i'd argue that perhaps the ability to play audio should be permission gated, much like the ability to use webcam/microphone.
However, I'd bet that many people will gladly allow aliexpress to play audio as there are probably videos on the site that people want to play and listen to.
With that said, its possible that this can be only a use once permission. Even if I want to shop at aliexpress if I know they are doing this, I'll be more willing to be bothered every time I want to play a video with audio to approve it if this bothers me.
I noticed in the last few weeks that if I’d recently opened the AliExpress iOS app (ie. it was backgrounded) my car audio would freak out thinking I was giving it an audio command. Killing the AliExpress app immediately fixed the problem. After seeing it happen more than once I assumed it was something dodgey and uninstalled the app.
It's known that some Chinese mobile apps employ this trick to keep the app alive in the background, the rumor is that this way the 'active user' KPI can be better met.
Recently I ran into a problem with my Bluetooth headphones. They support multipoint bluetooth audio, so they can be connected to my PC and phone at the same time.
Opening the Aliexpress webpage causes a silent audio stream keeping the PC>headphone link active blocking my phone audio.
An investigation reveals obfuscated code running device fingerprinting with a side effect being a silent audio stream that firefox, chrome and windows does not recognise but which kept the bluetooth connection active.
Browser fingerprinting can get creative at times, to say the least. eBay's WebSocket port scanner [1] and Reddit's abuse of DRM and JavaScript JIT exploits [2] from years ago are two examples of the kind of in-depth introspection you can perform completely in the background using nothing more than simple non-permission-gated APIs.
Concerning situation, I think. And I suspect (perhaps wrongly) that there are even more reasons for concern with technology that can track, capture, leak etc. information that's more sensitive or valuable, depending on how one wishes to look at it. Mobile phones, computers, routers etc. -- all have the potential to siphon out valuable information to a bad actor, especially when it comes to espionage, military, commercial etc. This has already happened at a significant scael, so it's not a remote scenario.
At the very least, governments and institutions should develop a framework to investigate all acquired technology. The community / civil society could also create something similar, a script that would analyse at a deep level everything that can be analysed with a piece of software even by a complete novice.
Yes, I find it concerning too. I particularly dislike that windows was not aware, nor could it stop the audio stream from effecting the hardware. What other side channels like that exist? Perhaps I can be blamed for using windows
That would be unreasonable, I argue. No one should have to worry about the security of their devices and data privacy based on which OS they use. Whilst it can be argued that different OSs serve different needs, privacy and security should not be debatable. In fact, most countries have dedicated legislation for this; whether it's just, applied correctly, or serves the public before any other party are indeed discussions to be had.
I am pretty sure my phone is listening. The ads I see this week are about topics I discussed last week. Week for week. Stupid thing is that I need the phone to have near by as self-employed electrician. Clients want to communicate after regular office hours. Since the phone is rigged why computer shouldn’t?
We take everything we have, freedom, privacy, free speech, for granted. The reality seems to be that these concepts are fungible and that we have to be ready to fight for them. Instead we trade these for convenience, and it's very very sad.
No sound playing but the audio would change like the microphone was being activated. I checked permissions to make sure there was no mic access and figured that they were fingerprinting.
The script generates a known waveform, it is passed through the browser's audio implementation and then the script analyses the result after. Based on your devices settings and hardware the output will be different, e.g. a PC with analog output might have 44KHz audio output bandwidth, but a bluetooth headset might have a lower, different audio bandwidth. That is a datapoint that can be used in device fingerprinting alongside screen and viewport dimensions,
device pixel ratio, browser plugins, etc.
i'd argue that perhaps the ability to play audio should be permission gated, much like the ability to use webcam/microphone.
However, I'd bet that many people will gladly allow aliexpress to play audio as there are probably videos on the site that people want to play and listen to.
With that said, its possible that this can be only a use once permission. Even if I want to shop at aliexpress if I know they are doing this, I'll be more willing to be bothered every time I want to play a video with audio to approve it if this bothers me.
The ability to play audio can usually be permission gated with tab muting, however the methods aliexpress use bypass that mechanism completely.
