Beauty and the Beast: Diverting modern web ...
Document type :
Communication dans un congrès avec actes
Title :
Beauty and the Beast: Diverting modern web browsers to build unique browser fingerprints
Author(s) :
Laperdrix, Pierre [Auteur]
Diversity-centric Software Engineering [DiverSe]
Rudametkin, Walter [Auteur]
Self-adaptation for distributed services and large software systems [SPIRALS]
Université de Lille, Sciences et Technologies
Baudry, Benoit [Auteur]
Diversity-centric Software Engineering [DiverSe]

Diversity-centric Software Engineering [DiverSe]
Rudametkin, Walter [Auteur]

Self-adaptation for distributed services and large software systems [SPIRALS]
Université de Lille, Sciences et Technologies
Baudry, Benoit [Auteur]
Diversity-centric Software Engineering [DiverSe]
Conference title :
37th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P 2016)
City :
San Jose
Country :
Etats-Unis d'Amérique
Start date of the conference :
2016-05-23
English keyword(s) :
browser fingerprinting
privacy
software diversity
privacy
software diversity
HAL domain(s) :
Informatique [cs]/Cryptographie et sécurité [cs.CR]
Informatique [cs]/Web
Informatique [cs]/Web
English abstract : [en]
Worldwide, the number of people and the time spent browsing the web keeps increasing. Accordingly, the technologies to enrich the user experience are evolving at an amazing pace. Many of these evolutions provide for a more ...
Show more >Worldwide, the number of people and the time spent browsing the web keeps increasing. Accordingly, the technologies to enrich the user experience are evolving at an amazing pace. Many of these evolutions provide for a more interactive web (e.g., boom of JavaScript libraries, weekly innovations in HTML5), a more available web (e.g., explosion of mobile devices), a more secure web (e.g., Flash is disappearing, NPAPI plugins are being deprecated), and a more private web (e.g., increased legislation against cookies, huge success of extensions such as Ghostery and AdBlock). Nevertheless, modern browser technologies, which provide the beauty and power of the web, also provide a darker side, a rich ecosystem of exploitable data that can be used to build unique browser fingerprints. Our work explores the validity of browser fingerprinting in today's environment. Over the past year, we have collected 118,934 fingerprints composed of 17 attributes gathered thanks to the most recent web technologies. We show that innovations in HTML5 provide access to highly discriminating attributes, notably with the use of the Canvas API which relies on multiple layers of the user's system. In addition, we show that browser fingerprinting is as effective on mobile devices as it is on desktops and laptops, albeit for radically different reasons due to their more constrained hardware and software environments. We also evaluate how browser fingerprinting could stop being a threat to user privacy if some technological evolutions continue (e.g., disappearance of plugins) or are embraced by browser vendors (e.g., standard HTTP headers).Show less >
Show more >Worldwide, the number of people and the time spent browsing the web keeps increasing. Accordingly, the technologies to enrich the user experience are evolving at an amazing pace. Many of these evolutions provide for a more interactive web (e.g., boom of JavaScript libraries, weekly innovations in HTML5), a more available web (e.g., explosion of mobile devices), a more secure web (e.g., Flash is disappearing, NPAPI plugins are being deprecated), and a more private web (e.g., increased legislation against cookies, huge success of extensions such as Ghostery and AdBlock). Nevertheless, modern browser technologies, which provide the beauty and power of the web, also provide a darker side, a rich ecosystem of exploitable data that can be used to build unique browser fingerprints. Our work explores the validity of browser fingerprinting in today's environment. Over the past year, we have collected 118,934 fingerprints composed of 17 attributes gathered thanks to the most recent web technologies. We show that innovations in HTML5 provide access to highly discriminating attributes, notably with the use of the Canvas API which relies on multiple layers of the user's system. In addition, we show that browser fingerprinting is as effective on mobile devices as it is on desktops and laptops, albeit for radically different reasons due to their more constrained hardware and software environments. We also evaluate how browser fingerprinting could stop being a threat to user privacy if some technological evolutions continue (e.g., disappearance of plugins) or are embraced by browser vendors (e.g., standard HTTP headers).Show less >
Language :
Anglais
Peer reviewed article :
Oui
Audience :
Internationale
Popular science :
Non
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