Silence on the Wire

Chapter 9. Foreign Accent

Passive fingerprinting: subtle differences in how we behave can help others tell who we are

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On the Internet, the network of networks, information sent to a remote party is beyond the sender’s control and supervision. Unlike on a local Ethernet, which is usually a safe harbor for packets until a stranger wanders in, once data is out in the wild it is no longer possible to estimate and effectively manage threats that it is likely to face, as no single person can control the data’s path or determine the intentions of all parties involved in communications, let alone determine how they approach security. On such a complex network, the likelihood of a middle party becoming malicious is neither negligible nor easy to assess. ...