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March 7, 2019 10:00 am
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/dcIz6aw87iA/firefox-to-add-tor-browser-anti-fingerprinting-technique-called-letterboxing
Firefox To Add Tor Browser Anti-Fingerprinting Technique Called Letterboxing
Mozilla is scheduled to add a new user anti-fingerprinting technique to Firefox with the release of version 67, scheduled for mid-May this year. "Called 'letterboxing,' this new technique adds 'gray spaces' to the sides of a web page when the user resizes the browser window, which are then gradually removed after the window resize operation has finished," reports ZDNet. From the report: Advertising networks often sniff certain browser features, such as the window size to create user profiles and track users as they resize their browser and move across new URLs and browser tabs. The general idea is that "letterboxing" will mask the window's real dimensions by keeping the window width and height at multiples of 200px and 100px during the resize operation -- generating the same window dimensions for all users -- and then adding a "gray space" at the top, bottom, left, or right of the current page. The advertising code, which listens to window resize events, then reads the generic dimensions, sends the data to its server, and only after does Firefox remove the "gray spaces" using a smooth animation a few milliseconds later. In other words, letterboxing delays filling the newly-resized browser window with the actual page content long enough to trick the advertising code into reading incorrect window dimensions. The feature was first developed for the Tor Browser, and can be seen in action here. In order to enable the feature in Firefox, "users will first need to visit the about:config page, enter 'privacy.resistFingerprinting' in the search box, and toggle the browser's anti-fingerprinting features to 'true,'" reports ZDNet.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/dcIz6aw87iA/firefox-to-add-tor-browser-anti-fingerprinting-technique-called-letterboxing
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