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Explore how customized ad blocker configurations can paradoxically compromise user privacy through browser fingerprinting in this 15-minute conference presentation from USENIX Security '25. Learn about the counter-intuitive privacy risks that arise when users modify ad-blocker filter-list selections to enhance their protection against web tracking. Discover three novel scriptless attacks developed by researchers from EPFL, CISPA Helmholtz Center, and Max-Planck Institute that can evade state-of-the-art fingerprinting detectors and mitigations. Examine how these attacks achieve 84% accuracy in identifying filter lists, generate stable fingerprints with 0.72 normalized entropy, and reduce user anonymity sets to a median of just 48 users using only 45 rules from a pool of 577,000. Understand the implications of cookie-less tracking techniques and browser fingerprinting methods that circumvent popular privacy-enhancing web extensions. Gain insights into the research methodology that quantifies fingerprintability risks and receive practical recommendations and precautionary measures for users, developers, and other stakeholders in the privacy ecosystem.
