1909198 - Change # of spoofed devices on mobile

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Privacy: Anti-Tracking, enhancement)

Description

[Fatih Kilic]

Following up on Bug 1899736 comment 30.

We currently expose one audio and video input (with fake properties) on both desktop and mobile. Generally, mobile devices have more than 1 camera, so we would like to expose multiple devices (still with fake properties) to enable more compatibility with websites.

Technically speaking, the devs of websites could (and probably should) update their device lists after a steam is created with getUserMedia is called but some don't, so instead we can expose more devices by default on mobile.

Comment 1

[Fatih Kilic]

I'm writing a patch for this, but the issue is, they recently set media.devices.enumerate.legacy.enabled to false. This pref removes all the ids and labels https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/modules/libpref/init/StaticPrefList.yaml#11252-11265. So increasing the number of devices exposed won't make a difference since the web dev won't be able to request a specific device based on its id. I'm not sure what's the best step. I'll submit a patch with media.devices.enumerate.legacy.enabled set to true, but I'm not sure if it will be even useful.

Comment 2

[Fatih Kilic]

Attachment: Bug 1909198: Expose more devices on mobile and fix the order of additional fake devices. r=#anti-tracking!

This patch will fix the issue mentioned in the bug, but the new issue is, they recently set media.devices.enumerate.legacy.enabled to false in nightly. This pref removes all the ids and labels. So increasing the number of devices exposed devices won't make a difference since the websites won't be able to request a specific device based on its id. I'm not sure what's the best next step. I'm submitting this patch as if media.devices.enumerate.legacy.enabled is still set to true, but I'm not sure if it will be even useful. I think the bug will end up being closed as won't fix.

Comment 3

[Thorin [:thorin]]

MB already uses legacy = false, and TB would do the same should it ever enable media devices. So I wouldn't waste time with a patch that uses legacy - but IANAE on this

Comment 4

[Thorin [:thorin]]

^ MB = Mullvad Browser / TB = Tor Browser

Comment 5

[Jan-Ivar Bruaroey [:jib] (needinfo? me)]

I agree that between legacy=false (privacy pre-gum) and bug 1899736 (post-gum exposure of real devices) this patch doesn't seem to accomplish anything.

Comment 6

[Fatih Kilic]

Yeah, i think it makes more sense to modify D215802 to fix the ordering issue and abandon this then. I'm closing the issue as WONTFIX and move the ordering fix to the previous patch in the stack. Thank you for your input!