My idea is to combine cookie/IP tracking with data from link-click Referer headers and meme data. For example: 1) You visit LJ with tracking image 2) Your browser fetches said image. The server logs the IP and cookie. If you don't have a cookie, it gives you one. 3) One of the following: a) Some time later you click a link, sending a Referer header with it. A username can now be guessed based on the Referer (http://dennyd.livejournal.com/friends). b) You go do a meme thingy. It asks for a username and you give it one. Either way, your IP and cookie are given to the server again. The match is stored and can now be attached to all that old, previously sorta-anonymous data. 4) Profit? I doubt anyone's bothering with this, but it's a thought.
Setting the cookie while viewing a journal can be stopped by only allowing cookies from the "originating site" in Firefox prefs; it makes it so if you're viewing livejournal.com, foobar.com can't set cookies as you fetch images or whatever. IP address tracking can be mitigated by using Tor (http://tor.eff.org/) or something like it.
Clearly all of this tracking can be rendered useless by a sufficiently informed/determined/whatever person.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-05-11 09:54 am (UTC)1) You visit LJ with tracking image
2) Your browser fetches said image. The server logs the IP and cookie. If you don't have a cookie, it gives you one.
3) One of the following:
a) Some time later you click a link, sending a Referer header with it. A username can now be guessed based on the Referer (http://dennyd.livejournal.com/friends).
b) You go do a meme thingy. It asks for a username and you give it one.
Either way, your IP and cookie are given to the server again. The match is stored and can now be attached to all that old, previously sorta-anonymous data.
4) Profit?
I doubt anyone's bothering with this, but it's a thought.
Setting the cookie while viewing a journal can be stopped by only allowing cookies from the "originating site" in Firefox prefs; it makes it so if you're viewing livejournal.com, foobar.com can't set cookies as you fetch images or whatever. IP address tracking can be mitigated by using Tor (http://tor.eff.org/) or something like it.
Clearly all of this tracking can be rendered useless by a sufficiently informed/determined/whatever person.