CDNs and Privacy Threats: A Measurement Study

Abstract

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are distributed overlay networks that deliver con- tent to end users on behalf of origin websites. They have generally been treated by both origin websites and end users as trusted entities—as a result, there has been little study on potential privacy threats that arise from their widespread usage. In this thesis, we consider privacy threats posed by CDNs that have access to a large set of user browsing information. We examine CDN usage in top websites and discuss what inferences the most popular CDNs might be able to make about end users based on the quantity and nature of the content they deliver.