Race Is On to 'Fingerprint' Phones, PC

[Lowell]

This is not totally new, just a super refinement of an ongoing trend.

Article

I have a saying I have used with internet newbies. “Everything you do on the internet is forever.”

The old East German Stasi must be green with envy what capitalism is able to achieve with sugar instead of vinegar.

Ultimately we will all be denuded whether going through airport security of on the internet. The option? Switch off and drop out or kneel down.

[ndavies]

Well hopefully the FTC's do not track website comes to fruition and knocks down this threat to our privacy.

http://www.tgdaily.com/business-and-...-consumer-data

[Meddle]

Your PCs MAC address and your cell phone's ESN are essentially fingerprints. They don't change if you get new phone numbers or change locations or web services. I believe both can be changed, but it's not something most people know how to do.

I'm not too keen on the FTC thing. I'm on every DNC list I can find, but those are with known phone or fax numbers. I'll have to find out more about the new list and what's needed to register. If you have to enter email addresses it won't work since I have about 30 or so. If you have to enter your MAC address, well, that ain't happening. I can kill most tracking cookies now as it is without the FTC knowing anything about me.

[Jimaz]

If anyone's interested you can see this kind of data going to/from your computer with a packet sniffer like Wireshark [[not related to the Wireshark Antivirus malware).

It might be fun to counterfeit a fingerprint to masquerade as someone else. Not sure what good it would do other than to see what ads get delivered to their PC. [[Of course you'd need access to their PC to get the information to make their fingerprint.)

Retailers have been doing similar things for years now with their discount cards. They track what you buy then target you with ads for those items, often from competing manufacturers.

Your hosts file can be used to block online advertising.