The idea you can be anonymous on the Internet using private browsing technology, anonymous proxies and VPNs is finally disapproved. According to research by Steven Englehardt and Arvind Narayanan from Princeton University, you are being tracked no matter which technology you use.
The researchers say Google is using technique called audio fingerprinting to make unique fingerprint of your system. For this purpose, AudioContext API is used to analyze machine’s audio stack and harvest audio signals. This information allows creating a unique fingerprint of your system based on hardware combinations.
"A script from the company Liverail checks for the existence of an AudioContext and OscillatorNode to add a single bit of information to a broader fingerprint. More sophisticated scripts process an audio signal generated with an OscillatorNode to fingerprint the device. This technique appears conceptually similar to that of canvas fingerprinting. Audio signals processed on different machines or browsers may have slight differences due to hardware or software differences between the machines while the same combination of machine and browser will produce the same output", researchers say.
Basically, once you have visited the website, which uses this technique, your browser can be tracked everywhere. The most common way to track your activity is Google Analytics, used by many websites, including ours, to analyze website statistics.
Below is a list of popular websites/services, which track your audio fingerprints:
The researchers have also created live demonstration page to prove their findings.
So, if you want to stay private, just do not use your computer )