Even if you use anonymous browsing, block ads, or hide your tracks, some websites they still track your every move online, using a new web-monitoring technique called Audio Fingerprinting.
This new Fingerprinting technique can be used by companies to distribute targeted ads, as well as by law enforcement authorities to unveil VPNs or anonymous users without the need to decrypt traffic.
Most of you have come across the technique, but in another harmless form: it is used by application Shazam.
Researchers at Princeton University conducted a huge survey and discovered that Google, through too many domains it uses in its services, monitors users from 80% of all Top 1 million domains, using several tracking methods and techniques.
Of these, the latest tracking technology identified by researchers is one based on getting a machine's audio “fingerprint” through the AudioContext API. That's why: Audio Fingerprinting.
"All of the top domains, as well as 12 of the top 20, are owned by Google," the researchers note.
The AudioContext API does not collect sounds played or recorded by a machine but collects the sounds of each machine which are then used to create unique combinations of browser with the device.
The method has nothing to do with the device's microphone, as it is based on the way a signal is being processed.
A third-party tracker now uses the AudioContext API to send bass sounds frequencyς στον υπολογιστή του χρήστη και στη συνέχεια μετρά πόσο χρειάζεται ο υπολογιστής για να επεξεργαστεί τα δεδομένα, δημιουργώντας ένα μοναδικό δακτυλικό αποτύπωμα με βάση τις δυνατότητες του hardware και του software του υπολογιστή.
Top Web pages that use Audio Fingerprinting to keep you secret:
The researchers, Assistant Professor Arvind Narayanan and graduate student Steven Englehardt, created a page for live demonstration of the technique. So if you want to check the fingerprints of your device you can do it from the test page.
https://audiofingerprint.openwpm.com/
The technique of Audio Fingerprinting is not widely adopted but seems to use a number of different approaches that in combination "silently" monitor those who browse the Internet.
Για τη διεξαγωγή των μετρήσεων και την παρακολούθηση των trackers, οι ερευνητές χρησιμοποίησαν ένα προσαρμοσμένο λογισμικό ανοικτού κώδικα που ονομάζεται OpenWPM, το οποίο φορτώνει ιστοσελίδες στον Chrome, τον Firefox και τον Internet Explorer, και παρακολουθεί τη συλλογή data on every page that loads.
