legind's comments

On: EFF's Panopticlick 2.0 Launches with Tracker Protection Tests

[legind]

With certain rare configurations (if you have a domain-based blacklist blocker and javascript disabled) this may occur. I suggest turning your js back on just for the test.

On: EFF's Panopticlick 2.0 Launches with Tracker Protection Tests

[legind]

That's right, though it's a bit more difficult. Lots of sites use the User-Agent header to determine how to render a page, and may not render it at all if it's an unexpected value. Pages that allow you to install addons to your browsers also use this string to figure out if you're really running the target browser.

On: EFF's Panopticlick 2.0 Launches with Tracker Protection Tests

[legind]

"For day-to-day use, the best options are to run tools like Privacy Badger or Disconnect that will block some (but unfortunately not all) of the domains that try to perform fingerprinting, and/or to use a tool like NoScript for Firefox, which greatly reduces the amount of data available to fingerprinters."

https://panopticlick.eff.org/about#defend-against

[rocky1138 → legind]

Will blocking them at the HOSTS file level decrease exposure as well? My gut says yes, but I wanted to check.

Also, does this test check for that and/or give points for that?

Here is the HOSTS file I use to block ads: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt

[XzetaU8 → rocky1138]

If you're on Linux i recommend 'Hosts-Update'[1], it's a bash script that generates a Host file from multiple sources:

http://adaway.org/hosts.txt http://hosts-file.net/ad_servers.txt http://malwaredomains.lehigh.edu/files/justdomains http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/hosts http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt http://www.malwaredomainlist.com/hostslist/hosts.txt

[1]: https://github.com/zant95/hosts-update

[legind → rocky1138]

Yes, our test does work for that and various hosts-based blockers are supported (like AdAway for Android, for example). In order for our test to give accurate results, the host-based blocker has to add our simulated trackers to its block list, which some lists may not have done yet.

On: EFF adds ASCII art to its DNS

[legind]

TXT isn't an option because the records themselves are unsorted. Use the above command without the pipe to sort looks weird, but not as weird as TXT would.

[LukeShu → legind]

TXT records are actually variably-sized arrays of strings, making them very suitable for ASCII art. Unfortunately, `dig +short TXT` displays them as

    "string1" "string2" "string3"

instead of on separate lines. However, this is easily remedied with sed.

Using TXT for artwork also has the advantage that you don't risk an intermediate resolver re-ordering things.

Source: When this came up about a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7185326

[Patrick_Devine → legind]

Unfortunately our DNS service doesn't allow NAPTR records, so we had to go the TXT route. Here's a large wooden object:

dig +short txt log.netkine.com | sed $'s/\" \"/\\\n/g'

[anon4 → Patrick_Devine]

I get this. I can't make out what it's supposed to be.

                         P!**9N#
                        9=  #(a:?4
                       {w   Tj(d w?#
                     @(d   !nPx   A>4
                    P=W  @{d :   9=w\;
                   V:   9a# td P:d  tj
                  {w  9=W# Px @=#  F=+
                @(d  {d  #@= P=   P=@:
               P=#  WJ#sjP:WP= a?tx(a#
              P=@=d  gawV= 9=     wawa\;?
             {w :    #9:w       @!9_axw
           @{d 1d P9:wd    P9na\;=# WSgmN
          P=W @=9=w    9{  # #:w   W4Wmm
         Pn  #(vj   P{aW    #{d     W4Dm
        !a P9nW    !w#     P:d        mW
      #{d@:w##    {d9:/4  P=
     P=WP=@=w/#  Px{J4Pd {a
    P\;H1w Aw9j#  :m?(J:W{d
   Ynwwaa*:wW## {d  9=V:d
   \;44#WWRav*# tj 9:d@=
   A?WW#W#W#w==d@(d !a
    A?WWUWQ#mNs4:W td
     As*XUW#UWNsj@:d
      #wv!W4W WW?=#
         bw?9*9!="

[dspig → anon4]

a log...

[adefa → dspig]

it's big, it's heavy, it's wood

[ten7 → legind]

I really don't think you need to use NAPTR here. Using TXT works just fine, if you do a sort, if you prepend line numbers to the records. Alas, you still have to do a sort. It would be wonderful if there was a hack that involved not using the sort. Here's one I just added: dig txt art.ten7.com |sort

[dijit → legind]

MX or with numbers then?

[ten7 → dijit]

Numbers

On: EFF adds ASCII art to its DNS

[legind]

http://www.cambus.net/storing-ascii-art-in-the-dns/

On: Introducing CoVim – Collaborative Editing for Vim

[legind]

tmux supports 256 colors with the -2 flag. I just add an alias in my .bashrc to make this the default.

[gingerlime → legind]

I think he meant having different cursors, each with a different colour assigned to a person, and being able to use each cursor independently. not just colours in general...