WSJ - Race Is On to 'Fingerprint' Phones, PCs

IRVINE, Calif.—David Norris wants to collect the digital equivalent of fingerprints from every computer, cellphone and TV set-top box in the world.

He's off to a good start. So far, Mr. Norris's start-up company, BlueCava Inc., has identified 200 million devices. By the end of next year, BlueCava says it expects to have cataloged one billion of the world's estimated 10 billion devices.

Race Is On to 'Fingerprint' Phones, PCs - WSJ.com

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Comments

Devilsbane

Very scary indeed. I guess I'm looking at Microsoft and the other software developers to crack down on this "broadcasts hundreds of such details as a calling card to other computers it communicates with."

earweed

The next big thing will probably be software (that you have to buy) to disguise the fingerprints. The bad thing is that we have no control over what advertisers have access to our fingerprints.
The idea that someone else is also collecting personal info (even though they say they are stripping names and stuff from the profiles) and linking it to the fingerprints makes it even worse. If they are allowed to keep expanding on this then the information superhighway is headed for a big pileup and it wont be pretty.

powerfool

This is getting out of hand. It is going to require users to use Tor, disabled third-party cookies, and maybe a read-only VM.