Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of Fingerprinting

Timestamp:

Dec 28, 2010, 2:11:50 PM (15 years ago)

Author:

robert@roberthogan.net

Comment:

--

Fingerprinting

@@ +1 @@
+= What is Fingerprinting? =
+[[PageOutline]]
+
+This page describes the mechanisms WebKit offers to ports and clients
+interested in reducing the ability of websites to identify users and track
+their behaviour without obtaining consent.
+
+Use cases for fingerprinting include:
+  * Sites attempting to identify users on devices previously used for fraud
+  * Sites attempting to establish a unique visitor count
+  * Advertising networks attempting to establish a unique click-through count
+  * Advertising networks attempting to profile users to increase ad relevance
+  * Sites attempting to profile the behaviour of unregistered users
+  * Sites attempting to link the visits of users when they are both registered
+    and unregistered and identify the user when visiting the site without
+    authenticating.
+
+In order to evade fingerprinting users will often disable/clear HTTP Cookies
+or change their IP address between visits. Research has demonstrated that
+these measures are not sufficient and that in order to evade tracking by
+third parties a wide variety of technologies implemented in the browser must
+be considered.
+
+
+== Entropy and Fingerprinting ==
+Entropy defines the amount of uniqueness a specific property exposed by the
+browser (such as the User-Agent header) introduces into a browser fingerprint.
+It's usually expressed in bits. For example, Peter Eckersley's
+['Panopticlick' study for the EFF
+http://panopticlick.eff.org/browser-uniqueness.pdf] finds that the User-Agent
+header provide 10.0 bits of entropy. Since 2^10^ == 1024 that means only 1 in
+1024 random browsers visiting a site are expected to share the same
+user-agent header.
+
+== Why this isn't about 'Private Browsing' ==
+There are a number of things WebCore could do differently to reduce the user's
+exposure to remote tracking mechanisms but which it is not necessarily
+desirable to implement as default behaviour. At first glance, some of these
+appear a good fit with 'Private Browsing' but really they're addressing a
+different problem. Private browsing's overriding objective is to ensure no
+trace of a browsing session is left on your disk.
+Fingerprinting a user's browser and tracking that browser's visits presents a
+different set of challenges.
+
+== Private Browsing in WebKit ==
+
+WebKit defines private browsing as:
+{{{
+// When this option is set, WebCore will avoid storing any record of browsing
+activity
+// that may persist on disk or remain displayed when the option is reset.
+// This option does not affect the storage of such information in RAM.
+// The following functions respect this setting:
+//  - HTML5/DOM Storage
+//  - Icon Database
+//  - Console Messages
+//  - Cache
+//  - Application Cache
+//  - Back/Forward Page History
+//  - Page Search Results
+}}}
+
+Some of the items discussed in this page are already taken care of by private
+browsing
+in webkit - so if you are trying to defend your webkit browser against
+fingerprinting you will at the very least need to enable private browsing
+through your WebKit port's API.
+
+== Private Browsing in WebKit and your browser ==
+
+Be aware that not all aspects of 'private browsing' are implemented within
+WebKit.
+WebKit ports offer different APIs to clients. Some functionality relevant to
+mitigating browser fingerprinting is left entirely to the client. For example,
+QtWebKit does not implement a HTTP Cookie store or Page cache: the
+client is responsible for managing both.
+
+You need to pay close attention to the limitations and capabilities of your
+chosen port's WebKit API - in particular the aspects of cookie and cache
+management you are expected to implement yourself.
+
+== Things that aren't 'Private Browsing' but are 'Fingerprinting' ==
+
+=== 1. Session Isolation ===
+If you have implemented an anti-fingerprinting mode you don't want a website
+to access information from the browser's normal mode - doing so might reveal
+information that allows the site to fingerprint your user or browser. This is
+not a property of private browsing - which is only interested in preventing
+data from the private session leaving any traces on the user's disk.
+
+=== 2. Session Persistence ===
+An accidental property of private browsing is that HTTP Cookies and
+page caches generated in one private browsing session are not available in any
+subsequent or simultaneous browsing sessions because they are not stored to
+disk. This property of non-persistence is an important counter-measure against
+fingerprinting, however where sites use a browser feature as a side channel
+for simulating the behaviour of HTTP cookies you may not be able to rely on
+private browsing to take care of this for you.
+
+=== 3. Long-Running Sessions ===
+At the moment private browsing happens to take care of some aspects of session
+isolation and persistence for you. But a browser session that is never closed,
+on a machine that is never turned off, will become trackable over time. This
+means you will need to decide on a way of managing long-running
+browser sessions and cannot rely on any side-effect benefits from private
+browsing in webkit. The obvious way of managing this problem is to implement a
+periodic cleardown of cookies and page cache, as well as any other
+sidechannel-cookies such as 'window.name'.
