[tor-talk] New methods / research to detect add-ons?

[pacifica at riseup.net]

>> That practice would be almost universally discouraged, except perhaps
>> for some imaginative fringe cases.
>> 
> 
> That's us.

Eh, I'd hesitate to say "us". I'm _not_ advocating for using add-ons in 
TBB, I'm just looking for ways to quantify the damage to anonymity.

> Being part of an identified heard isn't as good as everyone
> being unique every session/circuit.

I've also got to strongly disagree here... if you're looking for 
anonymity and privacy, the "herd" is strong protection against that 
because trackers cannot single you out from the thousands of other 
users. If you are unique, then tracking you over the current session is 
trivial. Insofar that all Tor users look alike (I realize that is an 
oversimplified premise), tracking across sessions is also not fruitful.

And since it's Tor, we're not really trying to hide from the fact that 
we're using Tor... it doesn't make sense since the IP will always give 
you away.

Again, I can't reiterate enough... I'm not advocating for using add-ons 
as some have, because I do agree with the (afaik undisputed) logic that 
using add-ons in TBB harms your anonymity.

Thanks,

pacifica

On 2015-09-30 07:04, Spencer wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>> 
>> pacifica:
>> The closest thing I'm aware of to a one-stop-shop to view the factors
>> of your fingerprint would be Valve's fingerprint.js library:
>> 
>> https://github.com/Valve/fingerprintjs2
>> 
> 
> Thanks for this; I will definitely use it :)
> 
>> 
>> It's important to consider TBB's design...
>> 
> 
> It is. Being part of an identified heard isn't as good as everyone
> being unique every session/circuit.  Though I don't think the outcome
> outweighs the effort yet, which is why we have the heard. But if that
> individuality was built in it would.
> 
>> 
>> That practice would be almost universally discouraged, except perhaps
>> for some imaginative fringe cases.
>> 
> 
> That's us.
> 
> Wordlife,
> Spencer