Investigate fingerprinting potential of lack of H.264 support

On Linux H.264 is enabled as long as ffmpeg is available. This might be a fingerprinting vector. We should investigate whether this is actually the case.

added TorBrowserTeam201605 component::applications/tor browser owner::tbb-team priority::medium severity::normal status::new tbb-fingerprinting type::defect labels

Dragging into May to have it on our 6.0 radar.

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A lot of Tor Browser users want H.264 support and don't mind if the 'cost' of it is revealing them to be wisely using Linux. In any case, it should be a choice.

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"Enable H.264 video for this site/URL bar domain?", cleared on new identity.

One option might be to bundle H.264 support. Tor Browser is not currently attempting to hide Linux vs OS X vs Windows.

If we keep saying this, isn't it going to make it harder in the future if Tor Project decides to distinguish OSes? (to me this looks likely)

By the way: someone on cypherpunks keep deleting this post

Replying to cypherpunks:

If we keep saying this, isn't it going to make it harder in the future if Tor Project decides to distinguish OSes? (to me this looks likely)

It's a valid concern. From my viewpoint, the benefits of making different platforms indistinguishable are outweighed by the costs of damaged usability and the huge effort required, particularly as there are a number of other things we still need to do with higher priority. But I am open to being persuaded otherwise.

By the way: someone on cypherpunks keep deleting this post

Someone may have deleted your comment because it's somewhat off topic. I would suggest bringing the topic up in the tbb-dev mailing list instead, where I would be happy to discuss it further.

No particular ESR45 item (anymore).

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Replying to arthuredelstein:

One option might be to bundle H.264 support. Good idea. Most modern browsers support it http://html5test.com/compare/feature/video.codecs.mp4.h264.html And it also makes https://www.youtube.com/html5 happy. Not only Linux affected. Built-in support is much more better, than relying on systems' backends and 3rd-party codecs.

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Summary: Investigate fingerprinting potential of enabling H.264 on Linux to Investigate fingerprinting potential of lack of H.264 support

mentioned in issue #22910 (closed)

mentioned in issue #22933 (closed)

moved to tpo/applications/tor-browser#18946 (closed)