Killing the Evercookie (Google Chrome w/o Restart) This post inspired by Dominic White's attempt at killing Samy Kamar's evercookie demo. As described:evercookie is a javascript API available that produces extremely persistent cookies in a browser. Its goal is to identify a client even after they've removed standard cookies, Flash cookies (Local Shared Objects or LSOs), and others. evercookie accomplishes this by storing the cookie data in several types of storage mechanisms that are available on the local browser. Additionally, if evercookie has found the user has removed any of the types of cookies in question, it recreates them using each mechanism available.
Yes, plain evil. Samy research highlights a crucial aspect of privacy protection available in modern Web browsers -- and how difficult it can be for the average user to maintain. Dominic's solution for the Safari browser apparently requires a reset & restart of the browser and a bash script. Evercookie Removal1) Open a new tab, then close all other windows and tabs. Killing the Evercookie - Dominic White. (Hi Slashdot & The Register readers. Make sure to check the 2nd part on killing iPhone Evercookie's too) Samy Kamar recently released his tool, evercookie.
This uses multiple persistent data stores to set unique identifiers that can be used to identify your browser to a website. While my default Firefox browsing setup is safe against it, I noticed that the "disposable" Safari instance I used was not. I sometimes use a clean Safari instance to test or access things the tinfoil on my Firefox does not let me. After each use I reset everything in it. However, I noticed that evercookie would persist. When the evercookie is created, is shows as existing in the following locations (note: just visiting the site sets up some of the evercookie containers): If I reset Safari, but don't restart it, the cookie persists in these four locations.
However, even a reset and restart leaves us with the two HTML5 localData and SQLite locations, and a flash cookie: cat evercookie-kill.sh #! Killing the Evercookie - Part2 MobileSafari - Dominic White. UPDATE: An iPhone developer has turned this into an awesome little SBSetting addon. You'll still need a jailbroken phone but can install it via Cydia. My previous experiments in killing the Evercookie in Safari sparked similar posts describing how to do the same for Chrome and Firefox. However, my second most frequent browsing platform is my iPhone, and I thought I would investigate how Apple IOS, MobileSafari & embedded WebKit fares.
It does much worse. To hard clear all the WebKit datastores, including normal cookies, I put the following quick script together (you'll need a JailBroken iPhone) . #! I know this and my previous entry are scorched earth tactics. In short, what does Apple need to do to fix this? Update: Clarified what the two separate problems are, and added a section on what Apple should do to fix. Evercookie - virtually irrevocable persistent cookies. Samy's home page || follow my twitter || email me || samy kamkar October 11, 2010: Reported on the front page of the New York Times Find the latest details, code, and implementations on github @ Cookie found: uid = currently not set Click to create an evercookie. Don't worry, the cookie is a random number between 1 and 1000, not enough for me to track you, just enough to test evercookies. Now, try deleting this "uid" cookie anywhere possible, then or evercookie is written in JavaScript and contains portions in Java, SWF/ActionScript (Flash) and C# (Silverlight).
What is the point of evercookie? Csshack, best website ever See CONTACT. Questions or comments, email me: code@samy.pl. Researchers Find Methods to Kill Persistent 'Evercookie'.