Anupam Das
Feb 26, 2016 at 12:00 PM in 380 Soda Hall
Title:Tracking Mobile Web Users Through Motion Sensors: Attacks and Defenses
Abstract: Online users are subject to privacy-invasive tracking across the web for advertising and surveillance purposes, using IP addresses, cookies, and browser fingerprinting. As a larger fraction of web browsing shifts to mobile platforms such as smartphones and tablets, some of these approaches become less effective. At the same time, smartphones today are equipped with a wide variety of sensors like microphones, accelerometers, and gyroscopes, all of which can enhance a user's interaction and experience with a smartphone. However, some of these sensor channels can also be exploited to carry out side-channel attacks which can enable fingerprinting of smartphones. Since these fingerprints rely on the physical characteristics of a particular device, they are immune to defenses such as clearing cookies and browsing in private mode. In this talk, I will talk about how we exploited the manufacturing imperfections of onboard motion sensors such as accelerometers and gyroscopes to fingerprint smartphones. I will also talk about several countermeasures against such fingerprinting technique and briefly touch on how such countermeasures may impact the utility of the motion sensors.
Bio: Anupam Das is a PhD candidate in the Department of Computer Science at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign advised by Prof. Nikita Borisov. His research interests lie in the domain of security and privacy of systems with a focus on exploring privacy implications of smartphone sensors. Anupam is a recipient of the International Fulbright Science and Technology award (2010 to 2013) and Illinois Feng Chen Memorial award (2015). He received his BS and MS in computer science and engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 2008 and 2010, respectively. He also served as a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at BUET from 2008 to 2010 before being appointed as an Assistant Professor of the same department.