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72% of 'Anonymous' Browsing History Can Be Attached To the Real User (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Stack: Researchers at Stanford and Princeton have succeeded in identifying 70% of web users by comparing their web-browsing history to publicly available information on social networks. The study "De-anonymizing Web Browsing Data with Social Networks" [PDF] found that it was possible to reattach identities to 374 sets of apparently anonymous browsing histories simply by following the connections between links shared on Twitter feeds and the likelihood that a user would favor personal recommendations over abstract web browsing. The test subjects were provided with a Chrome extension that extracted their browsing history; the researchers then used Twitter's proprietary URL-shortening protocol to identify t.co links. 81% of the top 15 results of each enquiry run through the de-anonymization program contained the correct re-identified user -- and 72% of the results identified the user in first place. Ultimately the trail only leads as far as a Twitter user ID, and if a user is pseudonymous, further action would need to be taken to affirm their real identity. Using https connections and VPN services can limit exposure to such re-identification attempts, though the first method does not mask the base URL of the site being connected to, and the second does not prevent the tracking cookies and other tracking methods which can provide a continuous browsing history. Additionally UTM codes in URLs offer the possibility of re-identification even where encryption is present. Further reading available via The Atlantic.
As long as my wife can't see my porn browsing history, no worries!
Well, there's your problem. STOP USING SOCIAL NETWORKS.
#DeleteFacebook
First, they talk about a user's identity. Later they merely talk about Twitter links and finding the user's Twitter ID. So what is it? Can they identify users or Twitter accounts? If it's the former, that's concerning. But it seems to be more likely that they found a Twitter account user by comparing the browser history to a Twitter account that had been sharing those links. The latter doesn't seem as impressive now does it?
Wouldn''t this part of the problem be solved simply by using the privacy mode of the browser? If not, use a Linux Live distribution, which typically have no persistent storage (although some of them have an overlay filesystem that can be enabled especially for this purpose). This can be combined with anonymizing software like Tor for enough protection against everybody else but government-backed attackers.
Deja vu: In the 80s we had a 70ish actor as POTUS, a woman PM in the UK, and a bald leader of that other nuke superpower
People's Twitter profiles have been found out when following Twitter.
"they were able to correctly pick out the volunteers’ Twitter profiles" with the reason "People’s basic tendency to follow links they come across on Twitter"
The remaining 28% that they didn't correctly pick out probably didn't use Twitter and had nothing but cat videos.
...then they can identify you 72% of the time, otherwise the trail is cold. Brilliant!
Twinstiq, game news
That's almost exactly what they did. First, they need your browser history. And your Twitter / Facebook profile needs to be wide open publicly. And you have to use Twitter regularly.
If they had been smarter, they would have just looked at which Facebook and Twitter profiles you visited most often, and from there inferred those are probably your closest friends. A list of your closest friends fairly well identifies your profile. They decided to make it a tad more complex, though.
Rather than looking at the friends list, they looked at links appearing in the person's feed. They reasoned that if the subject' browsing history shows them clicking in 50 links from a Twitter feed, it's probably an account that has those 50 links in their feed.
So my flip phone is still good?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
it could be attached to an IP address, but they dont know who is at the keyboard,
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Hi AC, ty for Random Agent Spoofer, Decentraleyes. :)
I use the rest but thats a great list
I would suggest every normal email has some form of photo in it.
Use add one time pad looking steganography in every image even if only one had a real message every decade.
Consider "things you don't care about" when buying books, pad the order out with hobbies, sport, popular culture. Buying a lot of books one one topic at once or over time is telling.
Given the tracking and the numbers of VPN users with good encryption (router vs a leaky browser or OS "app") trying to be one browser among many is hard work.
So many browsers have so much extra code that will respond when requested often under or over the expected web site https.
What friends of friends are doing on social media seems a big risk too for tracking.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Better yet, don't exist.
For Win10:
W10Privacy
Simple DNSCrypt
HostsMan
For Smartyphoneee:
God help you if you want privacy or security. I have delved deep into their furthest recesses and can tell you they are a nightmare. If you don't want to drive yourself insane, slap a well vetted custom image on it, an adblocker, a firewall, a app permission management app, and treat it like an car salesman.
Social media:
Biggest sham of the century. PURGE!
Hey, Ralph. Gotcha, you son of a bitch.
Clear your fucking browser history now and then.
See ya at work tomorrow.
And, seriously, Literotica?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Before and after Firefox, I run the following .bat file:
[ ccleaner ]
What is your method of cleaning up before and after opening your browser? Tips appreciated.
--
taskkill /f /im iexplore.exe /f /im firefox.exe /f /im chrome.exe /auto
taskkill
taskkill
RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 4351
cd\
cd C:\Program Files\CCleaner
ccleaner
exit
--
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Just use Windows 10 for computer games.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
DDG dropped Google many years ago. They have many sources but the main source now is Bing.
This is hardly news. I would argue if you are browsing social media then you simply aren't browsing anonymously and many of us that have understood this ensure we behave appropriately when trying to be anonymous, this is not new. When I am using my Anonymous VPN to access content Social Media tools and sites, blogs etc are all big no no's.
Use Virtualbox VMs, restoring the previous snapshot after every shutdown. (There might be a way to do this automatically.) When it comes to computer security/privacy, the easiest to understand and easiest to implement options are not infrequently the most powerful ones as well.
Or you can go a step further.
You can create multiple templates and all you do in the templates is installing software and make generic configurations. The actual VM's where you run stuff is based on the templates and are reset whenever you restart them.
You probably want to use Qubes OS which provides an environment where all of this is handled for you.
I briefly covered this in a post from last year,, which I linked to in the post you just replied to. I'm using Qubes right now.
OP was talking about Windows, though, and if it's true that he's not a regular Linux user then the Virtualbox solution is probably a better place to start.
I'd have thought that over 80%, not under, could be identified just by what they browse. Mainstream being stereotypically homogenous, and everything.
Don't broadcast your life on social media. Why would you have any expectation of privacy in that situation?
We'll make great pets