Carleton University - School of Computer Science Honours Project
Fall 2019
Assessing Web Trustworthiness with DOM Explorer
Jess Cannarozzo
SCS Honours Project Image
ABSTRACT
In general, many technologically inexperienced users may have issues continuing to trust their bookmarked websites after changes to its user interface have been made. Client-side changes can range from large to small, from modifying the location of a button to changing the colour scheme. These changes can lead to user confusion and to a loss of web trustworthiness. DOM Explorer is a Google Chrome extension that observes and stores the Domain Object Model (DOM) of a bookmarked (version 1) or non-bookmarked (version 2) web-page to be compared to its earlier version. This can be used to monitor potentially malicious changes to the user’s trusted website, which can help to ensure safe activity while on their favourite webpage. Both synthetic and real-world results are explored based on version 2 of DOM Explorer, and were both expected and detailed as they correctly outlined every change made to a website’s DOM when comparing its predecessor. Attribute additions or removals, in-line script modifications, and element modifications were all recorded within DOM Explorer’s ’Modifications’ panel with great accuracy, which demonstrated the application’s ability to function as a client-side detection for variations within the DOM.