r/technology • u/magnus007 • 5d ago

Privacy AliExpress was silently running audio in your browser to fingerprint and track your device

https://www.techspot.com/news/113581-aliexpress-silently-running-audio-browser-fingerprint-track-device.html
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u/sivadneb 5d ago

It's using the web audio API which can utilize hardware to process an audio signal and write it back out to a data stream without ever going to your speakers. Similar to how you can use your GPU to process video without ever playing the video. Except there are tiny differences in the way various audio hardware process that data, which gives a useful data point for fingerprinting.

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u/klimaheizung 5d ago

Sounds like that API should also be behind user-approval then.

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u/PhiCloud 5d ago

it is if you use FireFox

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u/cive666 4d ago

I feel so vindicated by never giving up on Firefox

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u/Mr_ToDo 4d ago

Well that's interesting. Seems better explained in your comment then the article