Audio Latency Drift

Detection approach

AudioContext.outputLatency is exactly 0.0 or 0.1 seconds. Real audio drivers exhibit non-deterministic latency tied to the DAC buffer cycle. A hardcoded zero or 0.1 value is a signature of headless Chrome or a virtual machine without a real sound card.

How this helps detect bots

Collect this signal alongside session context, request metadata, and other independent indicators. A single anomaly is a lead, not a verdict; corroborating anomalies make automated traffic more likely.

Legitimate traffic to consider

Virtualized audio setups, or system soundcards with hardcoded latency reporting.