Dead Trackers Tell No Tales: Understanding and blocking third-party tracking and browser fingerprinting

[mozfest-bot]

[ UUID ] 26824281-c286-476c-926f-6ab86b49d743

[ Submitter's Name ] Pierre Laperdrix [ Submitter's Affiliated Organisation ] INRIA [ Submitter's Github ] @plaperdr

What will happen in your session?

Today, the web is evolving at an amazing pace with a richer, more personal and more interactive user experience. Nevertheless, modern browser technologies, which provide the beauty and power of the web, also provide a darker side, a rich ecosystem of exploitable data that can be used to track users on the web. In this session, participants will learn about third-party tracking and more specifically about browser fingerprinting. What is it? How does it work? What can we do to stop it? What is Mozilla currently cooking inside Firefox to mitigate fingerprinting? All of these questions will be covered and more. Third-party tracking is a reality and it is time to put control back in users' hands.

What is the goal or outcome of your session?

This is a hands-on session where people can understand why third-party tracking is possible and see the effects of browser fingerprinting directly on their devices. At the end of the session, they can configure their browser or install the necessary addons to protect themselves online and improve their privacy.

If your session requires additional materials or electronic equipment, please outline your needs.

Access to Internet and a projector/screen.

Time needed

90 mins

[arroway]

Hi @plaperdr, thank you for your proposal. To give you an insight about how MozFest is usually running; it has many, high-collaborative workshops and many attendees don't usually bring a computer. How might you and visitors to your session still benefit from meeting each other? How would you adapt your session to be very "low-tech" (no computers among the participants)?

[plaperdr]

Hi @arroway, If the participants have a smartphone, they can use it to understand the browser fingerprinting part of the session. Then, if almost no participants come with their own device, the session will turn more to a discussion to see what tools they use in their browsers to protect against online tracking, why they think these tools are good and I can explain to them how they work so they can see the pros and cons of different defense approaches. As mentioned in the title and in the description, I plan on having a big emphasis on browser fingerprinting so this can open discussions about device diversity and solutions like spoofers or TBB.

[arroway]

Thanks for your answer @plaperdr

[bunnybooboo]

Hey @plaperdr sorry we seem to have gone quiet for way too long. I'm sorry to have to tell you that your proposal has not been selected for the Privacy and Security space. You got through to the last phase of deliberation, which means you busted through FIVE deliberation phases. That's a great reflection on how great an idea this is.

We collectively deemed this proposal Outstanding which makes ultimate rejection all the harder. I do hope you manage to explore this idea in some form. Having a community of peers who care as much about Privacy and Security as we do is really inspiring to us.

Thanks for taking the time to submit your idea, and for your patience through this rigorous process.

[shwetal27]

congrats your session has been accepted

[plaperdr]

Wow! That's fantastic news! I did not expect to be selected after last week's rejection. Since I'm not familiar with the Youth Zone, what is the difference in terms of session/format/audience compared to the one of the Security and Privacy track?

[shwetal27]

over 2/3rds of session are being led by young people as young as 8+ and the audience that comes to attend the sessions on the youth zone are between 8-20, we would thus request you to customize the session a bit keeping that audience in mind and your session as youth centric. your session has been additionally selected as topic of interest to the makers and leaders of our tomorrow that fit within the Internet of health themed report.

[EPIKhub]

@plaperdr please note for operational issues we have had to change your session timing, this will now be the 11am to 12 lunch time block. Please check Guidebook for the update