Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-10-04 Thread Jeremiah Foster
On Oct 1, 2007, at 7:59 PM, Moritz Muehlenhoff wrote: Joey Hess wrote: Surely packages.debian.org is not a good example of a site with generally few Debian users. The scenario seems more likely to me on small non-technical sites that only a few Debian unstable users are likely to visit.

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-10-04 Thread Mark Brown
On Thu, Oct 04, 2007 at 10:41:51AM +0200, Jeremiah Foster wrote: This is most likely apocryphal. If there is any truth in the above link, it has been blown way out of proportion. Nobody gets arrested for using lynx, which is what that link says. There is little evidence to corroborate the

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-10-04 Thread Jeremiah Foster
On Oct 4, 2007, at 11:59 AM, Mark Brown wrote: On Thu, Oct 04, 2007 at 10:41:51AM +0200, Jeremiah Foster wrote: This is most likely apocryphal. If there is any truth in the above link, it has been blown way out of proportion. Nobody gets arrested for using lynx, which is what that link

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-10-01 Thread Moritz Muehlenhoff
Joey Hess wrote: Surely packages.debian.org is not a good example of a site with generally few Debian users. The scenario seems more likely to me on small non-technical sites that only a few Debian unstable users are likely to visit. For special fun, try browsing from an unusual

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-29 Thread Bernd Zeimetz
Sam Leon wrote: My only complaint is that alot of website traffic analyzer programs pick up the debian iceweasel browser as unknown browser and unknown operating system If they'd do their job right they'd look for the gecko engine and it's version and not on the name of the browser. Compare

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-28 Thread Sam Leon
My only complaint is that alot of website traffic analyzer programs pick up the debian iceweasel browser as unknown browser and unknown operating system Sam -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-28 Thread Ben Finney
Sam Leon [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: My only complaint is that alot of website traffic analyzer programs pick up the debian iceweasel browser as unknown browser and unknown operating system That's a bug in those web sites, of course. They shouldn't even be trying to sniff User-Agent to

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-27 Thread Michelle Konzack
Sorry for the late reply but currently I am porting a new architecture and have not very much time... Am 2007-09-21 18:03:05, schrieb Peter Eckersley: Consider for a moment a typical User-Agent string sent by a Debian web browser: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6)

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-27 Thread Michelle Konzack
Am 2007-09-22 11:16:55, schrieb Peter Eckersley: But maybe you use open wifi networks, and other Debian users also use those networks. Maybe there are other Debian users behind your NAT. Maybe your friends come over sometimes and they also use Debian. In those cases, standardising the

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-27 Thread Drew Parsons
Peter Eckersley wrote: Consider for a moment a typical User-Agent string sent by a Debian web browser: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070802 Iceape/1.1.4 (Debian-1.1.4-1) Unfortunately, the fact that this information identifies a specific package and

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-25 Thread Jeremiah Foster
On Sep 22, 2007, at 8:18 PM, Peter Eckersley wrote: On Sep 22, Marco D'Itri [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sep 22, Peter Eckersley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This means, in practice, that many sites will be able to track Debian users by their User-Agent, even if (say) the user is blocking cookies

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-25 Thread Jeremiah Foster
On Sep 23, 2007, at 1:39 AM, Joerg Jaspert wrote: On 11150 March 1977, Peter Eckersley wrote: This is highly debateable. There may be tens or thousands of users of the same package visiting a web site. I've seen reports from very large sites indicating that User-Agent strings are almost as

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-23 Thread Mark Brown
On Sat, Sep 22, 2007 at 12:39:25PM -0700, Peter Eckersley wrote: On Sat, Sep 22, 2007 at 11:36:41 +0100, Mark Brown wrote: I would strongly expect that any user sufficiently concerned about these issues to take active steps like those would be willing to use I think this misunderstands

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-23 Thread Martin Uecker
Joey Hess [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Joerg Jaspert wrote: On 11150 March 1977, Peter Eckersley wrote: I've seen reports from very large sites indicating that User-Agent strings are almost as useful as cookies for tracking their users. I cant believe this. Looking at the stats

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-22 Thread Osamu Aoki
Hi, I think one technical solution which seems o be good to one person may not be good one for others. You must think realistic solution which do not affect others in any negative way and possibly give more benefits than just solving your own corner case problem. On Fri, Sep 21, 2007 at

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-22 Thread Mark Brown
On Fri, Sep 21, 2007 at 06:03:05PM -0700, Peter Eckersley wrote: This means, in practice, that many sites will be able to track Debian users by their User-Agent, even if (say) the user is blocking cookies or limiting them to a single session and is changing IP address regularly. I would

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-22 Thread Peter Eckersley
Yes and no. Although IP addresses are a better tracking mechanism than User-Agent strings, each of them makes the other more effective. If you always browse from one IP, and all the other people at that IP use Windows, then this doesn't help you. But maybe you use open wifi networks, and

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-22 Thread Peter Eckersley
On Sep 22, Marco D'Itri [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sep 22, Peter Eckersley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This means, in practice, that many sites will be able to track Debian users by their User-Agent, even if (say) the user is blocking cookies or limiting them to a single session and is

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-22 Thread Peter Eckersley
On Sat, Sep 22, 2007 at 11:36:41 +0100, Mark Brown wrote: This means, in practice, that many sites will be able to track Debian users by their User-Agent, even if (say) the user is blocking cookies or limiting them to a single session and is changing IP address regularly. I would

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-22 Thread Roberto C . Sánchez
On Sat, Sep 22, 2007 at 12:39:25PM -0700, Peter Eckersley wrote: On Sat, Sep 22, 2007 at 11:36:41 +0100, Mark Brown wrote: This means, in practice, that many sites will be able to track Debian users by their User-Agent, even if (say) the user is blocking cookies or limiting them to a

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-22 Thread Eduardo Trápani
Consider for a moment a typical User-Agent string sent by a Debian web browser: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070802 Iceape/1.1.4 (Debian-1.1.4-1) I agree that it is a bit too verbose and it might even be a security problem, but reaching consensus on what

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-22 Thread Joerg Jaspert
On 11150 March 1977, Peter Eckersley wrote: This is highly debateable. There may be tens or thousands of users of the same package visiting a web site. I've seen reports from very large sites indicating that User-Agent strings are almost as useful as cookies for tracking their users. I cant

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-22 Thread Joey Hess
Joerg Jaspert wrote: On 11150 March 1977, Peter Eckersley wrote: I've seen reports from very large sites indicating that User-Agent strings are almost as useful as cookies for tracking their users. I cant believe this. Looking at the stats from packages.debian.org - U-A is the worst

User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-21 Thread Peter Eckersley
Consider for a moment a typical User-Agent string sent by a Debian web browser: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070802 Iceape/1.1.4 (Debian-1.1.4-1) Unfortunately, the fact that this information identifies a specific package and version of that package means that

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-21 Thread Roberto C . Sánchez
On Fri, Sep 21, 2007 at 06:03:05PM -0700, Peter Eckersley wrote: What do people think of picking a single User-Agent string for all versions of all of Debian's Gecko-based browsers? It would be sort of pointless unless we could find a way to all browse from the same IP address. Regards,

Re: User-Agent strings, privacy and Debian browsers

2007-09-21 Thread Marco d'Itri
On Sep 22, Peter Eckersley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This means, in practice, that many sites will be able to track Debian users by their User-Agent, even if (say) the user is blocking cookies or limiting them to a single session and is changing IP address regularly. This is highly debateable.