Tagged Questions

4
votes
1answer
122 views

How can browser select suggestions for my private searches?

I use a VPN service that provides a pool of IP addresses, I clean history/cookies/etc - all the browsing data before a session. Regardless, when I type in the search of one particular search engine, ...
1
vote
1answer
133 views

What is the “about:blank” context for browser security and privacy?

This blog is describing a way to hide the referer header in various situations. Specifically he is referring to things that run in the about:blank context. What is the about:blank context? How does ...
7
votes
1answer
219 views

Device fingerprinting & Mass Computer Surveillance

Device fingerprinting is one of the biggest privacy problems as explained because people think cleaning cookies, using proxy servers or blocking domains can protect them (when blacklisted trackers ...
9
votes
2answers
425 views

How to fight browser fingerprinting?

https://panopticlick.eff.org/ , aka "How unique and trackable is your browser". For example it usually gives me a unique score. The biggest entropy values come from navigator.plugins and fonts via ...
5
votes
4answers
4k views

Advanced techniques for detecting a proxy/getting original IP

In what manner can a website detect my original IP address, even though I'm using a proxy server? I've noticed this with a few sites. There are four proxy methods I've used: Firefox with a proxy ...
12
votes
4answers
1k views

Why users want to disable cookies?

I just started to create a new web application. In the documentation, it is written that I have to prepare for the situation where users have disabled cookies. This is not the first time I have read ...
4
votes
2answers
856 views

Does Java applets reveal the real IP address, even when using proxy or vpn?

Can a Java applet reveal the original client IP address, when browsing through a proxy or a VPN? Why?
4
votes
2answers
256 views

Workarounds for :visited CSS History reconnaissance

Several years ago it was possible to use a:visited { background: url('/log.php'); } to figure out on what website user has been previously. But now it is restricted by browsers. Is there any ...
2
votes
3answers
317 views

Are there any addons that disable only some functionality of scripts?

Tor comes bundled with NoScript. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's because client sided scripts can determine the originating IP address regardless of who the traffic is passed through. But NoScript ...
7
votes
5answers
843 views

What do the various browser “private modes” do?

Recently there has been some disagreement as to what "private mode" means when it comes to various browsers. Primarily I am referring to... IE's "InPrivate Browsing" Google Chrome's "Incognito ...
3
votes
4answers
178 views

Improving the privacy of a casual Web user

I am interested in improving the privacy available to me as a casual internet user with a default browser. I think that Tor is too slow and that the "Privacy Mode" in browsers isn't really practical. ...
4
votes
1answer
142 views

What countries have laws in place that respect Do Not Track HTTP headers or cookies?

Google offers a Chrome plugin that uses cookies to control privacy, while Firefox offers a HTTP Header to tell websites to not track the users and log the data anonymously. This obviously extends a ...
5
votes
2answers
572 views

Considering that SRP is better than SSH and Basic Auth, how can it be implemented in a website?

SRP is short for Secure Remote Password protocol, and provides a better way for passwords to be sent over the internet. I've read the information at it's Stanford University home page, the Wiki ...
2
votes
4answers
933 views

What web browsers support OCSP stapling? Are the privacy and performance features the same?

OCSP stapling decreases the load on a PKI infrastructure's OCSP server by attaching a signed OCSP response to the target in a TLS connection. In addition it creates a more secure/private session ...
11
votes
3answers
1k views

How can I prevent tracking by ETAGs?

An ETAG is a HTTP header that is sent-behind-the-scenes between a web browser and an web server. This value is intended to control how long a particular file is cached on the client side. There is ...
4
votes
3answers
285 views

Are there security (esp. privacy) benefits to deleting cookies?

As the title says, I'm wondering if there are any security/privacy benefits to managing cookies - that is, managing by deleting cookies you don't want or need. I deleted all my cookies about a week ...
4
votes
3answers
295 views

Are there any same origin issues (SOP) with TOR?

Are there any issues with Same Origin Policy (SOP) with TOR or *.onion addresses? I'm thinking of cookies Plugins (Silverlight, Flash, Java, etc) Javascript
18
votes
2answers
4k views

Can web sites detect whether you are using private browsing mode?

Most modern browsers support "private browsing mode" (also known in Chrome as "Incognito mode"), where the browser does not save any information to disk about your browsing while in this mode. In ...
10
votes
3answers
296 views

Should I ask a user to re-authenticate if the browser thumbprint changes? Is a server side library available?

Is there a security benefit to using the browser's thumbprint in addition to a session identifier to identify a unique session? Would it then be advisable to ask the user to reauthenticate (or simply ...
4
votes
4answers
416 views

Is silverlight and Java running on the web browser capable of saving “state” into the user's local machines?

I am aware that even after we have cleared our cache and cookies, websites can still save files/information into our computer using Flash (Flash ever cookies), I was wondering does other plugins like ...
6
votes
3answers
923 views

How can a “server” know that what browser i'm using besides the user-agent?

How can a "webserver" know (or a sniffer between the srv<->and the client) that what browser i'm using besides the user-agent? Are there any "magic tricks"? javascript? java? How can I securely, ...
11
votes
5answers
886 views

Different strategies for online anonymity and their +/-s?

I saw this question about anonymous web browser, but I wanted to go a little bit more in depth. I prefer answers that take into account how a connection would be traced back, time it would take to ...
11
votes
6answers
1k views

Anonymous web browser. Is it real?

Do anonymous browsers work? What principles do they use? Can I use them to test access to my web site? Can I detect if a visitor is using one? What is the different between traditional and anonymous ...