diff --git a/chapters/methods.tex b/chapters/methods.tex index 3a62711..fd7d887 100644 --- a/chapters/methods.tex +++ b/chapters/methods.tex @@ -735,7 +735,7 @@ caches, or imply a substantial change in user agent design. \citeauthor{feltenTimingAttacksWeb2000} \cite{feltenTimingAttacksWeb2000} were the first to conduct a study on the feasibility of cache timing attacks and concluded that accuracy in determining whether a file has been loaded from cache -or downloaded from a server is generally very high ($>95\%$). Furthermore, they +or downloaded from a server is generally very high ($>95$\%). Furthermore, they evaluated a host of countermeasures such as turning off caching, altering hit or miss performance and turning off Java and JavaScript but concluded that they were unattractive or at worst ineffective. They propose a partial remedy for @@ -753,12 +753,34 @@ tagging would effectively nullify the performance boost a \gls{CDN} provides by converting every cache hit into a cache miss. The authors themselves question the effectiveness of such an approach. -While the attack presented by \citeauthor{feltenTimingAttacksWeb2000} relies on -being able to accurately time resource loading, a reliable network is needed. +Because the attack presented by \citeauthor{feltenTimingAttacksWeb2000} relies +on being able to accurately time resource loading, a reliable network is needed. +Today a sizeable portion of internet activity comes from mobile devices which +are often not connected via cable but wirelessly. +\citeauthor{vangoethemClockStillTicking2015} +\cite{vangoethemClockStillTicking2015} have therefore proposed four new methods +to accurately time resource loading over unstable networks. By using these +improved methods, they managed to determine whether a user is a member of a +particular age group (in this case between 23 and 32). The authors also ran +their attacks against other social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter, Google and +Amazon), successfully extracting sensitive information on users. The research +discussed so far has not tackled the problem through a quantitative perspective +but instead focused on individual cases. Due to this missing piece, +\citeauthor{sanchez-rolaBakingTimerPrivacyAnalysis2019} +\cite{sanchez-rolaBakingTimerPrivacyAnalysis2019} conducted a survey on 10K +websites to determine how feasible it is to perform a history sniffing attack on +a large scale. Their tool \textsc{BakingTimer} collects timing information on +\gls{HTTP} requests, checking for logged in status and sensitive data. Their +results show that 71.07\% of the surveyed websites are vulnerable to the +attack. \subsection{Cache Control Directives} \label{subsec:cache control directives} +Cache Control Directives can be supplied in the Cache-Control \gls{HTTP} header, +allowing rules about storing, updating and deletion of resources in the cache to +be defined. + \subsection{DNS Cache} \label{subsec:dns cache}