Web-based Fingerprinting Techniques

Vítor Bernardo, Dulce Domingos

2016

Abstract

The concept of device fingerprinting is based in the assumption that each electronic device holds a unique set of physical and/or logical features that others can capture and use to differentiate it from the whole. Web-based fingerprinting, a particular case of device fingerprinting, allows website owners to differentiate devices based on the set of information that browsers transmit. Depending on the techniques being used, a website can track a device based on its browser features (browser fingerprinting) or based on system settings (cross-browser fingerprinting). The latter allows identification of the device even when more than one browser is used. Several different works have introduced new techniques over the last years proving that fingerprinting can be done in multiple ways, but there is not a consolidated work gathering all of them. The current work identifies known web-based fingerprinting techniques, categorizing them as which ones are browser and which are cross-browser and showing real examples of the data that can be captured with each technique. The study is synthesized in a taxonomy, which provides a clear separation between techniques, making it easier to identify the threats to security and privacy inherent to each one.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Bernardo V. and Domingos D. (2016). Web-based Fingerprinting Techniques . In Proceedings of the 13th International Joint Conference on e-Business and Telecommunications - Volume 4: SECRYPT, (ICETE 2016) ISBN 978-989-758-196-0, pages 271-282. DOI: 10.5220/0005965602710282

in Bibtex Style

@conference{secrypt16,
author={Vítor Bernardo and Dulce Domingos},
title={Web-based Fingerprinting Techniques},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 13th International Joint Conference on e-Business and Telecommunications - Volume 4: SECRYPT, (ICETE 2016)},
year={2016},
pages={271-282},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0005965602710282},
isbn={978-989-758-196-0},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 13th International Joint Conference on e-Business and Telecommunications - Volume 4: SECRYPT, (ICETE 2016)
TI - Web-based Fingerprinting Techniques
SN - 978-989-758-196-0
AU - Bernardo V.
AU - Domingos D.
PY - 2016
SP - 271
EP - 282
DO - 10.5220/0005965602710282