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Ask HN: Splitting Browsers for Privacy?

1 points by TheDelta ↗ HN
Networking question here:

(Note that I'm using "Google/Gmail" as an example, any other company name could be used instead).

Assume a typical home user setup, with a typical consumer router providing access to the outside world. A user logs into Gmail from one browser (Chrome), and then runs search queries from another browser (Firefox). Clearly cookies can't be used to track the search queries, since the browsers are seperate, but is there any other way google (or an equivalent service) could be tracking users under this scenario? Obviously both browsers will be sending data from the same IP address, but given that the outside IP address is using NAT, I'm guessing there's no way of telling from the outside that both data streams are coming from the same computer?

4 comments

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mooism2
Not with 100% confidence, but "outside" can tell the browsers are both running under the same OS, and on the same resolution display. Doubtless other attributes as well.
legacy2013
Technically, yes. Google could track what ip address is sending what requests from your household. They would only be able to track your household not your specific computer due to the NAT on your router.

In reality, ISPs change your ip address a number of times over a year, so Google couldn't know when the change occurs without some extra knowledge (such as you being logged into your Google account, but that also isn't fool proof because you could log in any number of places).

Google probably doesn't care that much about an individual's data and would not invest the time and resources to build software to track information on the level you are talking about

jakobe
The fact that Google illegally circumvented the "3rd party cookie" policy in Safari suggests that they do care a lot about an individual's data.
legacy2013
They do, but they will most likely not track through means that are not efficient, which is true in this case