A Formalization of Fingerprinting Techniques

Fingerprinting techniques aim to identify objects such as devices, data, users, or even attacks, based on distinctive characteristics. In the context of computer network security, these techniques have been proposed and successfully applied in different application scenarios and with different goals in mind, e.g., to detect attacks or even to perform attacks. However, the related works in this field do not follow a consistent definition and notation of fingerprinting. Hence, central concepts such as uniqueness are mistakenly confused. In this paper, we tackle this issue by proposing a novel formalization approach of fingerprinting techniques. Our formal model is based on clear mathematical definitions and centered around the concept of a fingerprinting feature as a distinctive characteristic. We apply our formal model in two different application scenarios of remarkable research interest to illustrate its validity, flexibility and universality.