I’ve noticed a rise in people sharing links to YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and reddit that include tracking parameters in the URL.
It might largely be harmless for now, but it’s not good to let companies build a web of links between users of this site, and to link the usernames of users on this site to their off-site accounts, which may include sensitive info.
| SM | URL Part | Appearance in URL | Filtration technique |
|---|---|---|---|
| Youtube | Query | ?si=* | Remove query string |
| Query | ?igshid=* | Remove query string | |
| Query | ?t= | Remove query string | |
| Tiktok | Subdomain and path | (vm/vt).tiktok.com/(random_string) | Block |
| Path | /(sub_name)/s/(random_string) | Block |
This site should only allow canonical links to the content to limit the information exposed.
What likely happened was that someone found and took advantage of an instagram exploit that allowed for cross site scripting. In other words, the instagram server allowed for a 3rd party server to steal cookies or something like that from the instagram session. It’s very likely that whatever code was executed (or instagram fixing the exploit) just resulted in the users being redirected to their main account or whatever so it didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary.