- From: David (Standards) Singer <singer@apple.com>
- Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 17:06:00 -0800
- To: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joe@cdt.org>
- Cc: Chaals McCathie Nevile <chaals@yandex-team.ru>, W3C Privacy IG <public-privacy@w3.org>
yes, an obvious question is ‘beaconing’ using vibration. I guess this becomes more of a question for users with more than one device — especially a second device that has motion sensing. But the two devices would have to be awfully close for vibration to transfer. > On Feb 16, 2016, at 12:30 , Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joe@cdt.org> wrote: > > Are those two things or just one? That is, is this section claiming: > 1) it is possible to fingerprint a device through the Vibration API by > requesting information that could be used to uniquely identify a > device by characterizing "tiny imperfections during their > manufacturing"; and 2) it is possible for an external observer to > identify someone close to them in physical reality ("meat space") by > causing the user to visit a specific web page that then uses the > Vibration API to vibrate the device (and the external observer > observes this and connects a particular web session with a particular > device)? > > Looking at the spec, it just accepts a list of integers and vibrates > the device or not. So, I don't see a way to fingerprint devices using > this spec by taking advantage of "tiny imperfections during their > manufacturing" (of accelerometers and gyroscopes). Maybe it's in > conjunction with another API that that becomes revelant? (e.g., if you > were recording audio, I bet vibrating the phone with a little training > could allow you to characterize the surface it's on and possibly the > type of phone and if it's in a case) > > I think maybe drop the first fingerprinting concern (maybe I don't > understand it) but keep the second concern that it allows an external > observer in physical proximity to associate a device with a web > session by causing the device to vibrate using the API. (A possible > mitigation to allowing for highly unique vibration patterns would be > to make only simple vibrations possible.) > > If you've read this far, know that at some point we'll probably have > to deal with eavesdropping via mobile gyroscopes... so not > fingerprinting but full on identification of speaker information and > parsing speech: > > https://crypto.stanford.edu/gyrophone/files/gyromic.pdf > > On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Chaals McCathie Nevile > <chaals@yandex-team.ru> wrote: >> Hi, >> >> the Device API group are considering proposing a revision of the Vibration >> API, and one of the things they propose adding is a section on Security and >> Privacy. >> >> The current proposal is >> <https://github.com/anssiko/vibration/commit/48489c54e0b7ed80900e0906fa79803c8fa77069> >> >> The two things identified are that vibration can be picked up with e.g. >> motion sensors in the same device for fingerprinting, and that a vibrating >> device can be physicall observed externally. >> >> Wondering if anyone has further input. >> >> Cheers >> >> -- >> Charles McCathie Nevile - web standards - CTO Office, Yandex >> chaals@yandex-team.ru - - - Find more at http://yandex.com >> > > > > -- > Joseph Lorenzo Hall > Chief Technologist, Center for Democracy & Technology [https://www.cdt.org] > e: joe@cdt.org, p: 202.407.8825, pgp: https://josephhall.org/gpg-key > Fingerprint: 3CA2 8D7B 9F6D DBD3 4B10 1607 5F86 6987 40A9 A871 > > CDT's annual dinner, Tech Prom, is April 6, 2016! https://cdt.org/annual-dinner > David Singer Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.
Received on Wednesday, 17 February 2016 01:06:35 UTC