| Mobile Web

New SSD-based web tracking technique can infer activity after single site visit

A newly disclosed web tracking technique can analyse SSD activity inside a browser to infer other websites a user is viewing and even apps running elsewhere. Researchers presented a contention-based side-channel method called Frost that repeatedly accesses large files in the browser’s Origin Private File System and measures tiny SSD I/O latency differences. They said the data can be analysed with a pre-trained convolutional neural network model. The method faces constraints, including the need for very large files and storage placement on the same SSD.