This naughty deed was uncovered after software developer Matt Callaghan investigated why hismultipoint Bluetooth headphonesinexplicably stopped playing music from his phone whenever an AliExpress tab sat open on his computer. Rather than hijacking microphones, these scripts leverage the Web Audio API to build an internal audio-processing graph. Because these hardware and software micro-differences are virtually unique to each individual setup, the script can synthesize a persistent digital identifier that tracks shoppers across the web without relying on HTTP cookies or local browser storage. The scripts deliberately set the audio gain to zero, rendering the signal entirely inaudible to human ears. Consequently, muting the specific browser tab, muting the entire web browser, or turning off sound in the OS fails to stop the background code from executing.