Sensor Characteristics Uniquely Identify Individual Phones

An anonymous reader writes "SFGate reports that Stanford researchers have figured out a way to generate a unique fingerprint from a cell phone's suite of built-in sensors. The tiny accelerometers, gyroscopes, microphones, and speakers in cell phones have characteristics that vary slightly from handset to handset, and these variations may contain enough information to uniquely identify a given handset. How that information might get from the phone to a third party varies (the article describes a JavaScript snippet reading the Z-axis accelerometer, though it says little about how the user might block such information from being read), but the possibility for abuse is certainly troubling."

Comments

... nothing new.

[nbvb]

Cell phones have been identifiable by RF fingerprinting for many, many years.

Was a common anti-fraud technique in the analog cellular days.

Re:... nothing new.

[Shoten]

Cell phones have been identifiable by RF fingerprinting for many, many years.

Was a common anti-fraud technique in the analog cellular days.

Yes, but RF fingerprinting requires proximity to the cell phone. This is a form of fingerprinting that can be done to large population en masse from pretty much anywhere. This is actually something *very* new.

Uh, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

The possibility for abuse is troubling. Really?

Android: android.telephony.TelephonyManager.getDeviceId()
iOS: NSString* uniqueID = [UIDevice currentDevice].uniqueIdentifier;
WindPhone: Dunno don't do anything for it, I assume it's part of the API as well.

So yes, tell me more about this "troubling" ability to build a fingerprint of questionable accuracy on a device to uniquely ID it even when you can just READ THE UNIQUE DEVICE ID right from it to start with.

How long ...

[gstoddart]

How long before we have Minority Report type crimes?

"Sir, you're going to have to have to come with us. Our metadata surveillance indicates you are likely to commit a crime, and our tracking of your phone indicates you were recently at a hardware store. We need to take you to the internment camp."

Some days I just want to turn into Reg the Blank and hide.

When they can know everything about you even when you've done nothing wrong, you're not so much free anymore as you are being allowed to pretend you are until such time as they decide to cart you off.