October 30, 2024

Anonymous programmers can be identified by analyzing coding style

Every programmer learns to code in a unique way which results in distinguishing “fingerprints” in coding style. These fingerprints can be used to compare the source code of known programmers with an anonymous piece of source code to find out which one of the known programmers authored the anonymous code. This method can aid in […]

Verizon's tracking header: Can they do better?

Verizon’s practice of injecting a unique ID into the HTTP headers of traffic originating on their wireless network has alarmed privacy advocates and researchers. Jonathan Mayer detailed how this header is already being used by third-parties to create zombie cookies. In this post, I summarize just how much information Verizon collects and shares under their […]

How cookies can be used for global surveillance

Today we present an updated version of our paper [0] examining how the ubiquitous use of online tracking cookies can allow an adversary conducting network surveillance to target a user or surveil users en masse.  In the initial version of the study, summarized below, we examined the technical feasibility of the attack. Now we’ve made the […]

Striking a balance between advertising and ad blocking

In the news, we have a consortium of French publishers, which somehow includes several major U.S. corporations (Google, Microsoft), attempting to sue AdBlock Plus developer Eyeo, a German firm with developers around the world. I have no idea of the legal basis for their case, but it’s all about the money. AdBlock Plus and the closely […]

How do we decide how much to reveal? (Hint: Our privacy behavior might be socially constructed.)

[Let’s welcome Aylin Caliskan-Islam, a graduate student at Drexel. In this post she discusses new work that applies machine learning and natural-language processing to questions of privacy and social behavior. — Arvind Narayanan.] How do we decide how much to share online given that information can spread to millions in large social networks? Is it always our […]