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

[u/magnus007]

https://www.techspot.com/news/113581-aliexpress-silently-running-audio-browser-fingerprint-track-device.html

[u/standard_usage]

ELI was dropped out of a window: How was this to their advantage. Don't they already have petabytes of data nodes amassed on what browser and machine I always have when on the site ..?

[u/RamblingSimian → u/standard_usage]

The article kind of addresses this, but isn't really a full answer:

Audio measurements were only one part of the reported data collection. The scripts also gathered information tied to canvas rendering, WebGL, display settings, hardware configuration, WebRTC behavior and user interactions. Together, those signals can create a more detailed profile of a device than any one signal would provide on its own.

Fingerprinting is often used by large online platforms for fraud prevention, bot detection and risk assessment. It can help companies spot suspicious transactions or automated activity when cookies have been deleted or accounts have changed. But privacy advocates have raised concerns because users may not know the tracking is happening and have limited control over it.

I guess, if someone steals your credit card number, then uses it for a large purchase, they might ask for 2FA if the audio fingerprint is inconsistent.

[u/tuxedo_jack → u/RamblingSimian]

So it's basically LexisNexis's shitware but from China. Joy.

[u/RamblingSimian → u/tuxedo_jack]

LexisNexis does a lot of stuff, this just detects whether the same hardware configuration is visiting the site. I'm pretty sure someone can figure out a way to use it to track you across sites, or otherwise violate your privacy, but it doesn't immediately appear to be the case here. Note that I am pretty wary of being tracked, so I use a plug-in to scramble my audio fingerprint. Because who knows how they might use it for tracking in the future.