In recent years, we've seen a growing concern about online identity tracking , leading us to avoid cookies to prevent aggressive advertising, among other reasons. Now it seems there's something else that will identify us even more online: our own GPU.
Cybersecurity experts have revealed that a computer's graphics card can be used to track users online. A group of 10 researchers from universities in France, Israel, and Australia have published a report on a new " remote GPU fingerprinting " technique called DrawnApart. They used a cross-platform API for rendering 3D graphics in the browser, called WebGL, which, when combined with GPU operations, creates a unique digital fingerprint of the device.
Your GPU can identify you online and they can use fingerprint tracking techniques
The researchers tested the method on 2.550 devices, with a total of 1.605 unique CPU configurations. Their results have shown that the average tracking duration of current state-of-the-art methods can be extended from the current 17,5 days to 28 days. This represents a 67% increase in tracking time compared to conventional methods.
They claim this poses a serious problem for user privacy , according to a report by BleepingComputer. The GPU is not a component that can be easily replaced. Consumer privacy has been under scrutiny for the past two years, with increasingly strict laws and regulations regarding the information collected and penalties such as the one imposed on Google for location tracking.
The newly discovered method of tracking using the GPU is as successful as the placement of cookies. They warn that the next version of WebGPU that is currently being developed will have additional compute shaders. Such shaders may introduce even more ways to fingerprint Internet users, the report concludes.
Source: TechRadar
