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report.lyx
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report.lyx
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#LyX 2.1 created this file. For more info see http://www.lyx.org/
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\begin_document
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\pdf_title "Master’s thesis"
\pdf_author "Joel Purra"
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\begin_layout Title
Master’s thesis
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(Preliminary title)
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Swedes Online: You Are More Tracked Than You Think
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\begin_layout Author
Joel Purra
\begin_inset Newline newline
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LatexCommand href
target "mig@joelpurra.se"
type "mailto:"
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, joepu444
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target "http://joelpurra.com/"
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+46 70 352 1212
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\begin_layout Date
\begin_inset ERT
status open
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\backslash
versionandtoday
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\begin_layout Right Header
Joel Purra's Master's Thesis
\begin_inset Argument 1
status open
\begin_layout Plain Layout
Swedes Online: You Are More Tracked Than You Think
\end_layout
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\end_inset
\end_layout
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\begin_layout Abstract
When you are browsing websites, third-party resources record your online
habits; such
\emph on
tracking
\emph default
can be considered an invasion of privacy.
It was previously unknown how many third-party resources, trackers and
tracker companies are present in the different classes of websites chosen:
globally popular websites, random samples of .se/.dk/.com/.net domains and
curated lists of websites of public interest in Sweden.
The in-browser HTTP/HTTPS traffic was recorded while downloading over
\begin_inset ERT
status open
\begin_layout Plain Layout
\backslash
numprint{150000}
\end_layout
\end_inset
websites, allowing comparison of HTTPS adaption and third-party tracking
within and across the different classes of websites.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Abstract
The data shows that known third-party resources including known trackers
are present on
\emph on
over 90%
\emph default
of most classes, that third-party hosted
\emph on
content
\emph default
such as video, scripts and fonts make up a large portion of the known trackers
seen on a typical website and that tracking is just as prevalent on
\emph on
secure
\emph default
as insecure sites.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Abstract
Observations include that Google is the most widespread tracker organization
\emph on
by far
\emph default
, that content is being served by known trackers may suggest that trackers
are moving to providing services to the end user to
\emph on
avoid being blocked
\emph default
by privacy tools and ad blockers, and that the small difference in tracking
between using HTTP and HTTPS connections may suggest that users are given
a
\emph on
false sense of privacy
\emph default
when using HTTPS.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
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\begin_layout Chapter
Introduction
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
How many companies are recording your online trail, and how much information
does the average Swede leak while using popular .se websites? Many, and
a lot -- more than you may think.
Large organizations like Google, Facebook and Amazon are able to connect
the dots you leave behind during everyday usage, and construct a
\emph on
persona
\emph default
that reflects you from their perspective.
Have you told your family, friends or colleagues about your gambling addiction,
your sex toy purchases, or your alcoholism? Even if you did not tell anyone
your deepest secrets, these companies might conclude that they can put
labels on you by looking at everything you do online.
And now they are selling it as hard facts behind the scenes.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
While browsing the web users are both actively and passively being
\emph on
tracked
\emph default
by multiple companies, for the purpose of building a persona for targeted
advertising.
Sometimes the data collection is visible, as in social network sites and
questionnaires, but it is most common in the form of different kinds of
external resources which may or may not serve a purpose other than keeping
track of your every click.
Secure connections between server and client help against passive data
collection along the network path, but not against site owners allowing
in-page trackers.
Tracking code is installed on web pages that have adverts as well as those
that do not -- the spread and reach of tracking across web pages and domains
of different kinds increases the quality of the user data collected and
inferred, making it more valuable for advertising purposes.
With the extent of the use of trackers and other external resources largely
unknown and ever evolving, what is already known raises privacy concerns
-- data considered personal leak without the user's knowledge or explicit
permission and end up in privately owned databases for further distribution.
Data collection is the new wild west, and you are the new cattle.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
This thesis uses large-scale measurements to characterize how different
kinds of domains in Sweden and internationally use website resources.
Front pages of approximately
\begin_inset ERT
status open
\begin_layout Plain Layout
\backslash
numprint{150000}
\end_layout
\end_inset
random .se, .dk, .com, .net domains and Swedish, Danish and Alexa's top domains
were visited and their resources, including those dynamically loaded, recorded.
Each domain was accessed both with insecure HTTP and secure HTTPS connections
to provide a comparison.
Resources were grouped by mime type, URL protocol, domain, if it matches
the domain the request originated from and compared to lists of known trackers
and organizations.
