Wait, so any app on Android with network access can just open a localhost port and then a browser script can share all your private browsing data via that port? Even on GrapheneOS? How is that not restricted?? What’s stopping your banking apps or “sandboxed” Google Play store from doing this and tracking everything?
https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/03/meta_pauses_android_tracking_tech/
#privacy #grapheneos #infosec
You’d need a script in the ad to send stuff to the port. Info doesn’t just magically appear at the port you’re listening to.
I don’t know enough about ads to know if that’s possible. I also don’t know what info that ad would have access to. It wouldn’t be very useful if it didn’t have access to any info about the site serving the ad.
@Alexstarfire it simply requests random_unique_ID.jpg… The app doesn’t even have to respond - it just takes note of the unique ID. Or in Meta’s case the website just sent a ping and got back a simple HTTP status 200 message. That was enough to confirm you had Facebook installed.
There’s absolutely nothing stopping the app from serving up actual data, like a credit score from your banking app for example.
Why would the app do anything like that? The same company is on both sides of this. They already have that data. The point is to link data from your browser to data they already have about you.
They sell the info to the website! It’s a service. Ad networks. You can look up how this stuff works
They do, but they don’t need to do this in order to facilitate that. The company can just straight up sell the information on most cases. They’ve been doing that well before this exploit(?). Not quite sure how to classify whatever this is.
@Alexstarfire it facilitates tracking within private browsing even with no cookies, no history, and with a VPN active.
You are conflating separate practices. This is to track your private browsing outside of the browser, which is new.
Um yes, that’s the topic of discussion. Since you’re just reply-guying at this point I’m going to cut this off.
I feel the same way. You start talking about something different but related then don’t like it when you get called out.