Re: Oh no!
By coincidence we're shortly publishing research detailing similar side-channel analysis on movie theatres. Briefly there are two main leaks: 1) The screening room a cinema-goer enters can be correlated with published screening lists to reveal their personal movie choices, and 2) more seriously, many users discard their tickets when leaving the theatre and all but one of the chains we tested displayed the movie name in plaintext on those tickets. Recommended workarounds include watching Netflix instead, and living in the cinema watching ALL of the things, once, in premiere order.
Future work will include analysis of popcorn kiosks in cinemas, with the potential to uncover sensitive personal information about users including disposable income, price sensitivity, and whether they like popcorn or not.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
