Beta Version of Nevercookie Released 77
wiredmikey writes "Anonymizer has released a beta version of Nevercookie, the recently announced Firefox plugin designed to protect against the Evercookie, a JavaScript API built and made available to prove that the more you store and the more places you store it, the harder it is for users to control a Web site's ability to uniquely identify their computer. Evercookie is a more persistent form of cookie that enables the storage of cookie data in a number of different locations, such as Flash cookies and various locations of HTML5 storage. This allows websites to track user behavior even when users have enabled private browsing. Because an Evercookie stores data in locations outside of where standard cookies are stored, an Evercookie can rebuild itself unless users go through a number of steps to completely clear and reset their local storage."
Re:Cat and mouse (Score:3, Informative)
Trace busta-busta-busta!
Delete all the cookies you want (Score:5, Informative)
Your system's clock skew fingerprint [theinternetpatrol.com] will give you away, with a tiny bit of Javascript. Who needs cookies, when your computer has intrinsic characteristics / artifacts from manufacturing that uniquely identify it?
Re:Isolated browsing (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, I am one of those 'scum bag developers' that uses tracking technology to prevent cheating on an HTTP browser based mmorpg.
What you describe is not enough. You need to consider fingerprinting (use any extensions? you're probably easy to identify! Keep a website history at all? More info if you run javascript!) And, of course, there is the IP problem, but I'm sure you've considered something that basic.
Needless to say, the only way to cheat on this mmorpg is to forge headers... and good luck having any fun with that one!
Re:Not compatible with FF 4.0 (beta 6) (Score:3, Informative)
Not sure about earlier versions of 4.0, but it comes up as not compatible with Beta 6.
Yes, it's not compatible with FF 4. I did this because I haven't had time to test it with that version. This is simply a limitation I put into the install.rdf file. If you want to give it a try on FF 4 you can download the extension, rename it to .zip and open it up. Edit the install.rdf file and change this line: 3.9.* to something like 9.9.* or whatever you like. Zip the contents back up (do not zip the parent directory, you want to be zipping up content, locale, etc into one archive). If you zip it in a parent directory it won't work. Then just rename the extension to .xpi again and try to install it. It's entirely possible it will work, but I just haven't gotten around to testing it with 4 and I know there are a bunch of changes. Let me know how it goes ;)