Apparently clock skew is a way in which my presence on the net can be tracked. Is there a workaround? Is it possible for me to obtain a dynamic clock skew so that the skew keeps changing?
Set up a process to dither your system clock, I suppose. Or buy a computer with a clock crystal system that does it in hardware. (I've bought such crystal clock chips and used them to pass european RF emission specs.)
In any case, the technique seems designed to answer, with some level of certainty, the question "Is computer X the same computer as computer Y?"
But before you can sensibly ask the question, you have to have, or have had, connections to the two candidates.
The technique doesn't answer the question "Where is the computer that I previously identified as computer X?" so it's somewhat misleading to call it tracking.
There are other things that should cause you (if you're that type) to lose sleep at night :>
You, *personally*, can be "tracked", to some degree, by the nature of your commentary, types of sites you visit, folks you typically interact with, etc.
Unless you write *all* the software that runs on your computer yourself, you'll never be sure that some piece of software isn't already making it easy for you to be identified ("you" meaning "your machine"). Even that, in fact, can make the machine identifiable: "Hmmm... this machine shows none of the identifiable characteristics associated with *other* machines! That makes it unique and, as such, identifiable"
In Internet-speak, tracking typically is intended as you have described it. There isn't, as a direct goal, a desire to "find" a particular computer. But, rather, to be able to look at a particular connection -- or, the "leavings" from such a connection -- and try to determine if that is the same machine and/or individual *operating* said machine as some other, previously noted "connection".
I.e., is "me" still "me"?
A more involved problem is "tracking" users. E.g., regardless of which machine they are operating (since it is relatively easy, nowadays, to have access to dozens of different computers without having to expend great deals of money to do so!)
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