Ask HN: Amazon.com blocking VPNs. What can we do?

Re:Ask HN: Amazon.com blocking VPNs. What can we do? by jjgreen on Thursday June 25, 2020 @07:28PM (#23646958)

I closed my account (opened in 1999) when they tried to fingerprint me with a 1-pixel image a couple of months ago, arseholes. Thanks to Firefox this attempt was detected and blocked.

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Re:Ask HN: Amazon.com blocking VPNs. What can we do? by throwawaybbqed on Thursday June 25, 2020 @07:46PM (#23647109)

Can you explain what you mean by fingerprint? I'm a bit alarmed.

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Re:Ask HN: Amazon.com blocking VPNs. What can we do? by jjgreen on Friday June 26, 2020 @04:17AM (#23649843)

You render an image on the client browser, how this comes out will depend on screen-resolution, video driver etc, then you hash the result and store it on the server. When the mark visits a different site, you do the same, and if the hashes match, a good chance it's your target.

This is the HTML from Amazon's front-page after I logged in (and the Firefox fingerprint blocker stepped-in)

Search "Browser fingerprinting" for more info

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