RFC 6056 (Recommendations for Transport-Protocol Port Randomization)
provides good summary of why source selection needs extra care.
David Dworken reminded us that linux implements Algorithm 3
as described in RFC 6056 3.3.3
Quoting David :
In the context of the web, this creates an interesting info leak where
websites can count how many TCP connections a user's computer is
establishing over time. For example, this allows a website to count
exactly how many subresources a third party website loaded.
This also allows:
- Distinguishing between different users behind a VPN based on
distinct source port ranges.
- Tracking users over time across multiple networks.
- Covert communication channels between different browsers/browser
profiles running on the same computer
- Tracking what applications are running on a computer based on
the pattern of how fast source ports are getting incremented.
Section 3.3.4 describes an enhancement, that reduces
attackers ability to use the basic information currently
stored into the shared 'u32 hint'.
This change also decreases collision rate when
multiple applications need to connect() to
different destinations.
Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Reported-by: David Dworken <ddworken@google.com>
Cc: Willem de Bruijn <willemb@google.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
190cc82489