Questions tagged [user-tracking]
The user-tracking tag has no usage guidance.
214
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How does DuckDuckGo know my native language even though I am using a VPN in a country with a different language?
I recently started using a VPN and I've felt more comfortable browsing the Internet. My VPN allows me to select another country through which my traffic is routed to make it appear I'm located in that ...
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92
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5
answers
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How does Facebook track your browsing without third party cookies?
Facebook has served me an ad for a website I visited earlier in the day. I have third party cookies disabled and have not followed any links between the website and Facebook (links which could contain ...
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votes
3
answers
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What information about me do stores get via my credit card?
Lets say I buy something at some (physical) store and pay using a credit card on one of these electronic terminals. What information do the owners of this store get about me (or my credit card) from ...
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4
answers
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How can you be tracked using screen resolution/monitor size in Tor?
Whenever I maximize the Tor browser, it shows a warning:
Maximizing Tor Browser can allow websites to determine you monitor size, which can be used to track you...
How can screen resolution or ...
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34
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8
answers
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Why Say IP Addresses Are Harmless?
Whenever I see someone on the internet ask the question, "Can someone find out my IP Address from my tweets/my tumblr/facebook posts/whatever else", the response I always see is, "Who cares! An IP ...
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How do social media apps notify you when someone else takes a screenshot of your profile?
Social media apps like snapchat, instagram, viber, etc notify you if someone takes a screenshot of your profile, chat, conversation, story, etc.
How does the app find out that you are taking a ...
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votes
2
answers
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How is Skype showing ads from my Google search history?
I can understand when I see the same ads across websites, and ads similar to my search history. Some tracking magic through cookies - fine.
But Skype has been showing me ads for exact terms I ...
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29
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7
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Trying to create safe website where security is handled by the website and not the user
I work with civil rights for children and youth and am trying to create a website for LGBT youth and children and their families. The website needs to be safe as it is still very dangerous in many ...
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3
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Listening to phone calls as user profiling for marketing [closed]
I had a landline phone call about xyz with an xyz-expert (also on landline) for about an hour, for the first time. After couple of days I started getting suggested links on websites as an ad exactly ...
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2
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Does this CSS code expose if a message is read, and how long they have been reading it?
This email analytics company offers an 'engagement metric' that shows how much time someone spends looking at an email, whether the email is printed or deleted.
They also claim it works in pretty ...
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6
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Is there a security advantage or risk in removing disabled user accounts?
So I'm having a debate with someone about whether or not to remove disabled accounts. My stance is that it is good network hygiene, reduces the amount of noise to sift through, etc. However, the ...
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How can I detect real location of the user through their IP address?
There were many ways to detect the user's IP, for instance we could get it through a single click link or through any other medium of communication where we could get the user's IP.
But the tedious ...
- 5,107
19
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4
answers
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How does someone with HubSpot Sidekick knows when I opened their sent email?
This app claims to know when recipients opened the emails that were sent to them. Tracking clicked URLs is fairly straightforward. What I don't understand is how a 3rd party can possibly know when I ...
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Is it possible to identify who's behind a nmap -D scan?
Nmap's -D option stands for decoy, which means that the attacker can simulate that the attack is coming from multiple IPs, including attacker's IP.
From the point of view of the victim, is it ...
user15194
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3
answers
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Someone keeps using my email address. What to do?
I have had a GMail ever since it was created, so it's an email address that is easy to remember, but also easy for somebody else to get confused with.
Since I'm not going to post my email address ...
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Why are users tracked? [closed]
I'm trying to get a well-informed and full picture of why one as a single person should worry about being tracked across sites and uniquely identified. The reasons I can think of are:
Serving ads as ...
- 1,801
11
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Does a chain of proxies (e.g. one connecting to another and another and so on) make tracing the original IP harder/impossible?
I see nobody here has asked this question. What if one, instead of just using a single proxy, connected a proxy-to-proxy in a very long chain and downloaded something (illegal) using secure packets (...
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Identify Unique Computer through Tracking
How are websites able to uniquely track my computer?
I'm aware of: Cookies/Tracking, Super Cookies(HTML5 Cache), IP, Referrer, UA etc
I have been experimenting with Private Proxies and VPNs, but I ...
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Is Google Analytics tracking actually safe to use on pages with sensitive information?
When enabling Google Analytics, they ask you to embed a JS snippet on every page you want to track. That's fair enough.
But when you add this code are you giving Google the ability to scrape the ...
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How does sending referrer HTTP headers protect against CSRF attacks?
How does sending referrer HTTP headers protect against CSRF attacks?
I tried logging into an HTTPS site with Firefox's network.http.sendRefererHeader set to 0 (i.e., completely disabled, as a measure ...
- 1,726
10
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1
answer
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Can CAPTCHA-solving patterns be used to track/identify a person?
Captchas are everywhere. Suppose you're a big company offering Captchas on many sites and you can easily track a user across the web simply by setting a cookie everytime some site loads your captcha ...
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4
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Preventing tracking pixels on Mozilla Thunderbird
Is there a way to prevent loading of tracking pixels on Mozilla Thunderbird ? I know there's a way to prevent loading images by default but I'd like to be able to load images without having to worry ...
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How to block Evercookie
There is a Javascript library called Evercookie designed to track the user. It writes cookie information into every possible location:
Standard HTTP cookies
local shared objects (Flash cookies)
...
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1
answer
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What are the privacy pros and cons of using a public DNS server vs. your own?
Whether I'm using a normal internet connection setup, or tunnelling it through an anonymizing VPN or through TOR, what information of mine is revealed to whatever DNS server that I choose (e.g. Google ...
user21377
9
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1
answer
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Privacy & tracking concerns regarding Service Workers
TL;DR
Should I be concerned about sites I have visited start a service worker in my browser which happens to be listening for events "forever"?