+
+== Creating a Common Fingerprint ==
+This page is premised on the notion that the best way to mitigate against
+browser tracking is to implement a fingerprint for your browser that all users
+of your browser will share. The larger your user base the more rewarding this
+policy becomes. Even with a relatively small userbase this approach is still
+useful as long as you can close off as many sources of client entropy as
+possible. A browser with a small userbase is inherently more vulnerable to
+tracking if it leaks entropy than a browser with a large userbase suffering
+from a similar problem.
+
+== Creating a Dynamic Fingerprint ==
+Not much attention has been paid to approaches that suggest creating a
+constantly mutating browser fingerprint. Common sense suggests it would be
+hard to implement and even harder to get right.
+
+= Creating a Static and Common Fingerprint for your WebKit Browser =
+
+== 1. Javascript Objects ==
+
+Javascript exposes a lot of entropy-rich information to websites through the
+Screen object, the Window object, the Navigator object, the Document object,
+and even the Date Object.
+
+WebKit-based browsers need to decide on a strategy for reducing the variety of
+information these objects leak to websites. The most common approach is to
+decide on a pre-determined set of values that the browser will always use in
+fingerprint-resistant mode - this allows users of the browser in that mode to
+be indisinguishable from each other based on information from the JS objects
+alone. 
+
+If you are building a tracking-resistant mode for your WebKit-based browser
+you will need to consider managing at least the following values:
+
+=== i. Document Object ===
+
+The document.referrer property needs to be managed in the same way as
+[Referer Header and Origin Header] below.
+
+=== ii. History Object ===
+
+history.length::
+This value has potential, in cases where it is unusually high due to prolonged
+use of a single browser/tab session, to assist sites in tracking the
+user. That said, such users already have a pretty revealing cache and
+coookie data set.
+
+=== iii. Window object ===
+
+You have two choices here:
+- restrict the layout of the actual browser window to three or four
+predetermined-sizes, and return those. 
+- return values that do not reflect the real size of the browser window.
+
+The properties you need to override are at least:
+{{{
+outerHeight()
+outerWidth()
+innerHeight()
+innerWidth()
+screenX()
+screenY()
+scrollX()
+scrollY()
+}}}
+
+=== iv. Window.name ===
+
+This deserves a special mention. Window.name is cross-domain and persists
+across page loads. Not surprisingly, many sites use it as a cookie. Since it
+does not persist across sessions it's not as much of a problem as a HTTP
+cookie but it does allow tracking within sessions - and this is a worry if the
+session is long-running.
+
+There is room here for WebKit to restrict cross-domain access to window.name
+but you are probably better off managing the value in this field yourself with
+the JS API. The chances are you will break the user's experience on at least
+some websites.
+
+=== v. Screen object ===
+
+Torbutton and Torora use the following values for the Screen object's
+properties:
+
+{{{
+height()      = window innerHeight()
+width()       = width()  rounded to the nearest 50 px
+colorDepth()  = 24
+pixelDepth()  = 24
+availLeft()   = 0
+availTop()    = 0
+availHeight() = window innerHeight()
+availWidth()  = window innerWidth()
+}}}
+
+Entropy for the values provided here is as much as 4.83 bits.
+
+===  vi. Navigator Object === 
+You will need to look closely at all the values exposed by the Navigator
+object and decide on a set of values that can remain static across many
+releases as long as possible. You will also need to ensure that the values
+decided upon here are also presented in the user-agent HTTP header by your
+browser.
+
+You will need to decide what to do with navigator.plugins. Internet Explorer
+does not return anything to navigator.plugins, so websites tend not to rely on
+it - making it a relatively safe option to follow IE's suit. If you do expose
+a list of plugins through this property you will need to ensure your decision
+is consistent with the behaviour you have implemented under Plugins below.
+
+=== vii. Date Object ===
+
+==== a. Timezone ====
+
+You need to decide what timezone your browser is in when in
+fingerprinting-resistance mode - a common choice is UTC. Rather than attempt
+to override the Date object you should set the local timezone to UTC by setting
+the environment variable TZ as follows:
+{{{
+              setenv("TZ",":UTC",1);
+}}}
+This will ensure that WebKit always returns the local time as UTC when the
+Date object is queried.
+
+==== b. Timing Users ====
+Believe it or not, there is evidence that some companies have tracked users
+based on the typing cadence gleaned from querying the Date object:
+
+http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/firm-uses-typing-cadence-to-finger-unauthorized-users.ars
+
+Currently, WebKit does not offer any means of countering this.
+
+=== viii. Language Object ===
+
+You need to decide on a consistent set of values for your browser in
+fingeprinting-resistance mode. For example:
+
+{{{
+charset = 'iso-8859-1,*,utf-8'
+language = 'en-us, en'
+locale = 'en-US'
+}}}
+
+Your decision should be consistent with your implementation of the
+Accept-Language header.
+
+
+== 2. Overriding Javascript Objects ==
+