The thesis makes three primary contributions:
\end_layout
\begin_layout Enumerate
Software for automated, repeatable retrieval and analysis of large amounts
of websites has been developed, and released as open source (see Appendix
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand vref
reference "chap:Software"
\end_inset
).
Datasets based on publicly available domain lists have been released for
scientific scrutinization
\begin_inset Foot
status open
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\begin_inset CommandInset href
LatexCommand href
target "http://joelpurra.com/projects/masters-thesis/"
\end_inset
\end_layout
\end_inset
.
The data allows analysis of websites' HTTP/HTTPS requests including the
use of resources internal versus external to the entry domain, which the
most common confirmed tracker organizations are, what spread they have
and how much the average internet user can expect to be tracked by visiting
some of the most important and popular sites in Sweden, Denmark and worldwide.
Downloading and analyzing additional/custom datasets is very easy.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Enumerate
Adaption of HTTPS for different domains has been characterized from a Swedish
perspective.
The adaption between classes of domains within Sweden, as well as against
popular international domains, are compared (see Section
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand ref
reference "sec:Results-HTTP,-HTTPS-and-redirects"
\end_inset
).
HTTPS adoption among globally popular websites (10-30%, 50% for the very
top) and curated lists of Swedish websites (15-50%) is much higher than
for random domains (less than 1%).
This means that most websites in the world are susceptible to passive eavesdrop
ping anywhere along the network path between the client and the server.
But even with HTTPS enabled, traffic data and personally identifiable informati
on is leaked through external resources and third-party trackers, which
are just as prevalent on insecure HTTP as secure HTTPS enabled websites
(see Section
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand ref
reference "sec:Results-Internal-and-external-requests"
\end_inset
and
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand eqref
reference "sec:Results-Tracker-detection"
\end_inset
).
This means that a secure, encrypted connection protecting against eavesdropping
doesn't automatically lead to
\emph on
privacy
\emph default
-- something which users might be lead to believe when it is called a
\begin_inset Quotes eld
\end_inset
secure connection
\begin_inset Quotes erd
\end_inset
as well as through the use of
\begin_inset Quotes eld
\end_inset
security symbols
\begin_inset Quotes erd
\end_inset
such as padlocks.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Enumerate
The use of known, confirmed third-party trackers and other third-party services
for different classes of domains, has been analyzed.
Using public lists of potential tracker domains, we analyzed and compared
the wide spread adaption of these services across domains within Sweden,
as well as internationally.
The use of external resources is high among all classes of domains (see
Section
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand ref
reference "sec:Results-Internal-and-external-requests"
\end_inset
).
Web sites using strictly internal resources are less than 7% of top sites,
even less in most categories of curated lists of Swedish websites, while
it is more common among random domains at 10-30%.
This means most web sites around the world have made an active choice to
install external resources from third-party services, which means that
users' traffic data and personal information is leaked (see Section
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand ref
reference "sec:Results-Tracker-detection"
\end_inset
).
Most websites also have at least one known tracker present; 53-72% of random
domains have at least one tracker installed, while 88-98% of top websites
have trackers and 78-100% of websites in the Swedish curated lists.
The number of known tracker organizations is interesting to look at, as
a higher number means users have less control over where leaked data ends
up
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand eqref
reference "sub:Organizations-per-domain"
\end_inset
.
Around 55% of random Swedish domains have 1-3 trackers, and about 5% have
more than 3.
Nearly 50% of global top sites load resources from 3 or more tracker organizati
ons, while about 5% load from more than 20 organizations.
Half of the Swedish media websites load more than 6 known trackers; a single
visit to the front page of each of the 27 investigated sites would leak
information in over
\begin_inset ERT
status open
\begin_layout Plain Layout
\backslash
numprint{3800}
\end_layout
\end_inset
external requests
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand eqref
reference "sec:Request-counts"
\end_inset
to at least 57 organizations
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand eqref
reference "sub:Domain-and-organization-counts"
\end_inset
.
This means that any guesswork in what types of articles individuals read
would read in a printed newspaper is gone -- and with that probably the
guesswork in exactly what kind of
\emph on
personal opinions
\emph default
these individuals hold.
It is clear that Google has the widest coverage by far -- Google trackers
alone are present on
\emph on
over 90%
\emph default
of websites in over half of the datasets
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand eqref
reference "sub:Google's-coverage-is-impressive"
\end_inset
.
That being said, it is also hard to tell how many trackers are missed --
Disconnect's blocking list
\emph on
only detect 10%
\emph default
of external primary domains as trackers for top website datasets
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand eqref
reference "sub:Tracker-detection-effectiveness"
\end_inset
.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Chapter
Background
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
In everyday web browsing, browsers routinely access a lot of material from
other domains or services than the one visited
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Feldmann:2004:MEI:1028788.1028833"
\end_inset
.
