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How realistic is an "advanced fingerprinting attack", though? I think the more realistic threat model here is presented by ad networks and major websites doing
by mrex 4y ago
How realistic is an "advanced fingerprinting attack", though?
I think the more realistic threat model here is presented by ad networks and major websites doing typical types of browser fingerprinting, like canvas, fonts, etc. as well as possibly some of the techniques mentioned in the article here, like webGL, JIT JS, etc.
In that case of a limited number of trusted sites that we focus on ensuring compatibility with, spoofing is easier, because we can pay a lot of attention to ensuring that our "middleman" fixes the errors introduced by spoofed client-to-server communications.
Some technologies like WebGL will simply never work on a spoofed site, of course. But for the very limited number of sites when users lose important functionality, they can just turn off Lockdown mode.
If a Lockdown'd phone habitually patronizes malicious websites, the protection will never be enough anyway. So we shouldn't worry about protecting against being fingerprinted by a very malicious website - Lockdown users must simply avoid these, with or without a fingerprinting vulnerability!
- O__________O 4y agoSorry, but I don’t understand what technically you describing. If your suggesting Apple should proxy all internet traffic to devices — that is a horrible idea, incredibly dangerous, and a huge step in the wrong direction. To counter the issues I pointed out, Apple would literally have to be able to decrypt all the traffic and act as if they were the user, which is obviously a insane security issue. As for avoiding malicious websites, again, I don’t believe you understand what advanced attacks look like. Any site can be hacked and if it is, fingerprinting can be used to only attack a very well defined known list of targets. For example, a very well known CEO of a security startup used a limousine service that was hacked after this was discovered and used to launch at attack against them. Understand your interested in the topic, that’s great, but try to balance your technical familiarity, familiarity with the topic, and the very real threat security breaches pose to very small subset of the world. These features are not intended to counter AD companies, but attackers that in the worst case situation will ultimately kill the target.
- mrex 4y agoI wasn't suggesting proxying anything, just that the browser should attempt to correct errors that it introduces into page rendering when it spoofs feedback to the server. And again, is it a realistic threat model to imagine that a high volume website, trusted enough to be browsed regularly by Lockdown-paranoid users, will be hacked in such a way as to deliver a fingerprinting attack to browsers, and only that? I appreciate the sense of superiority that you have, but try to follow along.
- O__________O 4y agoIf I had a sense of superiority, why would I even be taking the time to attempt to understand what you’re saying, makes no sense. The device has the features turned off because they are know to be hard to harden against attacks or worse, have known vulnerabilities. To spoof them being on, a proxy that isolates requests to the functionality that’s off on the device would have to be sent to another device, but accurately responds as if it was on, including specific designed counter-measuring from an attacker to confirm the end user had real-time control over the proxied system. Just makes no sense to have such a complex system and in majority of situations would require another device that would be vulnerable to attack and always near the target and secured device. >> And again, is it a realistic threat model to imagine that a high volume website, trusted enough to be browsed regularly by Lockdown-paranoid users, will be hacked in such a way as to deliver a fingerprinting attack to browsers, and only that? Simple answer is yes. Also, it doesn’t have to be a high volume website, just one the target trusts enough to visit.
- mrex 4y ago>Just makes no sense to have such a complex system It's not that complex, it really can be reduced to what the browser already does: attempts to render web pages best for the display, without full hinting from the server-side. In the end, what I'm getting at is that browsers should start viewing any page in an untrusted mode, and this mode should dramatically limit available fingerprint features to the most minimal subset that provides an acceptable user experience.
- 4y ago
- camyule 4y ago> If your suggesting Apple should proxy all internet traffic to devices — that is a horrible idea, incredibly dangerous, and a huge step in the wrong direction. To counter the issues I pointed out, Apple would literally have to be able to decrypt all the traffic and act as if they were the user, which is obviously a insane security issue. iCloud Private Relay already exists.
- O__________O 4y agoOfficial Apple Support page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212614 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212614 3rd party description of it: https://blog.cloudflare.com/icloud-private-relay/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/icloud-private-relay/