On the Workings and Current Practices of Web-Based Device Fingerprinting

Author

Nikiforakis, Nick ; Kapravelos, A. ; Joosen, Wouter ; Kruegel, Christopher ; Piessens, Frank ; Vigna, Giovanni

Author_Institution

KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Volume

12

Issue

3

fYear

2014

fDate

May-June 2014

Firstpage

28

Lastpage

36

Abstract

By analyzing the code of three popular browser-fingerprinting code providers, the authors reveal the techniques that allow websites to track users without client-side identifiers. They expose questionable practices, such as the circumvention of HTTP proxies to discover a user´s real IP address and the installation of intrusive browser plug-ins. In addition, they measure the adoption of fingerprinting on the Web and evaluate user-agent-spoofing browser extensions, showing that current commercial approaches can bypass the extensions and take advantage of their shortcomings.

Keywords

Internet; data privacy; online front-ends; security of data; HTTP proxies; IP address; Web-based device fingerprinting; browser-fingerprinting code providers; intrusive browser plug-ins installation; user-agent-spoofing browser extensions; Browsers; Computer security; Fingerprint recognition; IP networks; Object recognition; Privacy; Do Not Track; Web tracking; browser extensions; fingerprinting; privacy;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Security & Privacy, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1540-7993

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MSP.2013.160

Filename

6679044