These external resources vary from content that the user explicitly want
to obtain, to implicitly loaded third-party services, ads, and non-visible
resources with the sole purpose of collecting user data and statistical
material
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Krishnamurthy:2006:CMC:1135777.1135829"
\end_inset
.
All are downloaded on behalf of the user with no or few limitations, and
oftentimes without the user's need, understanding and explicit consent.
These external resources can all be seen as browsing habit trackers, whose
knowledge and power increase with any additional visits to other domains
or services loading the same resources
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Malandrino:2013:PAI:2517840.2517868"
\end_inset
.
While privacy is both hard to define as well as relative to perspective
and context, there is a correlation between trackers and online privacy;
more trackers means it becomes harder to control the flow of personal informati
on and get an overview of where data ends up
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Smith:2011aa,Bylund:2013:978-91-87379-12-3:integritet"
\end_inset
.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Section
Trackers are a commercial choice
\begin_inset CommandInset label
LatexCommand label
name "sec:Trackers-are-a-commercial-choice"
\end_inset
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
While online privacy has been in the spotlight due to recently uncovered
mass surveillance operations, the focus has been on national government
intelligence agencies collecting information around the globe.
Public worry regarding surveillance in Sweden is low.
Only 9% of adult Swedish internet users say they worry to some degree about
government surveillance, but at 20% twice as many worry about companies'
surveillance -- a number that has been steadily rising from 11% in 2011
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Ahlgren:2014aa,Findahl:2014aa"
\end_inset
.
Governments are able to intercept traffic data and metadata by, among several
techniques,
\emph on
covertly
\emph default
hooking into the internet infrastructure and passively listening.
Basic connection metadata can always be collected, but without secure connectio
ns between client and server, any detail in the contents of each request
can be extracted.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
In contrast, external resources are approved by and actively installed by
site and service owners, and presented openly to users with basic technical
skills and tools.
Reasons can be technical, for example because distributing resources among
systems improves performance
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Krishnamurthy:2006:CMC:1135777.1135829,Krishnamurthy:2000:AFI:347319.346248"
\end_inset
.
Other times it is because there are positive network effects in using a
third-party online social network (OSN) to promote content and products.
Ads are installed as a source of income.
More and more commonly, allowing a non-visible tracker to be installed
can also become a source of income -- data aggregation companies pay for
access to users' data on the right site with the right quantity and quality
of visitors.
Because these external resources are used on behalf of the service, they
are also loaded when end-to-end encryption with HTTPS is enabled for enhanced
privacy and security.
This encryption bypass gives these private trackers more information than
possible with large-scale passive traffic interception, even when there
is a security nullifying mixture of encrypted and unencrypted connections.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Section
What is known by trackers?
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
Depending on what activities a user performs online, different things can
be inferred by trackers on sites where they are installed.
For example, a tracker on a news site can draw conclusions about interests
from content a user reads (or choses
\emph on
not
\emph default
to) by tagging articles with refined keywords and creating an interest
graph
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Kumar:2013:GBT:2522548.2523129"
\end_inset
.
The range of taggable interests of course depend on the content of the
news site.
Private and sensitive information leaked to third-party sites during typical
interaction with some of the most popular sites in the world include personal
identification (full name, date of birth, email, ip address, geolocation)
and sensitive information (sexual orientation, religious beliefs, health
issues)
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Malandrino:2013:PAI:2517840.2517868"
\end_inset
.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
Social buttons, allowing users to share links with a simple click, are tracking
users whether they are registered or not, logged in or not
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Roosendaal:2010:likethis"
\end_inset
.
They are especially powerful when the user is registered and logged in,
combining the full self-provided details of the user with their browsing
habits -- all within the bounds of the services' privacy policies agreed
to by the user.
Once a user has provided their personal information, it is no longer just
the individual browser or device being tracked, but the actual
\emph on
person
\emph default
using it -- even after logging out
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Kontaxis:2012:PSP:2362793.2362823,Krishnamurthy:2008:CPO:1397735.1397744"
\end_inset
.
This direct association, as opposed to inferred, to the person also allows
for tracking across devices where there is an overlap of services used.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Section
What is the information used for?
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
Publishers reserve areas of their web pages for displaying different kinds
and sizes of advertisements alongside content.
Ads chosen for the site may be aligned with the content but it is more
valuable the more is known about the visitors.
