Sensor errors allow you to compare with each smartphone an individual "imprint"
Opportunities to spy on Internet users are not limited to cookies and logs provider or network operator. Any site can easily access information about browser versions and client OS, installed plugins, screen resolution, and so on. The combination of this information makes it possible to recognize a specific client from millions of others. For smartphones, this problem is even more acute - the characteristics of their hardware are much richer due to the large number of sensors - microphones, cameras, accelerometers, gyros, magnetometers.
Hristo Bozhinov from Stanford University showed that the microscopic differences in the readings of the accelerometer of the smartphone are quite individual and allow us to distinguish it from thousands of others. Moreover, these readings can be available to any site on the Internet. To test the concept and collect statistics, Bozhinov created sensor-id.com , by accessing which from a smartphone, you can find out if your accelerometer data is available for JavaScript, and if so, how individual your smartphone is. According to Bozhinov, an individual “fingerprint” of the sensor can be distinguished even from a very noisy signal, for example, while the smartphone is dangling in your pocket.
Differences in the readings of accelerometers at rest for 16 smartphones
This is not the only way to get an individual "imprint" of the device. The same individual characteristics are inherent in other sensors. For example, a microphone. By playing a test sound through the speakers of the phone and recording it on the microphone, you can get the amplitude-frequency response of the analog path of the phone. True, this method is not as secretive as the first. Although individually, these “fingerprints” do not make it possible to confidently recognize a smartphone among many millions, when used together, as well as using all other available channels, both software and hardware, it is possible to achieve almost one hundred percent correctness of recognition without any cookies, MAC- addresses or IMEI.
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The abundance of sensors is not the first time a concern for security experts. So, it has already been shown that by analyzing the sequence of micro-movements of a smartphone in your hand while typing a pin-code on the screen, you can achieve correct code recognition in more than 70% of cases. A similar result can be achieved on the basis of the image from the camera. And scientists from the Dresden Technical University have recently developed a method for obtaining individual characteristics of the radio channel of any GSM phone, and the method is completely passive, which means untraceable and non-switchable. An article by Hristo Bozhinov et al., Devoted to individual fingerprints of smartphones sensors, will be officially published next year.
Hristo Bozhinov from Stanford University showed that the microscopic differences in the readings of the accelerometer of the smartphone are quite individual and allow us to distinguish it from thousands of others. Moreover, these readings can be available to any site on the Internet. To test the concept and collect statistics, Bozhinov created sensor-id.com , by accessing which from a smartphone, you can find out if your accelerometer data is available for JavaScript, and if so, how individual your smartphone is. According to Bozhinov, an individual “fingerprint” of the sensor can be distinguished even from a very noisy signal, for example, while the smartphone is dangling in your pocket.
Differences in the readings of accelerometers at rest for 16 smartphones
This is not the only way to get an individual "imprint" of the device. The same individual characteristics are inherent in other sensors. For example, a microphone. By playing a test sound through the speakers of the phone and recording it on the microphone, you can get the amplitude-frequency response of the analog path of the phone. True, this method is not as secretive as the first. Although individually, these “fingerprints” do not make it possible to confidently recognize a smartphone among many millions, when used together, as well as using all other available channels, both software and hardware, it is possible to achieve almost one hundred percent correctness of recognition without any cookies, MAC- addresses or IMEI.
')
The abundance of sensors is not the first time a concern for security experts. So, it has already been shown that by analyzing the sequence of micro-movements of a smartphone in your hand while typing a pin-code on the screen, you can achieve correct code recognition in more than 70% of cases. A similar result can be achieved on the basis of the image from the camera. And scientists from the Dresden Technical University have recently developed a method for obtaining individual characteristics of the radio channel of any GSM phone, and the method is completely passive, which means untraceable and non-switchable. An article by Hristo Bozhinov et al., Devoted to individual fingerprints of smartphones sensors, will be officially published next year.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/202040/
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