Friday, October 24, 2014

Verizon tracking its users (again)



As the biggest fine ever ( http://www.fastcompany.com/3035193/fast-feed/fcc-fines-verizon-74-million-for-using-private-data-to-market-to-customers )
didn't make enough of an impression, 

Verizon is now tracking the browsing of its wireless users with a new token, according to Ars Technica - http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/10/verizon-wireless-injects-identifiers-link-its-users-to-web-requests/

More information can be found here:

Or you can test it yourself here:

Browsing from the work/desktop network shows no X-UIDH header, but from a (Work) Verizon cell phone shows the header, and links to an NBC news site with opt-out information.  According to people on Twitter (https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=verizon%20uidh ) ,   opting out doesn’t always work.  I haven’t tested it yet.

Using HTTPS supposedly prevents this information from being sent, but there may not be a way to I don’t know whether this information uniquely identifies 

(* TODO *) I wonder whether setting up an apache server as a proxy, with HTTPS in and http out would prevent the headers?



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