Combining and aggregating information from past visitors means that more
information can be assumed about future visitors, on a statistical basis,
which will define the general audience of the site.
To generate even more revenue per displayed ad, individual users are
\emph on
targeted
\emph default
with
\emph on
personalized
\emph default
ads depending on their specific personal data and browsing history
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Gill:2013:BPF:2504730.2504768"
\end_inset
.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
Indicators such as geographic location, hardware platform/browser combinations
have been shown to result in
\emph on
price steering
\emph default
and
\emph on
price discrimination
\emph default
on some e-commerce websites
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Hannak:2014:MPD:2663716.2663744,Mikians:2013:CSP:2535372.2535415"
\end_inset
.
While the effects of a web-wide user tracking have not been broadly measured
with regards to pricing in e-commerce, using a larger and broader portion
of a user's internet history and contributions would be a logical step
for online shopping, as it has been used to personalize web search results
and social network update feeds
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Dou:2007:LEA:1242572.1242651,Pariser:2011:filterbubble"
\end_inset
.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
Social networks can use website tracking data about their users' to increase
per-user advertising incomes by personalization, but they will try to keep
most of the information to themselves
\begin_inset CommandInset citation
LatexCommand cite
key "Saez-Trumper:2014:BCC:2660460.2660477,Aimeur:2013:SIP:2545118.2545186,Yuan:2013:WKY:2512938.2512945"
\end_inset
.
There are also companies that only collect information for resale --
\emph on
data brokers
\emph default
or
\emph on
data aggregators
\emph default
-- which thrive on combining data sources and package them as targeted
information for other companies to consume
\begin_inset Foot
status open
\begin_layout Plain Layout
CBS 60 Minutes --
\emph on
The Data Brokers: Selling your personal information
\emph default
\begin_inset CommandInset href
LatexCommand href
target "http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-data-brokers-selling-your-personal-information/"
\end_inset
\end_layout
\end_inset
.
The market for tracking data resale is expected to grow, as the amount
of data increases and quality improves.
The Wall Street Journal investigated some of these companies and their
offerings:
\end_layout
\begin_layout Quote
Some brokers categorize consumers as "Getting By," "Compulsive Online Gamblers"
and "Zero Mobility" and advertise the lists as ideal leads for banks, credit-ca
rd issuers and payday and subprime lenders, according to a review of data
brokers' websites.
One company offers lists of "Underbanked Prime Prospects" broken down by
race.
Others include "Kaching! Let it Ride Compulsive Online Gamblers" and "Speedy
Dinero," described as Hispanics in need of fast cash receptive to subprime
credit offers.
\begin_inset Foot
status open
\begin_layout Plain Layout
Wall Street Journal --
\emph on
Data Brokers Come Under Fresh Scrutiny; Consumer Profiles Marketed to Lenders
\emph default
\begin_inset CommandInset href
LatexCommand href
target "http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303874504579377164099831516"
\end_inset
\end_layout
\end_inset
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
\begin_inset Note Note
status open
\begin_layout Plain Layout
How much does the average user know about external resources being trackers?
\end_layout
\end_inset
\end_layout
\begin_layout Chapter
Methodology
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
Emphasis for the thesis is on a technical analysis, producing aggregate
numbers regarding domains and external resources.
Social aspects and privacy concerns are considered out of scope.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Section
High level overview
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
Based on a list of domains, the front page of each domain is downloaded
and parsed the way a user's browser would.
The URL of each requested resource is extracted, and associated with the
domain it was loaded from.
This data is then classified in a number of ways, before being boiled down
to statistics about the entire dataset.
Lastly, these aggregates are compared between datasets.
In the following sections we describe each of these steps in more detail.
For yet more details of the methodology, we refer to Appendix
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand vref
reference "chap:Methodology-details"
\end_inset
.
The software developed is described in Appendix
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand ref
reference "chap:Software"
\end_inset
and the details of the results are presented in Appendix
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand vref
reference "chap:Detailed-Results"
\end_inset
.
\end_layout
\begin_layout Standard
The thesis is primarily written from a Swedish perspective.
This is in part because .SE
\begin_inset Foot
status open
\begin_layout Plain Layout
This thesis was written in the office of The Internet Infrastructure Foundation
(.SE), the .se TLD registry.
\end_layout
\end_inset
has access to the full list of Swedish .se domains, and in part because
of their previous work with the
\emph on
.SE Health Status
\emph default
reports
\begin_inset CommandInset ref
LatexCommand ref
reference "sub:.SE-Health-Status"