Doppelganger: Better browser privacy without the bother

We introduce Doppelganger, a novel system for creating and enforcing fine-grained, privacy preserving browser cookie policies with low manual effort. Browser cookies pose privacy risks, since they can be used to track users' actions in detail, but some cookies also enable useful functionality, like personalization features. Web browsers currently lack an effective cookie management mechanism. Users must choose between two unpalatable options: a permissive, privacy-compromising policy for every site they visit, or a seemingly endless series of questions to which they must supply underinformed opinions. Doppelganger takes a big step forward: it makes automated determinations of cookies' value to enable a costbenefit analysis, and offers an automated recovery system when that mechanism--or the user--makes an incorrect judgment. Doppelganger leverages client-side parallelism to automatically and simultaneously explore multiple cookie policies, enabling each user to create her id...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: CCS
• Authors: Umesh Shankar, Chris Karlof
• Keywords: Browser Cookies, CCS 2006, Cookie, Cookie Policies, Security Privacy