1
TeamViewer installs suspicious font only useful for web fingerprinting
A weird almost unreadable font file bundled with TeamViewer for Windows software lets website detect if you’ve installed the software. Raises privacy concerns.
Daniel Aleksandersen
A personal blog mostly on everyday tech.
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Visit ctrl.blog → RSS feedOn Hacker News Dec 2017 – Sep 2023
Security & Privacy 13Web & Frontend 9Society, Policy & Culture 9Tools & Productivity 7Systems & Performance 6Tech Industry & Business 5
2
SELinux is unmanageable; just turn it off if it gets in your way
I’ve been an SELinux complexity apologist for years. Lately, I’ve concluded that every implementation with difficult-to-configure policies is just unmanageable.
3
TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds
A design flaw in TP-Link Wi-Fi repeater firmware causes it to waste an excessive amount of bandwidth on NTP timekeeping. DDoS’ed public NTP servers in the process.
4
You don’t want to be on Cloudflare’s naughty list
My home IP ended up on Cloudflare’s naughty list for six days. Most websites and many apps loaded slowly, partially, or not at all. Just had to wait it out.
5
How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works
Get the details on how the built-in ad-blocker in Google Chrome works. The ad-blocker only kicks in on websites in violation of the Better Ad Standards policies.
6
The 0.5 MB of nothing in all Apple Music files (2020)
Six percentage of each music files you’ve bought from Apple Music (iTunes Store) contain, literally, nothing. Why is Apple padding their music with zero-bytes?
7
First-party isolation in Firefox: what breaks if you enable it?
Firefox’s FPI system keeps websites from tracking your movements across websites. This gives excellent privacy protections but at a cost of web compatibility.
8
On-device browser translations with Firefox Translations
Firefox can now do offline and privacy-preserving translation of eight languages with more on the way. Powered by open-source and machine-learning.
9
Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)
Your email provider owns your online identity by controlling your email address. You can’t port your email address to another provider as with phone numbers.
10
Systemd service sandboxing and security hardening (2020)
The systemd-analyze security command gives your systemd service units an automated security rating. This is a good starting point for security hardening.
11
Aren't AMP Caches committing copyright infringement?
How can mass-copying pages from web publishers without a license not be mass-copyright infringement? The weird copyright law exemption that enables AMP Caches.
12
Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
I asked 124 services to delete my user account. The results were mixed. 21 never responded, and 16 responded by created even more accounts. Some outright lied.
13
Flattr now deletes your web browsing history within 3 months
Flattr improves customer privacy protections by automatically deleting collected data when its no longer needed for its core service.