A Study of Device Fingerprinting Methods

Security and privacy are the two most important issues in today’s world of Internet and communication. Most of us might think of privacy as an area of concern for those with highly sensitive data but actually, each one of us gets tracked the moment we open up our browsers. This paper tries to explore most of the major unconventional approaches of online tracking with their suitable classification into different categories. Also, it discusses how the extensions claiming of privacy enhancement themselves become a victim of the process. Further, the paper highlights the enhancement in the accuracy of the fingerprint due to the addition of the hardware and network-based techniques and the methods that can be opted to achieve an optimum level of privacy for the users in general.