Experts Divided On Risk Of Trackers On Porn Sites

In February warned a software engineer for the risk of trackers and other ways in which it can be followed online porn surfing habits of viewers, but experts are divided over how big the risk is real. Software engineer Brett Thomas suggested two months ago that the viewing habits on porn sites the next "big privacy scandal" can be. Many ways to websites and advertisers identify Internet users today and that is no different on porn sites.

This data could, for example end up using a hacked advertising company, tracker or porn site on the Internet. It does not matter if people such as "private browsing" to use to protect their browsing habits, so let experts opposite Vice Magazine know. Even if this option is enabled the user's IP address is on the website visited, and the trackers that are active thereon passed.

88% of the 500 most visited porn sites are active trackers. "If you look at porn on the Internet in 2015, even in incognito mode, you must assume that at some point your viewing habits public and will be linked to your name," said Thomas. In addition to the IP address has almost every computer to identify a unique fingerprint browser so that users are. "It is certainly cause for concern," said Justin Brookman, privacy expert of? Center for Democracy & Technology.

Alarmism

According to Cooper Quintin of the American civil rights movement EFF is possible that the viewing habits of one's membership in a porn site is known, but he calls the remark of Thomas later someone can easily put it online porn viewing habits of viewers on the Internet scaremongering. Vice Magazine porn sites also asked for a response, but received only sent a statement of PornHub. The site is on the 75th place of most visited websites on the Internet, just for Gmail.com , which stands on a 78th place.

The statement PornHub calls the assertion of Thomas not only utterly wrong but also dangerously misleading. According to the porn store the viewing habits of daily users would cost 3,600 terabytes. The searches of these data would be almost impossible and very time consuming. "The server logs PornHub contain only for a limited time the IP address and user agent, never a browser fingerprint," said a spokesman.

Malware Late Router Advertisements And Porn Websites Show

Researchers have discovered malware that attacks routers and then injects ads and pornography on websites that the user visits. Once the malware has been given access to the router, which is done by default usernames and passwords, the DNS settings are changed.

The Domain Name System (DNS) is similar to the directory and translates among other domain names into IP addresses. By adjusting the DNS of the router can fit criminals traffic from users via their server running. Most operating systems are configured to use the DNS settings of the router. Once a computer or other device to connect to the router, the custom DNS settings will be used.

With this modified DNS settings, it is possible for users to send by other websites, even if they tap the correct address in the address bar of the browser. In the case of custom DNS settings are requests to google-analytics.com intercepted. When users visit a website that used Google Analytics she redirected to a fake Google Analytics site.

Google Analytics is a service that allows websites to gain insight into the use of their website. If a website is viewed with Google Analytics, Google Analytics Javascript code which will download and run, after which the user's view is counted in the survey. Once the user to the fake Google Analytics site is redirected he gets malicious Javascript code which is then presented with advertisements and pornography on the website visited then injects.

Researchers from Ara Labs , which the malware discovered , argue that it is not a vulnerability in Google Analytics, but that the service because of the great popularity is the target. The makers of the malware get paid again to generate traffic to the websites and ads shown. To prevent the attack Internet users are advised to update the firmware on their router and change the default password.