Network Performance Evaluation within the Web Browser Sandbox

With the rising popularity of Web-based applications, the Web browser platform is becoming the dominant environment in which users interact with Internet content. We investigate methods of discovering information about network performance characteristics through the use of the Web browser, requiring only minimal user participation (navigating to a Web page). We focus on the analysis of explicit and implicit network operations performed by the browser (JavaScript XMLHTTPRequest and HTML DOM object loading) as well as by the Flash plug-in to evaluate network performance characteristics of a connecting client. We analyze the results of a performance study, focusing on the relative differences and similarities between download, upload and round-trip time results obtained in different browsers. We evaluate the accuracy of browser events indicating incoming data, comparing their timing to information obtained from the network layer. We also discuss alternative applications of the developed techniques, including measuring packet reception variability in a simulated streaming protocol. Our results confirm that browser-based measurements closely correspond to those obtained using standard tools in most scenarios. Our analysis of implicit communication mechanisms suggests that it is possible to make enhancements to existing “speedtest” services by allowing them to reliably determine download throughput and round-trip time to arbitrary Internet hosts. We conclude that browser-based measurement using techniques developed in this work can be an important component of network performance studies

Voces del Caribe -- A Digital Repository

Voces del Caribe is a collaboratively developed digital repository of cultural resources from the Caribbean. For this project we researched and evaluated choices for creating digital archives, and developed the design framework for the Voces del Caribe on-line system. The result is a bilingual website presenting information about Caribbean culture grouped into sections devoted to arts, film, language, history and music, and containing related information of use to scholars and students of Caribbean cultural heritage

On the Uniqueness of Web Browsing History Patterns

International audienceWe present the results of the first large-scale study of the uniqueness of Web browsing histories, gathered from a total of $368,284$ Internet users who visited a history detection demonstration website. Our results show that for a majority of users ($69\%$), the browsing history is unique and that users for whom we could detect at least $4$ visited websites were uniquely identified by their histories in $97\%$ of cases. We observe a significant rate of stability in browser history fingerprints: for repeat visitors, $38\%$ of fingerprints are identical over time, and differing ones were correlated with original history contents, indicating static browsing preferences (for history subvectors of size $50$). We report a striking result that it is enough to test for a small number of pages in order to both enumerate users' interests and perform an efficient and unique behavioral fingerprint; we show that testing $50$ web pages is enough to fingerprint $42\%$ of users in our database, increasing to $70\%$ with $500$ web pages

Virtutopia: A Framework for Virtual Environments

Virtutopia is a framework for the design and maintenance of persistent virtual online worlds. In this project we designed, implemented and evaluated a proposed architecture for the first stage of Virtutopia. The initial architecture provides capabilities for networking, defining objects and behaviors, receiving user input and rendering output. The outcome is a network system, utilizing a hybrid client-server peer-to-peer architecture, combined with a 3D client interface capable of interacting with other clients in the virtual world

Online interface to an FPGA-based true random number generator.

This project outlines the development of a Web-based interface to an FPGA-based true random number generator (TRNG). The result is a Linux-based system, implemented on a Digilent Virtex II-Pro digital board, providing a general means of retrieving data from an arbitrary FPGA configuration. As a proof-of-concept two simple applications are described and demonstrated. The first application creates a random color table from data acquired from the TRNG; the second application serves as a generator for secure, unpredictable passwords

Why johnny can’t browse in peace: On the uniqueness of web browsing history pattern

We present the results of the first large-scale study of the uniqueness of Web browsing histories, gathered from a total of 368, 284 Internet users who visited a history detection demonstration website. Our results show that for a majority of users (69%), the browsing history is unique and that users for whom we could detect at least 4 visited websites were uniquely identified by their histories in 97 % of cases. We observe a significant rate of stability in browser history fingerprints: for repeat visitors, 38% of fingerprints are identical over time, and differing ones were correlated with original history contents, indicating static browsing preferences (for history subvectors of size 50). We report a striking result that it is enough to test for a small number of pages in order to both enumerate users ’ interests and perform an efficient and unique behavioral fingerprint; we show that testing 50 web pages is enough to fingerprint 42 % of users in our database, increasing to 70 % with 500 web pages. Finally, we show that indirect history data, such as information about categories of visited websites can also be effective in fingerprinting users, and that similar fingerprinting can be performed by common script providers such as Google or Facebook.