There is a fresh thing going around about LinkedIn scanning extensions installed in Chrome/Chromium:https://browsergate.eu/
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There is a fresh thing going around about LinkedIn scanning extensions installed in Chrome/Chromium:
https://browsergate.eu/The website claims "LinkedIn is Illegally Searching Your Computer", and implies the purpose is to find "religious beliefs, political opinions, disabilities".
tl;dr:
- yes, LinkedIn is scanning through a list of 6k+ extensions on Chrome;
- yes, this is bad;
- but the website is disingenuous in making unnecessarily overblown claims.🧵
@rysiek Thanks for this analysis. I saw the BrowserGate thing earlier and it seemed bad but also way overblown, but I was not sure if I was missing something.
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I was not aware of the technique the scanning employs, but apparently it's a known issue on Chrome and Chromium-based browsers, and has been for years:
https://browserleaks.com/chromeLinkedIn itself has been using it since 2017:
https://github.com/dandrews/nefarious-linkedinAnd I am sure it is used by a lot of shady sites to fingerprint users and actually figure out protected information about them. It can absolutely be used that way, and Google needs to plug this huge privacy hole.
🧵/end
Also go see what @vantiss has to say about it:
https://social.treehouse.systems/@vantiss/116336811478744261Credit where credit's due, I relied on her research on the earliest known instance of LinkedIn using this technique.
If you want to boost something, go boost her toot!
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LinkedIn loads a lot of JS. In that JS there is a list of over 6.000 extensions, identified by their ids and with a single file path provided.
The JS then checks if it is running in Chrome or a Chromium-based browser, and cycles through that list, checking if these extensions are installed by doing a fetch() to "chrome-extension://<extension_id>/<file_path>".
If the fetch() succeeds, the extension is installed. If not, it isn't.
🧵
@rysiek@mstdn.social wtf why does Chrome allows an untrusted website to do that??? -
LinkedIn loads a lot of JS. In that JS there is a list of over 6.000 extensions, identified by their ids and with a single file path provided.
The JS then checks if it is running in Chrome or a Chromium-based browser, and cycles through that list, checking if these extensions are installed by doing a fetch() to "chrome-extension://<extension_id>/<file_path>".
If the fetch() succeeds, the extension is installed. If not, it isn't.
🧵
@rysiek why ffs is this even possible?
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Also go see what @vantiss has to say about it:
https://social.treehouse.systems/@vantiss/116336811478744261Credit where credit's due, I relied on her research on the earliest known instance of LinkedIn using this technique.
If you want to boost something, go boost her toot!
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@moses_izumi @rysiek
huh? he was referring to my link to the 2017 repo, not the stuff from kopper -
@moses_izumi @rysiek
huh? he was referring to my link to the 2017 repo, not the stuff from kopper -
Also go see what @vantiss has to say about it:
https://social.treehouse.systems/@vantiss/116336811478744261Credit where credit's due, I relied on her research on the earliest known instance of LinkedIn using this technique.
If you want to boost something, go boost her toot!
And thank you to @martijn_grooten for some additional input as well!
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@rysiek why ffs is this even possible?
@schnittchen right?!
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There is a fresh thing going around about LinkedIn scanning extensions installed in Chrome/Chromium:
https://browsergate.eu/The website claims "LinkedIn is Illegally Searching Your Computer", and implies the purpose is to find "religious beliefs, political opinions, disabilities".
tl;dr:
- yes, LinkedIn is scanning through a list of 6k+ extensions on Chrome;
- yes, this is bad;
- but the website is disingenuous in making unnecessarily overblown claims.🧵
@rysiek
The browsergate site is odd.Fairlinked - Allianz für digitale Fairness e.V that seem to be behind it seem to be some sort of training org made up of folks all with datacentre industry backgrounds, AWS etc.
A few red flags for me in this story -
And thank you to @martijn_grooten for some additional input as well!
It is good and heartening to see nuanced reflections like these. Thank you, Rysiek!
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Is this bad? Yes. It could allow fingerprinting users, and a specific set of installed extensions (say, a lot related to particular religion) could be revealing, and arguably is illegal based on GDPR.
Is this "Searching Your Computer"? No, this is not what we generally think of when "searching your computer" is mentioned. This framing is way overblown and unnecessary.
BrowserGate site also implies LI's purpose might be to gather this kind of protected data. I don't think this is warranted.
🧵
@rysiek Thank you, I was wondering about a potentially-unlawful-under-GDPR aspect to this. Much obliged.
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@rysiek Thank you, I was wondering about a potentially-unlawful-under-GDPR aspect to this. Much obliged.
@clickhere Article 9, the first point:
https://gdpr-info.eu/art-9-gdpr/> Processing of personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.
IANAL, I am not saying 100% illegal, but an argument can be made…
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There is a fresh thing going around about LinkedIn scanning extensions installed in Chrome/Chromium:
https://browsergate.eu/The website claims "LinkedIn is Illegally Searching Your Computer", and implies the purpose is to find "religious beliefs, political opinions, disabilities".
tl;dr:
- yes, LinkedIn is scanning through a list of 6k+ extensions on Chrome;
- yes, this is bad;
- but the website is disingenuous in making unnecessarily overblown claims.🧵
@rysiek Thanks for the write-up of the details
Website is classic use case of seeking for attention with clickbait titles - we all can do better than that
It took time to figure out that mentioned fingerprinting is limited to Chromium based browsers and use of extensions
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@rysiek@mstdn.social wtf why does Chrome allows an untrusted website to do that???
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@rozie@mastodon.online @rysiek@mstdn.social
I don't think extensions having static IDs are the problem. My problem is: why is an external website allowed to access extension assets (without extension allowing it explicitly)? That sounds like a security nightmare. -
@rozie@mastodon.online @rysiek@mstdn.social
I don't think extensions having static IDs are the problem. My problem is: why is an external website allowed to access extension assets (without extension allowing it explicitly)? That sounds like a security nightmare.@Orca @rysiek I'll need to take a closer look how exactly it's made.
I was aware of the technique where extension interacting with the site (so, in a way, trusting it, but only in a way) was also allowing this site to interact with own files. With fixed ID it allowed to check if extension is present. And this is one of described techniques. Those extensions probably declare interaction with LI (or any site) via web_accessible_resources.
Without fixed ID it (fetch of the file) wouldn't work.
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@Orca @rysiek I'll need to take a closer look how exactly it's made.
I was aware of the technique where extension interacting with the site (so, in a way, trusting it, but only in a way) was also allowing this site to interact with own files. With fixed ID it allowed to check if extension is present. And this is one of described techniques. Those extensions probably declare interaction with LI (or any site) via web_accessible_resources.
Without fixed ID it (fetch of the file) wouldn't work.
@rozie @Orca this is correct. But extensions would have had fixed IDs anyway, these are needed for other things. The problem is making it possible for fetch(chrome-extension://<extension_id>/some/file.ext) to work.
Yes, that requires the extension to declare the file via web_accessible_resources, so yes, this is also partially on the extension vendors. But this is such a glaring privacy problem that one can and should blame Google for not closing this hole.
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@rozie @Orca this is correct. But extensions would have had fixed IDs anyway, these are needed for other things. The problem is making it possible for fetch(chrome-extension://<extension_id>/some/file.ext) to work.
Yes, that requires the extension to declare the file via web_accessible_resources, so yes, this is also partially on the extension vendors. But this is such a glaring privacy problem that one can and should blame Google for not closing this hole.