+WebCore does allow WebKit ports to overload the values of JS objects. Most
+WebKit ports expose this API to browser clients.
+
+=== i. Overriding Javascript Objects - Qt ===
+
+You can use the function below to overload existing JS objects with a Qt
+object. Any functions called on the JS object will call the equivalently named
+function in your Qt object:
+{{{
+void QWebFrame::addToJavaScriptWindowObject ( const QString & name, QObject *object )
+}}}
+For an example of this in practice see:
+
+  * https://github.com/mwenge/torora/commit/5191dca4d5df08514f21e68472cacb6cacd2eb06
+
+In order to override specific properties of a JS object in Qt see:
+
+  * https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46566
+
+== 3. CSS ==
+
+===  i. CSS Media Queries ===
+
+The same information that can be collected from the Screen and Window object
+can also be collected via CSS Media Queries.
+
+WebKit currently does not offer a means of countering this.
+
+  * https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50895
+
+=== ii. CSS Fonts ===
+
+CSS rules may be used to inspect locally available fonts. A working example of
+this 'font introspection' using simple CSS rules can be found at
+http://flippingtypical.org.
+
+WebKit currently does not offer a means of countering this.
+
+There needs to be a mechanism for allowing WebKit clients to decide which
+fonts are locally available when CSS rules are evaluated.
+
+See also Fonts.
+
+=== iii. Querying Page History with CSS ===
+
+There is a well-known attack on the CSS 'visited:' rule that allows a CSS
+stylesheet to determine by brute-force which websites the user has visited.
+A good examples of this in action is available at:
+  * http://ha.ckers.org/weird/CSS-history.cgi
+
+This method can inspect user history across sessions and is deployed by live
+websites.
+
+WebKit has mitigated against this attack since the implementation of
+https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24300, based on the approach outlined
+in http://dbaron.org/mozilla/visited-privacy.
+
+
+== 4. Plugins and Java Applets ==
+
+If you want complete control over the information your browser reveals to
+websites then you can't let your browser run someone else's
+executable code. That means plugins and Java applets. That also means a pretty
+unusable browser by most people's lights.
+
+WebKit does not offer you very much in this category. There is no sandboxing
+of NPAPI plugins - all WebKit ports currently dlopen() the binary blob and let
+it run with the user's privileges. In the case of a malicious plugin this
+means relatively unfettered OS access. In the case of well-defined plugins such
+as Flash there is
+still scope for collecting a lot of information.
+
+=== i. Using the List of Installed Plugins To Build Up A Fingerprint ===
+
+As well as isolating users who have an exotic set of installed plugins, a major
+source of entropy is found in the micro-version information provided
+by navigator.plugins. There is scope here for WebKit to limit the version
+information at the request of the client.
+
+Apart from querying navigator.plugins, a page can attempt to instantiate as
+many plugins as possible and inspect the page's layout to see what the user
+has installed. There are a few possible countermeasures here of varying
+efficacy, though none have been tried in practice:
+
+  * Limit the number of plugins that can be loaded on a single page
+  * Prevent zero-size plugins from loading
+  * Disable plugins completely
+  * Only load individual plugins at the user's request - e.g. 'Click to Flash'
+
+Note that blocking plugins can actually improve the quality of fingerprint:
+http://panopticlick.eff.org/browser-uniqueness.pdf finds that the uniqueness
+of flash-blocking browsers is over 1 in 400,000.
+
+=== ii. Collecting System Fonts via Flash Plugins ===
+
+The Adobe Flash API allows flash applications to obtain a list of all the
+fonts installed on a system in unsorted order. This is a very rich source of
+entropy for anyone trying to fingerprint a user. Worse, it is completely
+outside the control of WebKit and the client browser.
+
+Short of running your browser in a chroot'ed jail there is nothing you can do
+to prevent Flash inspecting your file system for the fonts folder and
+supplying the list of fonts installed there to swf objects that request
+it.
+
+This is a problem you will have to address at application-level for now. There
+are no open bugs for introducing plugin-sandboxing (i.e. intercepting plugin's
+system calls) in WebKit at the time of writing.
+
+=== iii. Flash Cookies (Local Shared Objects) ===
+
+You should read (it's
+short): http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1446862
+
+From the paper:
+  "Flash data is stored in a different folder on different computing platforms.
+  For instance, on an Apple, Flash local shared objects (labeled .sol) are
+  stored at: /users/[username]/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/
+  On a Windows computer, they are stored at:
+  \Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Macromedia
+  \Flash Player
+  Several subdirectories may reside at that location:
+  “#SharedObjects” contains the actual Flash cookies and subdirectories under
+  “Macromedia.com” contains persistent global and domain-specific settings for
+  how the Flash player operates. As such, there will be a subdirectory for each
+  Flash-enabled domain a user visits under the “Macromedia.com” settings
+  folder.
