[Webkit-unassigned] [Bug 132588] support for navigator.cores or navigator.hardwareConcurrency

[bugzilla-daemon at webkit.org]

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=132588





--- Comment #9 from Filip Pizlo <fpizlo at apple.com>  2014-05-05 22:18:12 PST ---
(In reply to comment #8)
> > How so? There are 8-core ARM systems which will be common in a year or two.
> > There's also an 8-core Intel Atom which is low cost. 
> > MacBook Air's (which are expensive) are still stuck on 4 cores.
> 
> The web page can already tell if you are on a Mac or on an iPhone, so adding the number of cores to the mix will give quite a bit of insight.
> 
> > How is this exploitable?
> 
> User's hardware will feed into one or more of the choices advertisers have on AdWords. This proposed feature is not about numeric algorithms - having each split bit of insight into who the user is significantly increases the price of ads, that's all. Yes, we are not talking about disclosing whether the user is a pregnant woman, which would reportedly make the ads 15x more valuable, but if you can achieve even a slight degree of correlation with user's income, that's money.

I get it. This reveals some tiny amount of information. I just don't see how it's enough to block a useful feature.

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