Re: Vibration API privacy considerations

Charles,

If this works for you and the Device API WG, let’s add this to the agenda for our next call (Thursday 26 February 2016 at UTC 17). 
Anyone from DAP who would like to join, would be most welcome.

In the meantime, everyone, please continue sharing your perspectives on this thread.

Christine


> On 17 Feb 2016, at 2:40 AM, Greg Norcie <gnorcie@cdt.org> wrote:
> 
> Would they be too faint? IIRC tempest attacks have picked up keystroke noises:
> 
> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/09/snooping_on_tex.html

> 
> Couldn't a microphone also pick up vibration noises? 
> 
> 
> 
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> Greg Norcie (norcie@cdt.org)
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> 
> On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 8:06 PM, David (Standards) Singer <singer@apple.com> wrote:
> 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 05:36:20 UTC