this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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Privacy
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iOS 17 Safari (especially with enhanced fingerprint protection on) is really good at fingerprint protection. It rotates a few data points like canvas ID so that it makes you look like a new fingerprint each time.
Fingerprint analyzers can find out lots about your fingerprint that way, but if your fingerprint keeps changing, it becomes difficult to identify you. Unique fingerprints don’t mean anything if your fingerprint keeps changing.
That's what I was kind of thinking/hoping based on the results, but I wasn't sure if I was understanding it right. Thanks for elaborating!
Imagine I keep a log of everyone I encounter… their race, hair colour, eye colour, glasses shape, accent, gender, fingernail length, ear lobe shape, everything. I would probably encounter the same people every so often, and I would be able to recognize them from my log.
Now imagine that one of them started dying their hair and putting in coloured contact lenses, and they changed it up every day. I may be able to collect all of the details about them. They’re very unique. But… I couldn’t match them against anyone in my log, even though I’ve seen them multiple times.
Having a unique browser fingerprint is perfectly fine if it constantly changes. They can collect all of those details about you, but if you keep changing key details, they won’t be able to recognize you.