Reduce display/screen fingerprinting

[Rudxain]

Operating system

Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android (#324).

Name

Minimize screen resolution fingerprinting

Code

• Windows: It seems easier to do with .ps1, but it should be theoretically possible with .bat
• macOS: no idea if it's possible
• Linux: requires xrandr, but may work with other tools
• Android: adb shell wm size (don't forget to change density accordingly!). More info here

The script must ask the user for the preferred resolution rather than hardcoding. To avoid asking, the script could simply halve the current resolution.

Some displays have a minimum refresh-rate of 30Hz, which limits the available options, but makes it much simpler to automate (no need to prompt user)

Revert code

Similar as above, and Android supports a shortcut:

adb shell wm size reset
adb shell wm density reset

Category

Recommendation level

STRICT

Because it may impact accessibility and human multitasking

Documentation/References

• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/intro-digital-fingerprints-spoofing-online-privacy-ads-sakhchinskiy-pwpsf
• https://backspace-tech.medium.com/behavioral-biometrics-a-brief-33ba83d3259c
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_tracking

Screen/Display resolution (spatial and temporal) can be used as a fingerprinting vector on any OS. It's not only "this user has exactly 2000x1000 px viewport and 2048x1024 hardware pixels", it includes movement signature which consists of recognizing patterns in:

• scrolling
• dragging
• cursor/mouse movements
• clicks/touch
• etc...

lower res => lower entropy

[undergroundwires]

High quality contribution, thank you @Rudxain. Thank you for paving the way for Android support, your guidance is appreciated and you're enabling this. Please feel free to issues for any other scripts that you can think is useful for android. This is really helpful.