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IP addresses are quite static. Most phones and laptops come "home" once a day and get attached to the home IP. Do it for long enough and you can household all the other IP v6s, MACs etc. that are untethered.


>MACs etc. that are untethered.

MAC addresses don't leave the local network, so it's not relevant to web tracking. Moreover it's randomized by default on ios/android so the tracking potential is limited.


Apple's iCloud Private Relay seems like it should solve this for iOS.


My impression would be the opposite. IPv6s get constantly rotated by most ISPs.

MACs are always randomized, even when connecting to the same network. At least as far as modern devices go.

Am I wrong?


> IPv6s get constantly rotated by most ISPs

I've had the same prefix for five years now.

And yeah, sure, my device cycles through ephemeral IPv6 addresses often, but always within the same prefix.

Group IPs somewhere between /64s and /56 and you'll essentially get a household identity, at least for a few days to a few years.


Yep. The addresses in an IPv6 /56 or so are about the same as an IPv4 address as far as identifying a single location.


IPv6 isn't the boogeyman for tracking in general, because so much still relies on IPv4


Last I heard, the default on Android was to randomize MAC address across networks but keep them static for each network.


It's actually well documented. What you're describing is the default (mostly), but it's more complicated than that.

Proper randomization can be enabled through the developer settings.

https://source.android.com/docs/core/connect/wifi-mac-random...




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