On tcp migration and internet privacy
Ramki Thurimella, Hailin Wu · 2004
In the first half of the dissertation, we present techniques to allow TCP-based Internet services involving long-running connections to survive server crashes. We design these techniques with efficiency, simplicity and easy deployability in mind and build a system which can migrate services such as HTTP, SMTP, FTP, etc on combinations of multiple platforms. We extend our system further to work with secure TCP connections using SSH as an example. The end result is a practical, client-transparent drop-in system which adds significant robustness to almost all existing network services. The simplicity and immediate applicability of the techniques demonstrated make our system attractive for adoption in commercial product development. The Internet was designed as an inherently insecure communications vehicle. The lack of privacy on the Internet thwarts the development of Internet and ecommerce. Therefore, it is important to do research to educate both the consumers and online companies on this important issue. In the second half of the dissertation, we investigate and reveal a hidden surveillance technique on the Web - Web bug. We then conduct comprehensive survey on the usage of such technique by U.S. commercial Web sites and discover that over ½ of random site and f over of popular sites use Web bug as a means of hidden surveillance tool. We also investigate several Web browser extension products to discover their privacy related behavior and report that the majority of them do not show appropriate respect for the privacy of the computer user. We compare our research findings with the latest standards and provide recommendations to the industry.