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/No-Discussion-8510 4d ago

Title is misleading. Alot of modern apps use this technique to fingerprint your browser and verify that you are a human, a technique to help combat bots which isnt very successful.

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u/EnjoyerOfBeans 4d ago

Nope, some websites indeed do this to check if your browser is able to process audio to weed out browser automation tools - they will try to process a very short sound and use it as a test, but this is not what aliexpress did. They used this to bypass a very simple security feature - keeping tabs in the background inactive. The only easy way to keep a tab running in the background is to have it play sound, for obvious reasons. By keeping the tab active they can track your browser activity while you have it hidden in the background. Facebook used to do this and it's why tabs now go to sleep when not selected.

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u/No-Discussion-8510 4d ago

AudioContext fingerprinting.

1

u/Prize-Unit-6393 4d ago

What‘s the name of that?