Taking this into account, he recommends you update your iPhone to iOS 15.6.1 as soon as possible. He says it’s possible the two vulnerabilities “could be chained together to allow attackers to remotely gain full access to victims’ devices.” Clearly this is only relevant for Chrome, and even if it’s not enabled now that could happen at any time without you realizing.“Apple iOS 15.6.1 is an important update,” says independent security researcher Sean Wright. Browsers like Safari and Tor have engaged in years-long wars of attrition against trackers, sacrificing large swaths of their own feature sets in order to reduce fingerprinting attack surfaces.” EFF warns that FLoC is “a new fingerprinting risk,” and that Google shouldn't put that risk in place “until it’s figured out how to deal with existing ones.”ĮFF has launched a website where you can check if your Chrome browser has FLoC enabled. EFF cautions that “fingerprinting is notoriously difficult to stop. Using your digital trail to identify you as a unique user is called fingerprinting. And so, you need to be mindful as to its true value to Google. “Right now, DuckDuckGo says, “FLoC is only in Google Chrome, and no other browser vendor has expressed an intention or even interest to implement it.”Īs I’ve commented before, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has assured that “we don’t use information in apps where you primarily store personal content-such as Gmail, Drive, Calendar and Photos-for advertising purposes, period.” But Chrome isn’t on that list. Simply put, don’t let the fox into the chicken coop. There is no point in Apple securing your data and your privacy, creating a walled garden around your online experience, if you then install and use Chrome on your iPhone or iPad or Mac. And because this is Apple, you’ll likely trust this more so than other platforms and use it more than you might a dedicated password manager. Furthermore, it will even store your passwords and warn you when one has been reused or breached. If you’re using the Apple ecosystem, it works seamlessly cross-device and already has the anti-tracking tech built in. As good as DuckDuckGo is, as good as Signal is, as good as ProtonMail is, you’ll want to use a mainstream browser, WhatsApp or iMessage, and standard email apps.Īnd that’s okay. Most of the people reading this will not want to opt for the uber-private apps and platforms-I recognize that. It’s a running battle.Īnd so we have reached a fork in the road, a pivot point. And yet, as proven with FLoC, the other side of that equation is that the data harvesters have never been more sophisticated. There is a stark irony right now, in that we have never had more information available to us on the exploitation of our private information, the good and bad actors when it comes to tracking us, the tools we can use to protect ourselves. Google told me that “as implemented in the origin trial, FLoC uses significantly less data than what can already be accessed via third-party cookies, and FLoC is designed to prevent websites from reverse-engineering an individual's browsing activity.” But privacy advocates have been roundly dismissive of this.Īnd so to Apple. While FLoC is eventually intended to replace tracking cookies, during the trial, it will give trackers access to even more information about subjects.” This week, Facebook has blamed a user-centric convenience behind its latest data mishap, with that feature’s exploitation by “bad actors.” And so, the fear with FLoC is that the anonymized group IDs will soon be recognized and interpreted, that your IP address will be captured and linked.ĮFF warns that “the Chrome origin trial for FLoC has been deployed to millions of random Chrome users without warning, much less consent. With data harvesting and tracking, history tells us to beware the unintended consequences of even well-meaning developments. The FLoC origin trial is an early but important step toward the Privacy Sandbox's goal of an open web that is both private by default and economically sustainable.” In response to this story, Google told me that “we strongly believe that FLoC is better for user privacy compared to the individual cross-site tracking that is prevalent today. Using the web, DuckDuckGo warns, will be “like walking into a store where they already know all about you.” You won’t be tracked as 45-year-old accountant, John Smith, of 101 Acacia Avenue, but the algorithm will be pretty specific about your interests and will readily share that with websites. Put simply, that hidden, secretive algorithm tracks the sites you visit and your online activities to assign you to a group.
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