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Can we assume the main motivation for google is to be able to track mobile users better? Particullary as more users are using various blocking methods and the l

by surak 8y ago

Can we assume the main motivation for google is to be able to track mobile users better? Particullary as more users are using various blocking methods and the legal environment regarding 3rd party trackers I questionable. "With QUIC, however, the identifier for a connection is not the traditional concept of a "socket" (the source/destination port/address protocol combination), but a 64-bit identifier assigned to the connection."

skybrian 8y ago
I don't see any reason to assume that. As the article explains, portable network connections have been a goal in network research for many years. Also, Google benefits from a faster and more secure Internet and its employees have the freedom to pursue that in a wide variety of ways. They aren't all mustache-twirling villains. But I do think the security and privacy implications should be explored. What could an attacker do with a persistent connection?
- unilynx 8y ago
  Nothing that a session cookie can't, probably - web servers aren't getting that much of a new tracking mechanism with a QUIC session id. But a session cookie doesn't allow to transfer a stream to a new IP address during a long request/response.
sgentle 8y ago
A more likely reason is that Google and other internet companies see internet infrastructure as an economic complement: the better and cheaper the internet is, the better and cheaper the total internet + Google services package is. That's why they do so much web performance advocacy, make their own browser, keep trying to kill off ISPs etc. Every dollar you spend on internet service is a dollar you don't spend on digital subscriptions, and every second you spend waiting for pages to load is a second you're not consuming content and watching ads.
pmontra 8y ago
I didn't think about Google spying even more on users but I also frowned when I read that sentence. It seems to lower the bar for hacking into the connection, but probably that 64 bit identifier is embedded in the encrypted data so it should be hard to get it. To be fair to the proponents of QUIC I add the next sentence, which depicts a use case: "This means that as you move around, you can continue with a constant stream uninterrupted from YouTube even as your IP address changes, or continue with a video phone call without it being dropped"

by surak 8y ago

skybrian 8y ago

I don't see any reason to assume that. As the article explains, portable network connections have been a goal in network research for many years. Also, Google benefits from a faster and more secure Internet and its employees have the freedom to pursue that in a wide variety of ways. They aren't all mustache-twirling villains. But I do think the security and privacy implications should be explored. What could an attacker do with a persistent connection?

unilynx 8y ago
Nothing that a session cookie can't, probably - web servers aren't getting that much of a new tracking mechanism with a QUIC session id. But a session cookie doesn't allow to transfer a stream to a new IP address during a long request/response.

sgentle 8y ago

A more likely reason is that Google and other internet companies see internet infrastructure as an economic complement: the better and cheaper the internet is, the better and cheaper the total internet + Google services package is. That's why they do so much web performance advocacy, make their own browser, keep trying to kill off ISPs etc. Every dollar you spend on internet service is a dollar you don't spend on digital subscriptions, and every second you spend waiting for pages to load is a second you're not consuming content and watching ads.

pmontra 8y ago

I didn't think about Google spying even more on users but I also frowned when I read that sentence. It seems to lower the bar for hacking into the connection, but probably that 64 bit identifier is embedded in the encrypted data so it should be hard to get it. To be fair to the proponents of QUIC I add the next sentence, which depicts a use case: "This means that as you move around, you can continue with a constant stream uninterrupted from YouTube even as your IP address changes, or continue with a video phone call without it being dropped"