holy bollocks! apparently my browser has a unique system fingerprint (out of 84,084 tested so far),that’s pretty damn unique.
my setup gives away ‘16.32 bits’ of info and in theory you only need 32 bits of this type of entropic info to identify someone… eep.
this ‘fingerprint’ is based on browser type, OS, browser plugins, system fonts etc etc…
the basic gist is that even if you’ve disable cookies etc etc, the combination and rarity of the minutia of your browsing setup can still identify you…
scary shit huh?
if you feel like checking yours out, or just want to see what the hell i’m talking about, have a gander at:
https://panopticlick.eff.org/
and the theory behind it is explained here:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/01/primer-information-theory-and-privacy
1 week ago
seriously.
i had an email this morning saying that due to a phishing attack on twitter they’ve taken it upon themselves to reset my password. without asking. that fucked me off for starters.
the email had a link to the ‘reset password’ section on twitter, and then that page said “there’s no record of that user requesting a reset”.
great. so i can’t use twitter apps that are already logged in, and i can’t log in to the webshite. way to go twitter.
instead i decide to do the ‘forgot password’ link, put up with the patronising “oh you’ve forgotten you password? don’t worry it happens to all of us” message, then it can’t do it without verifying my phone number… which as it’s a US-based service i’m sure many people didn’t bother setting up. fail number three.
when i eventually get to the reset password page it wont let me choose the password i had as it’s ‘too obvious’… er, it was fine for the last year and a half, why the fuck is it wrong now? so i add an extra character on the end and suddenly all is fine. great, log in.
i post one tweet then see if i can sneakily change it back to what it was before, nope. now my ‘existing password’ is constantly wrong. i’m guessing twitter hasn’t bothered updating the one i’ve just put in yet. fail five.
and now my account is locked too, for ‘attempted log-ins’. yeah BY ME fuckwad. trying to use your shit system. fail six.
and now (or at least when twitter calms the fuck down) i have to re-configure and re-authorise all of the fucking twitter apps i use (no small amount) all because twitter decided to reset my password without asking.
just fuck the fuck off. you fucking suck.
1 month ago
