developed a cross-browser fingerprinting system in order to demonstrate the weaknesses of the most popular browsers. Taking Panopticlick’s idea as a starting point, they developed a new, browser-independent fingerprinting algorithm and started to build a system-fingerprint database for further analysis. The description of the method and the analysis of the fingerprints can be read at http://pet-portal.eu/articles/view/37/2012-02-20-User-Tracking-on-the-Web-via-Cross-Browser-Fingerprinting.php (thesite is tri-lingual, if other language articles appear on your screen, click on the English flag)
By now the team has developed a new version of the fingerprinting system and is working on an effective method to prevent fingerprinting. In order to fine-tune the defense against fingerprinting, my colleagues need your feedback. Please click on http://fingerprint.pet-portal.eu, make a few tests and share your comments and suggestions with the developers.
Please take a second to visit http://fingerprint.pet-portal.eu and help them and us understand browser fingerprinting.