I noticed in the last few weeks that if I’d recently opened the AliExpress iOS app (ie. it was backgrounded) my car audio would freak out thinking I was giving it an audio command. Killing the AliExpress app immediately fixed the problem. After seeing it happen more than once I assumed it was something dodgey and uninstalled the app.
It's known that some Chinese mobile apps employ this trick to keep the app alive in the background, the rumor is that this way the 'active user' KPI can be better met.
edit: quantity qualifier
I cannot ever imagine installing something like AliExpress as an app.
It's great for shopping. But in the US you have amazon prime. We don't.
Recently I ran into a problem with my Bluetooth headphones. They support multipoint bluetooth audio, so they can be connected to my PC and phone at the same time. Opening the Aliexpress webpage causes a silent audio stream keeping the PC>headphone link active blocking my phone audio. An investigation reveals obfuscated code running device fingerprinting with a side effect being a silent audio stream that firefox, chrome and windows does not recognise but which kept the bluetooth connection active.
Besides the privacy implications, they are also wasting our fucking batteries on this crap...
I've seen this on many many other sites as well, most notably Twitter, and lots of common modern captcha pages too. Very annoying!
JS enabled by default seems every day less secure.
So many website break completely with JS disabled and you end up having to enable it half the time anyway.
It was pretty good until about six months ago. Since then loads of sites have added a js requirement to try to stop the AI bots.
Browser fingerprinting can get creative at times, to say the least. eBay's WebSocket port scanner [1] and Reddit's abuse of DRM and JavaScript JIT exploits [2] from years ago are two examples of the kind of in-depth introspection you can perform completely in the background using nothing more than simple non-permission-gated APIs.
[1] https://blog.nem.ec/2020/05/24/ebay-port-scanning/
[2] https://iter.ca/post/reddit-whiteops/
Concerning situation, I think. And I suspect (perhaps wrongly) that there are even more reasons for concern with technology that can track, capture, leak etc. information that's more sensitive or valuable, depending on how one wishes to look at it. Mobile phones, computers, routers etc. -- all have the potential to siphon out valuable information to a bad actor, especially when it comes to espionage, military, commercial etc. This has already happened at a significant scael, so it's not a remote scenario.
At the very least, governments and institutions should develop a framework to investigate all acquired technology. The community / civil society could also create something similar, a script that would analyse at a deep level everything that can be analysed with a piece of software even by a complete novice.
Yes, I find it concerning too. I particularly dislike that windows was not aware, nor could it stop the audio stream from effecting the hardware. What other side channels like that exist? Perhaps I can be blamed for using windows
> Perhaps I can be blamed for using windows
That would be unreasonable, I argue. No one should have to worry about the security of their devices and data privacy based on which OS they use. Whilst it can be argued that different OSs serve different needs, privacy and security should not be debatable. In fact, most countries have dedicated legislation for this; whether it's just, applied correctly, or serves the public before any other party are indeed discussions to be had.
I am pretty sure my phone is listening. The ads I see this week are about topics I discussed last week. Week for week. Stupid thing is that I need the phone to have near by as self-employed electrician. Clients want to communicate after regular office hours. Since the phone is rigged why computer shouldn’t?
We take everything we have, freedom, privacy, free speech, for granted. The reality seems to be that these concepts are fungible and that we have to be ready to fight for them. Instead we trade these for convenience, and it's very very sad.
They have been doing this for months.
No sound playing but the audio would change like the microphone was being activated. I checked permissions to make sure there was no mic access and figured that they were fingerprinting.
I had noticed it before but I was browsing AE a lot today and i got fed up with it. What browser and OS are you using?
Just curious, why silent sound would allow fingerprinting? What are they sampling if it can't be heard?
The script generates a known waveform, it is passed through the browser's audio implementation and then the script analyses the result after. Based on your devices settings and hardware the output will be different, e.g. a PC with analog output might have 44KHz audio output bandwidth, but a bluetooth headset might have a lower, different audio bandwidth. That is a datapoint that can be used in device fingerprinting alongside screen and viewport dimensions, device pixel ratio, browser plugins, etc.
OP please submit the filter to an upstream uBlock filter list.
Will do! edit - How do i do this? through github issues? https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues