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by ev1 1428 days ago
Well, good thing they reverse-proxy the javascript code first party directly on the domain (www.*), and attempt to load multiple subdomains on the primary domain one after another (including randomised CDN paths)
1 comments

I'm trying to grasp what you are explaining here. Is this another fingerprinting method?
"enable it only on a per subdomain basis" works when the tracking runs off a separate subdomain. Walmart, for example, intentionally proxies the files through their primary domain, the one that you are visiting, to try and bypass this.

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Other sites and services will also use blocking them as a fingerprinting point. For example, it loads native first-party JS to try and bootstrap the rest of it.

A really simplified example:

Stage 1: on-page script tag, not a separate file, sets up a variable - let's call it "counter"

Stage 2: Load cross-site-tracker.js from obvious-analytics.example.com.

If it fails:

Stage 3: Load QyojK8oIwLjske2JkW9mdJY0Np.js from hqMOBRLccCmEnG9.cloudfront.net; increment a "shady user is trying to hide from us" counter

If it fails:

Stage 4: Load RandomWordsRainbowButterfly.js from N4NqCUJAT9UUXFcwnn.cloudfront.net; increment a "shady user is trying to hide from us" counter

Keep trying this through 3-4 domains, use random s3 buckets, cloudfront hostnames, akamaized.net hostnames. Upload all tracking data as soon as one of them succeeds.