
Who do I trust and why? Digital Ocean, Google Chrome and Motion Sensors - lemonberry
I just logged into Digital Ocean to update some DNS records. I notice a new icon in the address bar that looks like it represents radar or radio waves with a red square and a white x in it. When  I click it I get &quot;This site has been blocked from accessing your motion sensors&quot;.<p>Why would Digital Ocean be trying to access my motion sensors? According to this article it&#x27;s to get more information about users.<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gadgets.ndtv.com&#x2F;internet&#x2F;news&#x2F;google-chrome-will-prevent-websites-from-using-your-devices-motion-sensors-to-track-you-2009386#:~:text=A%20new%20feature%20spotted%20in,gyroscopes%2C%20and%20ambient%20light%20sensors.<p>Of all the companies I deal with Digital Ocean never would have crossed my mind as one that I have to be concerned with regarding privacy issues. Veil lifted.
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jsnell
My first guess would be that they were doing that as part of protecting their
sign-in page against bots / automation, which is the kind of thing you need to
do to protect against credential stuffers.

Look, you've just signed in with a long-term stable identifier. There is no
need for them to track you with any kind of fingerprinting.

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kohtatsu
Which does make the fingerprint a lot more valuable if used in other contexts.
This is why Google is so scary; they have biometric fingerprint data on
everyone, account(s) or not, just through mouse/scroll patterns and cadence.

Ideally we need to find the JavaScript making the motion API request and try
determining what it might be used for.

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MichaelStubbs
What page were you on, exactly? I can't seem to reproduce the issue that
you're seeing.

Could there be an extension that is causing this?

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lemonberry
It's on the main page as soon as I log in. I just disabled all of my Chrome
extensions and I'm still seeing the warning. The warning says it's coming from
[https://cloud.digitalocean.com](https://cloud.digitalocean.com).

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wsdan
[https://grantwinney.com/websites-requesting-access-to-
motion...](https://grantwinney.com/websites-requesting-access-to-motion-
sensors/)

Perhaps this link will help. It looks like websites can request if your
browser has access to things like a Gyroscope or Magnetometer, and by default
Chrome will block access without your consent.

It could be some sort of fingerprinting technique.

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nxpnsv
Maybe they just want hear what you have to say?
[https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurit...](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurity14/sec14-paper-
michalevsky.pdf)

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lemonberry
On the warning popup there's a button to 'Manage'. I clicked that and selected
do not allow sites to use motion sensors and the warning is now gone.

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dylz
DO uses a third party for invasive "antifraud" that does this at
login/register/pay/etc points.

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sli
CNN's website always tries to start up SteamVR for whatever reason.

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jlgaddis
CNN Lite: [https://lite.cnn.com/en](https://lite.cnn.com/en)

You're welcome.

