Silence on the Wire

Exploring Passive-Fingerprinting Applications

When observed by either the recipient or a bystander (such as an ISP between the sender and the recipient), network traffic can provide information beyond the actual data exchanged, including certain parameters of the sender’s system. As suggested previously, the exposure is important and quite interesting because, unlike the data transmitted by applications, it is not necessarily obvious, and the disclosure is often beyond any user’s control. Although users can change their browser settings and those of other applications in order to prevent being monitored, identified, and tracked, the disclosure that occurs on the lower IP or TCP layer can easily undermine this effort by revealing to the observer ...