Chrome's private browsing is broken
This defeats the purpose of Incognito. If any website is able to tell you're browsing in private mode, then the browser is leaking data that shows it's not private
@cypnk It might be as simple as detecting the absence of the cookies that litter the web normally. :-/
@pnathan Which means MIT Review is scattering cookies all across the web (since HTTPS requested cookies shouldn't cross-pollinate across domains). That's a bigger problem if true
@pnathan Are you sure that's speculation, cause that sounds ingeniously diabolical :P
MIT can certainly hire tracking services that already provide analytics to other sites. There's no reason they couldn't then check with that service(s) to make sure cookies are still being set
@cypnk haha I'm just avoiding a scala refactor right now and trying to arrange babysitting. this is not high-level thinking. :)
but it seems the most direct way to answer the question, since incognito is all *about* clearing history/cookies. And so very very very many cookies are set these days.
Alternatively, some APIs are being poked in ways that also are an adequate proxy metric.
@cypnk I am speculating out of my butt.
but if I wanted to detect private mode, I'd try to integrate with popular sites and if their cookies were not set, I'd heuristically estimate that the person was probably in a private mode. ::shrug::