Reverse Engineering Vercel's BotID

https://www.nullpt.rs/reversing-botid

109•hazebooth•7mo ago

Comments

codedokode•7mo ago

Note that the bot detection script uses WebGL to obtain GPU name. I assume this (fingerprinting) is the most popular use of WebGL. Sad that independent browsers like Firefox do not supply fake values.

nullpt_rs•7mo ago

Sadly, spoofing GPU vendor & renderer can be an even larger flag since they can hash the resulting image of the canvas to compare it with a database of collected fingerprints[0]

[0]: https://research.google/pubs/picasso-lightweight-device-clas...

reaperducer•7mo ago

Until a major player gets on board. Then it works.

Apple does this by sending an imposter user agent from Safari on iPads.

If only that was expanded to iPhones, too. And then send rotating, or randomized user agents.

nerdsniper•7mo ago

Apple does it because they don’t have a vested financial interest in internet-wide tracking.

Google does.

And while Mozilla does too because the vast majority of their funding comes from Google, it’s more pertinent that they don’t have the market share to pull this off. Firefox would just stop working on major websites if they did this.

ZebulonP•7mo ago

Doesn't that just move the goal post though? Instead of using your GPU vendor for the fingerprint they can just hash the output canvas after they a bunch of odd rendering calls, getting a hash from the quirks of your graphics driver and GPU hardware.

andrewmcwatters•7mo ago

It’s funny that trying to click on the Google Scholar link there falsely identifies me as a bot.

grishka•7mo ago

IMO the use of <canvas> needs to be behind a permission prompt, the same as e.g. geolocation or WebRTC. Few websites actually need canvas/WebGL for legitimate purposes.

chocolatkey•7mo ago

This would break way too many websites to be feasible. And if implemented, would be something requested on so many sites that users would learn to automatically say yes which would weaken the power of permission prompts in general.

For example, almost every major Japanese book/comic site uses canvas in their e-reader

codedokode•7mo ago

The best solution would be if canvas only allowed displaying pixels on the page but not drawing (meaning you need to bring your own drawing library) so that it would be unusable for fingerprinting.

ATechGuy•7mo ago

> At the moment, it seems Basic mode is so basic that it allows everything to pass as human. That’ll likely change as they gather more telemetry to better identify what a bot signal looks like.

So they are basically collecting telemetry in the name of "free basic anti-bot" solution.

cchance•7mo ago

free basic anti-bot solution that literally NEVER BLOCKS A BOT, like what the actual fuck

b0a04gl•7mo ago

why is bot detection even happening at render time instead of request time. why can't tell you’re a bot from your headers, UA, IP, TLS fingerprint. imo making it a surveillance. 'you're a bot, ok not just go away, let’s fingerprint your GPU and assign you a behavioral risk score anyway'

n2d4•7mo ago

It's really hard to detect it at request time. It's practically trivial for an attacker to fake headers to resemble a real browser.

indrora•7mo ago

Anubis does it pretty decently.

iovoid•7mo ago

Anubis is not meant to fully stop bots, only slow them down so they don't take down your service. This kind of bot detection is meant to prevent automation.

baby_souffle•7mo ago

You absolutely have options at request time. Arguably, some of the things you can only do at request time are part of a full and complete mitigation strategy.

You can fingerprint the originating TCP stack with some degree of confidence. If the request looks like it came from a Linux server but the user agent says Windows, that's a signal.

Likewise, the IP address making the request has geographic information associated with it. If my IP address says I'm in Romania but my browser is asking for the English language version of the page... That's a signal.

Similar to basic IP/Geo, you can do DNS and STUN based profiling, too. This helps you catch people that are behind proxies or VPNs.

To blur the line, you can use JavaScript to measure request timing. Proxies that are going to tamper with the request to hide its origins or change its fingerprint will add a measurable latency.

n2d4•7mo ago

None of these are conclusive by any means. The IP address check you mentioned would mark anyone using a VPN, or English speakers living abroad. Modern bot detection combines lots of heuristics like these together, and being able to run JavaScript in the browser (at render-time) adds a lot more data that can be used to make a better prediction.

cAtte_•7mo ago

> If my IP address says I'm in Romania but my browser is asking for the English language version of the page... That's a signal.

jesus christ don't give them ideas. it's annoying enough to have my country's language forced on me (i prefer english) when there's a perfectly good http header for that. now blocking me based on this?!

Tiny C Compiler

Show HN: LocalGPT – A local-first AI assistant in Rust with persistent memory

SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

Speed up responses with fast mode

Software factories and the agentic moment

OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III

Brookhaven Lab's RHIC concludes 25-year run with final collisions

Stories from 25 Years of Software Development

Show HN: Craftplan – Elixir-based micro-ERP for small-scale manufacturers

Hoot: Scheme on WebAssembly

FDA intends to take action against non-FDA-approved GLP-1 drugs

First Proof

Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself

Show HN: I saw this cool navigation reveal, so I made a simple HTML+CSS version

Al Lowe on model trains, funny deaths and working with Disney

Show HN: A luma dependent chroma compression algorithm (image compression)

The F Word

IBM Beam Spring: The Ultimate Retro Keyboard

Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

Eigen: Building a Workspace

Selection rather than prediction

Microsoft account bugs locked me out of Notepad – Are thin clients ruining PCs?

The AI boom is causing shortages everywhere else

I write games in C (yes, C) (2016)

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback

Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production

Where did all the starships go?

Learning from context is harder than we thought

Show HN: Look Ma, No Linux: Shell, App Installer, Vi, Cc on ESP32-S3 / BreezyBox

Hackers (1995) Animated Experience