IMVU PROGRAM SPYWARE? YES! WARNING! Devicefingerprint.exe

It has been known for some time that the imvu chat client software contains an insidious program residing within, namely, devicefingerprint.exe.

What this program does is track and maintain your machine device's id, and more.

Wikipedia details this:

A device fingerprint or machine fingerprint or browser fingerprint is information collected about a remote computing device for the purpose of identification. Fingerprints can be used to fully or partially identify individual users or devices even when cookies are turned off.

Basic web browser configuration information has long been collected by web analytics services in an effort to accurately measure real human web traffic and discount various forms of click fraud. With the assistance of client-side scripting languages, collection of much more esoteric parameters is possible.[1][2] Assimilation of such information into a single string comprises a device fingerprint.

Recently such fingerprints have proven useful in the detection and prevention of online identity theft and credit card fraud.

While detection and prevention of fraud is a noble and worthy cause for this type of program we are not given the oportunity to opt out of this, and if we remove this program we are tampering with the software, which, in itself, is a breach of imvu's terms of service.

However...

I despise being spied on regardless of the nobel reasons behind it. BlueCava, the software company behind imvu's tracking activities, stores our personally identifiable information in their servers. This information is complied by BlueCava, and ....This information is for sale. There is an opt out page at BlueCava's website, and I suggest you all opt out. http://bluecava.com/opt-out/

But first, I suggest running this handy browser helper object: Ghostery. https://www.ghostery.com/en/

Ghostery blocks the cookies that try to load on your webpage. It runs in Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari. No BHO is available for Windows IE. Yet.

I found an awesome mass opt out website via a Facebook email I received, it loads dozens of cookies, all of which can be blocked and remembered by Ghostery: http://www.aboutads.info/choices/

Keep in mind Ghostery only blocks the tracking done on the webpages you vist, not inside the imvu chat client itself. For this reason I suggest the following to protect yourself from spying robots.


Seeing it was impossible for me to simply change the program's name to ...oh, say..._devicefingerprint.exe, and stop this program from running, I had to go into the files properties.

I have inserted screenies showing the steps to take to block permissions that allow this devicefingerprint.exe program to run. I am running Windows 7.

Note: If you cannot find the AppData File in your Users folder in C drive then it is hidden and your system will have to changed to "Show Hidden Files and Folders" to view it.

 

Click on your user id, I'm T (see below).

 

Once you have located the devicefingerprint.exe program file you will need to right click it and select
"Properties".

From the Security tab click on the Advanced Button at the bottom.

 

Be sure to deselect Include inheritable permissions...blah blah blah.   I had to do this several times before the permissions were actually set to "Deny".

 

Just click the top "Deny" Selection box and the rest will also become selected.

After changing the permissions I was presented with this Critical Halt Error Message. I clicked NO, and continued.  

I will say the chat client loaded 50% faster after denying devicefingerprint.exe to run. I hope this helps you all from having your online usage tracked. 

Regards!!

Note**

The method to rename the devicefingerprint.exe file in the imvu client folder is a possibility, but this program locks out any changes to the .exe file. I used a little program called unlocker to rename this file. I merely ran unlocker, typed in an underscore at the beginning of the file and unlocker renamed it without a hitch. Now the program cannot be found by the imvu startup routine and fails to load it. I get the same message as with changing the permissions and I simply click the 'no' response to the error.

You can find the unlocker program here: http://download.cnet.com/windows/empty-loop/3260-20_4-6270844-1.html