Fingerprinting (was Re: [Bug 23263] New: Add output device enumeration to GetSources)

     I wish someone would take "fingerprinting" into the shed and put it 
out of its misery :)

     What I mean to say is that we need to assign a reasonable 
importance to preventing fingerprinting and not toss out features just 
because in they might enable it. I agree with the idea of omitting 
unnecessary methods, if nothing else than to improve the API, but I 
don't have a strong appreciation for the importance of device 
fingerprinting. Are there some links I could read on the real-life 
importance of fingerprinting? Has anyone lost anything concrete to this 
potential security concern?

Thanks,
Gili

On 23/09/2013 6:27 PM, Martin Thomson wrote:
>
> I don't think that it it's appropriate to consider silence as 
> equivalent to assent.
>
> That said, I quite like this proposal. I do wonder exactly what you 
> gain by defining videoOut, other than a larger fingerprinting surface 
> though. Symmetry seems like a fairly useless property to seek.
>
> On Sep 23, 2013 10:46 PM, "Harald Alvestrand" <harald@alvestrand.no 
> <mailto:harald@alvestrand.no>> wrote:
>
>     This has been out for review for 6 days. People were supportive of
>     it before, it does not seem to be controversial now.
>
>     If it remains uncontroversial, we'll tell the editors to add it.
>
>            Harald
>
>
>     On 09/17/2013 03:55 PM, bugzilla@jessica.w3.org
>     <mailto:bugzilla@jessica.w3.org> wrote:
>
>         https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=23263
>
>                      Bug ID: 23263
>                     Summary: Add output device enumeration to GetSources
>                     Product: WebRTC Working Group
>                     Version: unspecified
>                    Hardware: All
>                          OS: All
>                      Status: NEW
>                    Severity: normal
>                    Priority: P2
>                   Component: Media Capture and Streams
>                    Assignee: public-media-capture@w3.org
>         <mailto:public-media-capture@w3.org>
>                    Reporter: harald@alvestrand.no
>         <mailto:harald@alvestrand.no>
>                          CC: public-media-capture@w3.org
>         <mailto:public-media-capture@w3.org>
>
>         This is the formalization of a proposal made on the mailing
>         list on Sept 9.
>
>         Proposal: Add output devices to the GetSources call, and add a
>         "group"
>         attribute for device grouping.
>
>         Rules for attribute visibility should be as for GetSources.
>
>         Example output:
>
>         {
>            { 1234, "video", "First camera", group=42},
>            { 7654, "audio", "First camera microphone", group=42},
>            { 2345, "audio", "Headset microphone", group=17},
>            { 3697, "audioOut", "Headset speakers", group=17}
>         }
>
>         Here, the headset microphone and speaker are part of the same
>         device.
>
>         WebIDL changes:
>
>         - Change name of call to GetDevices
>         - Rename "SourceInfo" dictionary to "DeviceInfo"
>         - Add an attribute of type DOMString called "group"
>         - Add "audioOut" and "videoOut" as legal values for the "kind"
>         attribute
>
>
>