+  This has privacy implications .."
+
+So Flash LSOs are used by a number of well-known sites to regenerate or respawn
+HTTP cookies the user has already deleted.
+
+Fortunately, Adobe Flash has supported private browsing since Flash
+Player 10.1 and does not store flash cookies when in private browsing mode.
+
+
+== 5. SilverLight And ActiveX ==
+TBC
+
+== 6. Fonts ==
+
+A site may render a page in a number of different fonts and then use
+getComputedSize() to determine which were rendered correctly.
+
+WebKit currently does not offer a means of countering this.
+
+There needs to be a mechanism for allowing WebKit clients to decide which
+fonts are locally available when the page is rendered.
+
+
+== 7. Cookies ==
+
+You either have these (i) disabled completely, (ii) clear them every time a new
+browsing session starts, or (iii) clear them every N minutes/hours. Since
+Private Browsing already takes care of (ii), you may decide that (i) and (iii)
+are not worth the trouble. Whatever you decide, you need to be consistent with
+your implementation of the Page Cache.
+
+== 8. Third Party Cookies ==
+
+If you are clearing all cookies periodically then third-party cookies are not
+something you need to worry about any more than their first-party cousin.
+
+The default behaviour of third-party cookies is the subject of a lot of
+interoperability issues between browsers. Firefox has a proposal in active
+development and there has been some good discussion in at least one WebKit
+bug.
+
+Most WebKit ports offer you the possibility of managin third-party cookies
+however you choose, and the default behaviour between WebKit ports often
+differs - Safari is the most restrictive as it does not allow 3rd parties to
+set new cookies, though they can update existing ones.
+
+  * https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35824
+  * https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thirdparty
+  * https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=565965
+
+Qt does not offer a means of identifying third party cookies yet:
+  * https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45455
+
+== 9. Page Cache ==
+
+The [http://samy.pl/evercookie/ evercookie] is an excellent practical
+demonstration of how a website can
+inspect the browser's cache to determine if the user has visited the site
+before. So if your browser has disabled cookies completely or disables cookie
+storage across sessions or over long periods of time, you will need to treat
+the page cache in the same way.
+
+== 10. HTTP Headers ==
+
+You will need to decide what to do with the Referer header, the Origin header,
+the Accept header, and the Accept-Language header.
+
+=== i. User-Agent Header ===
+
+Whatever decision you make about the User-Agent header, be prepared to stick
+with the values you set initially for as long as possible.
+
+=== ii. Referer Header and Origin Header ===
+
+Manipulating these headers isn't strictly a fingerprinting-resistance
+requirement, however they do leak information about the user's browsing
+history. Manipulating them can break website behaviour and may even get your
+browser blacklisted by certain sites.
+
+Possible countermeasures in the case of FireFox are discussed at:
+https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=587523. The best suggestion
+there is to scrub the path but not the domain from the referrer header.
+
+  * https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51638
+
+=== iii. Accept-Language Header ===
+
+This should be consistent with the value you choose to return from
+the Javascript Language object, e.g.'en-us'.
+
+=== iv. Accept Header ===
+
+The entropy provided by an Accept header will depend largely on the language
+and charsets your browser has decided to support or permit to the user while
+in fingerprinting-resistance mode.
+
+=== v. HTTP ETags ===
+[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_ETag ETags] can be used as a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_ETag#Tracking_using_ETags substitute for HTTP cookies] and
+this use has been [http://samy.pl/evercookie/ demonstrated in practice].
+
+WebKit supports ETags. Implementing the recommendations in Page Cache will
+mitigate against their use by preventing them from persisting across sessions
+and even long-running browser sessions if you're prepared to implement an
+aggressive cache-clearing policy.
+
+== 11. DOM LocalStorage/DOM SessionStorage/DOM GlobalStorage ==
+Private browsing in WebKit denies read and write access to DOM storage since
+https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49329.
+
+== 12. GeoLocation ==
+
+You will, um, need to ensure you disable geolocation if it supported by your
+chosen WebKit port.
+
+= Further Reading =
+
+  * http://panopticlick.eff.org/browser-uniqueness.pdf
+  * https://www.torproject.org/torbutton/design/#FirefoxBugs
+  * http://browserspy.dk
+  *http://blog.torproject.org/blog/firefox-private-browsing-mode-torbutton-and-
+  fingerprinting
+  * http://www.collinjackson.com/research/private-browsing.pdf
+  * https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Anonymous_Browsing
+  * https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Fingerprinting
+  * http://samy.pl/evercookie/
+  * http://dbaron.org/mozilla/visited-privacy
+  * https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thirdparty
+  * http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2009-May/007788.html
+  * http://flippingtypical.org