Can a dormant service worker track me?
Longer ...
- 5,406
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1
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Will two smartphones (identical hardware and software) generate the same canvas fingerprint?
When using Canvas Fingerprint (like on this website) to distinguish users, does two smartphones (same model, same OS version, and no browser/plugin customization) will share the same fingerprint?
8
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0
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How does Facebook Pixel's new first-party cookie work?
Facebook recently announced that they will begin offering a first-party cookie option for the Facebook Pixel. Previously, they only used third-party cookies. From their documentation:
You can now use ...
- 1,260
7
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4
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Third party analytics/tracking javascript tags and PCI DSS
Although variants of this question have been asked before, they seem to be about general risk, and I'm interested in the PCI DSS connotations.
If an e-commerce site is looking for level 1 or level 2 ...
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Is there a way to bypass click-tracking links in emails?
Most newsletters that I receive use mass-mailing software that rewrites links to add tracking information. That is, instead of www.google.com, the email will point to something like links.somecompany....
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Can your Windows or Linux username be exposed to websites?
For example:
Accessing a website with javascript enabled can expose information such as browser, fonts and local time. Can it, theoretically, expose your Windows or Linux username?
Will saving a file ...
- 3,089
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Ali Express hijacking my Chrome
So randomly every now and then, when I click on a link - instead of opening it normaly, a new tab is opened and some website with "tracking" in the name (I haven't caught the full name yet, it's quite ...
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4
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Do RFID key cards track the user through entry ways?
At work we use RFID tags to enter the building and each floor. The tags double as photo ID, I always wondered if they are used (or can be used) to keep track of staff movements.
I always assumed that ...
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Can websites track the tabs you open while logged into their website?
If I am on chrome and am looking up a product on Amazon on tab A, can they tell what I search if I open a tab B while tab A is still open? Should I use a new chrome or another browser window to ...
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2
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Can a web app fingerprint your device as identical to a native app's fingeprint
I have installed an app on Android and my account got shadowbanned. I sniffed out the traffic with fiddler and see they use a analytics service that assigns your device a fingerprint.
I tried the web ...
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Are VISA gift cards untraceable?
I was in a retail store today, and these people were discussing how easy it is for people to use stolen credit cards, and buy those visa gift cards without being traced after they purchase the gift ...
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2
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How does X-UIDH user tracking work and how can I detect it?
See these two EFF articles about how Verizon puts a tracker ID in the header of a http request, circumventing anti-cookie measures:
Verizon Injecting Perma-Cookies to Track Mobile Customers, ...
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2
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Does Yandex browser have known records of snooping for user data & passwords?
I've installed Yandex Browser (Based on Chromium) on Windows 10. I use LastPass for logins so I asked Yandex to not remember passwords.
While I was trying to login to another website, it gave me a ...
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2
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How does the Random Hardware Access function work on a smartphone?
Certain smartphones and laptops, one of which my Windows 10 Phone and Laptop (Windows 10, redstone 1 update) have a function called "Random Hardware Access" under the WiFi settings.
The settings has ...
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Can a PDF embed a tracking image?
I know that PDFs can contain embedded images and Javascript.
Can a PDF contain something that tracks you? For instance, can it contain a remote image that, when the PDF is opened, will fetch that ...
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5
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1
answer
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How to trace virtual phone number?
Suppose I received a call from internet with some virtual number, I called the same number back after few days but it didn't exist at the time or it was routed to some other user.
Is there a way to ...
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3
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How do open (no password) wireless networks deal with abuse?
Many places today such as restaurants, malls, and other public places have free and open WiFi that does not need a password or login information to access. That means that anyone, even people outside ...
user25787
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answer
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What is this user trying to do?
I work with a company that creates marketing software, we recently created a forum so we could talk with users who need support.
I'm the main admin on this forum and a user, let's call them person1 ...
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Is it possible to identify the source of message in whatsapp?
Is it possible to identify the real source of message in whatsapp?
Scenario :
Texting whatsapp message to a group,one of the group member forwards it to another and it goes on atlast one day it ...
- 5,107
5
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1
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Government/ISP tracking of internet activity trivial to evade?
The recently announced Investigatory Powers Bill in the United Kingdom will mean that ISPs must store the internet activity of everyone for one year.
Anyone who wishes to evade such tracking can use ...
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Prevent all Firefox Addons from sending data
Firefox addons are known to send data (like the URLs visited, location, installed cookies etc.) to their maintainers and (from there) to third parties. See for instance the newest "scandal" about the ...
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1
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Can HPKP be used to track users?
There is already a large flora of "supercookies" and browser fingerprinting methods out there. I am wondering whether HPKP provides yet another method to track users?
A server could send an extra ...
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OSX Yosemite and Security/Privacy
I currently have a Macbook Pro running OSX Mavericks, being the skeptic that I am I always wait a bit before upgrading to 'new' OS versions when they are released to see how they fare both stability ...
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How is Google's Sidewalk Lab's Free Wifi Hotspot Tracking me?
Elaborating from this question : Bluetooth/WiFi Identity tracking in public spaces - How to discover?
Questions:
How are they tracking me :
From a hardware perspective
Is it a mac address that they ...
5
votes
2
answers
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How are logs stored with ISP?
When dynamic IP addresses are assigned to users, how do ISPs store the logs? Do they just store the time and address of the websites visited or do they store the whole URL like we see in our browsers?
...
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Stop YouTube tracking when signed out
I use YouTube while signed out. I have a Google account, but I only sign in to
check email, then sign right back out. YouTube is tracking what I watch when
signed out, then putting similar videos in ...
- 1