The "modern" Javascript parts make me almost physically sick.
Gimme back my plain old browser Javascript. It was primitive, but at least it wasn't actively harmful.
Gimme back my plain old browser Javascript. It was primitive, but at least it wasn't actively harmful.
"Modern" javascript runs just fine in your plain old browser.
What about today's javascript lends itself to fingerprinting any more than javascript from twenty years ago?
The "old" javascript was turing complete (as the article points out), as is the current one. It is not like they've added "Object.turnOnNefariousPrivacyInvasions()".
Granted, the browser APIs have evolved (e.g. webcam access, localstorage etc) and are exposed via Javascript, but that is nothing to do with JS the language.
JS of the past was the wild west. You want to add a bookmark? Go for it! You want to trigger a print dialogue? Why not!
Yeah. People forget that in the bad old days you could even do things like redefine the global Array constructor[0].
Turing completeness is a property about the computational "power" of a language. It has nothing to do with the environment in which the program runs. For example, it can exist a language that is Turing complete and has no way at all to access the network: it can do no harm, doesn't matter if it has the same computational power as Javascript.