Hello,
Apologies if this is in the incorrect section. For my final year project I have decided to write a report comparing the effectiveness of the in-private features of IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari. During my research, I have come across a recent paper 'An Analysis of Private Browsing Modes in Modern Browsers' by Aggarwal et al.
This seems to be the only research paper that addresses private browsing - in my mind, this dashes my hope of doing my project, as it effectively concludes that 'private browsing isn't so private' - these results being the basis for several media reports .
Do you believe it is still worth me persevering with this project? I really liked the idea of doing this research, especially as it was suggested to me by a member of law enforcement.
Goodness knows how I will end up with a 100 page report as a result of this research!
Is the paper you mention the one out of Stanford ? I skim read that a while back.
I think there is still a project in this area. What your law enforcement friend might be interested in, and what I am certainly interested in are the artefacts (or lack of) left behind when a user has been dipping in and out of private browsing mode.
What files are cached, what history records are there, am I still going to find cookies ? What about Flash cookies ? How can I tell if a user has enabled private browsing ? How do the 4 main browsers differ in their implementation ? are the standard forensic tools still going to help me investigate internet history ?
So in conclusion i think a project that is a review of the effectiveness, you might have been beaten to the punch. A project that outlines how to investigate when these browsers have been used I think is wide open.
HTH
Thanks for replying. Yes, it's the Stanford paper. Some of the questions you have posed were included in my proposal, though your reply has made me feel a whole let better, so thanks!
If i'm allowed, and assuming I get worthwhile results, I could/will post up the final report on here.
No worries, I'm sure you will get some good results not least because you are aiming to share the outcome with the Forensic Focus community (if allowed) 😉
I just a MSc project on this it was quite interesting however I primarily focused on just the Internet Explorer version I would be really interested to see your work if possible )
One of the things i commented on in a reflection chapter is there is a still a lack of research around the Stanford paper is still the main paper around and he has only recently took it to a conference
Goodness knows how I will end up with a 100 page report as a result of this research!
24 point font should make it easy. )
Seriously, this is a very broad topic that should be more than fertile ground for you. As mentioned already in this thread, the quirks of IE private browsing alone are pretty interesting. The newly expanded SANS 408 course covers a lot of this IE content (Cheap plug, I know, and full disclosure that I'm in league with SANS), but there is also a lot of bits and pieces of research freely available out there on the various browsers private browsing modes.
A great project for someone would be to grab up all of the research that is out there, add their own to it and crank out a nice comprehensive paper.
I've just got back from meeting the project supervisor - i've been pipped to the post, so alas, I won't be doing this project (
I've lost all enthusiasm for doing a project now, but have some idea on what I want to do, I shall post that in the mobile phone forum. If there are any ideas floating around then it would be great to hear them!