Browser fingerprinting

Abstract

Browser requests are received and data included in it is added to a vector. If explicit identification information (username, cookie data, etc.) is present, the vector is associated with a pre-existing user record, which is then updated. If not, candidate user records may be identified according to correspondence with values in the vector. This may include comparing hashes of one or more values to identify similarities. Candidate vectors may be eliminated by identifying inconsistency in OS, device, and browser information. Probability assigned to each candidate vector may be adjusted, e.g., reduced, in response to inconsistency in other data relating to a browser, device, or of a more global nature, e.g. time zone, user attributes, etc. Records associated with different devices may be associated with one another by evaluating hashes of data values submitted by a user on the different devices. Where the hash values of two records intersect, they may be merged with one another.