Related papers: Anatomy of the Third-Party Web Tracking Ecosystem
Several studies have been conducted on understanding third-party user tracking on the web. However, web trackers can only track users on sites where they are embedded by the publisher, thus obtaining a fragmented view of a user's online…
Social group detection, or the identification of humans involved in reciprocal interpersonal interactions (e.g., family members, friends, and customers and merchants), is a crucial component of social intelligence needed for agents…
Privacy regulations have led to many websites showing cookie banners to their users. Usually, cookie banners present the user with the option to "accept" or "reject" cookies. Recently, a new form of paywall-like cookie banner has taken hold…
Our understanding of gender differences in mobility is marked by a clear tension: surveys portray women's movements as more complex than men's, while digital traces suggest less diverse travel. Here, we resolve the contradiction by modeling…
The W3C's Geolocation API may rapidly standardize the transmission of location information on the Web, but, in dealing with such sensitive information, it also raises serious privacy concerns. We analyze the manner and extent to which the…
This paper offers a new privacy approach for the growing ecosystem of services -- ranging from open banking to healthcare -- dependent on sensitive personal data sharing between individuals and third parties. While these services offer…
While much current web privacy research focuses on browser fingerprinting, the boring fact is that the majority of current third-party web tracking is conducted using traditional, persistent-state identifiers. One possible explanation for…
Location data collection has become widespread with smart phones becoming ubiquitous. Smart phone apps often collect precise location data from users by offering \textit{free} services and then monetize it for advertising and marketing…
Free web proxies promise anonymity and censorship circumvention at no cost. Several websites publish lists of free proxies organized by country, anonymity level, and performance. These lists index hundreds of thousand of hosts discovered…
Much attention has focused on algorithmic audits and impact assessments to hold developers and users of algorithmic systems accountable. But existing algorithmic accountability policy approaches have neglected the lessons from…
Collection of user's location and trajectory information that contains rich personal privacy in mobile social networks has become easier for attackers. Network traffic control is an important network system which can solve some security and…
The internet has been blurring the lines between local and global cultures, affecting in different ways the perception of people about themselves and others. In the global context of the internet, search engine platforms are a key mediator…
Location and mobility patterns of individuals are important to environmental planning, societal resilience, public health, and a host of commercial applications. Mining telecommunication traffic and transactions data for such purposes is…
Despite the important role of sidewalks in supporting mobility, accessibility, and public health, there is a lack of high-quality datasets and corresponding analyses on sidewalk existence and condition. Our work explores a twofold vision:…
The wide spread of false information online including misinformation and disinformation has become a major problem for our highly digitised and globalised society. A lot of research has been done to better understand different aspects of…
Data sent over the Internet can be monitored and manipulated by intermediate entities in the data path from the source to the destination. For unencrypted communications (and some encrypted communications with known weaknesses),…
Browser fingerprinting is a pervasive online tracking technique used increasingly often for profiling and targeted advertising. Prior research on the prevalence of fingerprinting heavily relied on automated web crawls, which inherently…
Scams are a widespread issue with severe consequences for both victims and perpetrators, but existing data collection is fragmented, precluding global and comparative local understanding. The present study addresses this gap through a…
Websites employ third-party ads and tracking services leveraging cookies and JavaScript code, to deliver ads and track users' behavior, causing privacy concerns. To limit online tracking and block advertisements, several ad-blocking (black)…
Maritime systems, including ships and ports, are critical components of global infrastructure, essential for transporting over 80% of the world's goods and supporting internet connectivity. However, these systems face growing cybersecurity…