How unique is your presence on the Internet?

David Heath
Sunday, 31 January 2010 14:16

Business IT - Security

You might think that thousands, nay millions of people will be on the Internet with the same browser and operating system as you.  That may-well be true, but it's not as simple as that.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has introduced The Panopticlick - the name being derived from Bentham's Panopticon which was a design for a prison where a limited number of unseen guards could operate the facility.

Later the name became a metaphor for unseen watchers - widespread public video surveillance being the obvious example.

Visiting the site we find a simple page asking a simple question: "Is your browser configuration rare or unique?  If so, web sites may be able to track you, even if you limit or disable cookies."

The opening page continues: "Panopticlick tests your browser to see how unique it is based on the information it will share with sites it visits. Click below and you will be given a uniqueness score, letting you see how easily identifiable you might be as you surf the web.

"Only anonymous data will be collected by this site."  In fact EFF states elsewhere that the only 'identifying' information is a 3-month persistent cookie they leave behind to stop collecting duplicate information from the same computer.

Run the Panopticlick and after a few moments a new page will be delivered.  The results may surprise you.

The site has a brief conversation with your browser and reports back the results.  In my case, my exact configuration is absolutely unique amongst the 388,030 people who have used the site.

How can that be?