5 ms·

...how exactly does your system background colour include personal information?

by devbat8712 6y ago

jameslk 6y ago
It can be used for fingerprinting
- 542458 6y ago
  I mean, not to be defeatist but... once you’ve got JS turned on you’ve already handed out such a massive amount of entropy I’m not sure this one extra item makes a huge difference.
  - deathanatos 6y ago
    > one extra bit If it's the OS default, it's probably worthless. But if it isn't, I would imagine it could be quite unique, no? Presuming it's an RGB color, that's 16M possibilities. And there are multiple system colors, meaning even more chance you're a snowflake if you customized them. If you chose a random color on just 2 of them, that's probably enough to make you unique among the entire world. (But it is, of course, likely that you might choose something common, like #ff00ff.) If you turn of JavaScript, that's also probably a pretty good signal, no? (I'm just hearing someone shouting "There are dozens of us! Dozens!")
    - ladberg 6y ago
      If you turn Javascript off, the only information the website can get is user agent and IP, which would narrow it down much less than using Javascript even just among the pool of non-javascript users. Keep in mind that there are a lot of services that load sites without Javascript enabled (scrapers, mail, preloading).
      - Izkata 6y ago
        Pretty sure you can get some extra information through CSS media queries that only trigger a server hit when active (allowing you to add, say, screen size and color range to the fingerprint even without javascript). https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53838754/css-media-queries-image-loading https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53838754/css-media-queri...
- chrisan 6y ago
  i'd imagine most of the background colors are the same as most people set an image as their background. ive not really thought about (or even know to be honest) what my desktop background color is these days. its not something ive throught about since windows 95. once XP came along with that pretty background I think i've used a photo ever since but oh well 1 more bit is one more bit for the people that do still set a background
  - Bnshsysjab 6y ago
    I set my background to a solid color. Mostly so compression on screenshots and screen captures is more effective. Though, I’d consider me an edge case here.

...how exactly does your system background colour include personal information?

jameslk 6y ago

It can be used for fingerprinting

542458 6y ago
I mean, not to be defeatist but... once you’ve got JS turned on you’ve already handed out such a massive amount of entropy I’m not sure this one extra item makes a huge difference.
- deathanatos 6y ago
  > one extra bit If it's the OS default, it's probably worthless. But if it isn't, I would imagine it could be quite unique, no? Presuming it's an RGB color, that's 16M possibilities. And there are multiple system colors, meaning even more chance you're a snowflake if you customized them. If you chose a random color on just 2 of them, that's probably enough to make you unique among the entire world. (But it is, of course, likely that you might choose something common, like #ff00ff.) If you turn of JavaScript, that's also probably a pretty good signal, no? (I'm just hearing someone shouting "There are dozens of us! Dozens!")
  - ladberg 6y ago
    If you turn Javascript off, the only information the website can get is user agent and IP, which would narrow it down much less than using Javascript even just among the pool of non-javascript users. Keep in mind that there are a lot of services that load sites without Javascript enabled (scrapers, mail, preloading).
    - Izkata 6y ago
      Pretty sure you can get some extra information through CSS media queries that only trigger a server hit when active (allowing you to add, say, screen size and color range to the fingerprint even without javascript). https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53838754/css-media-queries-image-loading https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53838754/css-media-queri...
chrisan 6y ago
i'd imagine most of the background colors are the same as most people set an image as their background. ive not really thought about (or even know to be honest) what my desktop background color is these days. its not something ive throught about since windows 95. once XP came along with that pretty background I think i've used a photo ever since but oh well 1 more bit is one more bit for the people that do still set a background
- Bnshsysjab 6y ago
  I set my background to a solid color. Mostly so compression on screenshots and screen captures is more effective. Though, I’d consider me an edge case here.