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The App That Tracks Who's Tracking You
Daniel_Stuckey writes "It's no secret that apps like maps or local weather know your current location, and you're probably cool with that because you want to use the handy services they provide in exchange. But chances are there are many other apps on your phone, anything from dictionaries to games, that are also geolocating your every move without your knowledge or permission. Now researchers are developing a new app to police these smartphone spies, by tracking which apps are secretly tracking you, and warning you about it.
Before your eyes glaze over at the mention of yet another privacy tool, it's worth noting that this new app is the first to be able to provide this line of defense between snooping apps and smartphone users for Android phones. Android's operating system is engineered not to allow apps to access information about other apps. But a team at Rutgers University found a way around that, by leveraging a function of Android's API to send a signal whenever an app requests location information from the operating system. MIT Technology Review reported on the research today."
The app should allow blocking of certain apps access to gps or whatever system they are trying to access. If my dictionary app is accessing my gps then allow me to block that app from using it.
Briefly reading TFA, these guys are analyzing people's reactions to various privacy-warning user interface options. Their baby app that heuristically monitors location-api usage is far less capable than xprivacy or its kin of android tools.
I can't find any good information on this either way, but in the past any Android app could read anything stored on external media - and some apps are stored to external media, meaning that any application could monitor them.
Is that still the case? Or do apps not have full read permissions on external media in Android if they are granted permission to access it?
Also on a side note it seems like if you grant an app permission to read SMS messages it could also monitor at least that activity...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It tracks you !!
(In Soviet Russia, they eat people !!)
Despite Google yanking App Ops out of Kit Kat in the latest update, you can still put it back in.
No need for Angry Birds to have access to your information. Simply limit what it can access and forget it.
There's a way for an app to discover and report on what other apps are doing? FAN-BLOODY-TASTIC! Because THAT'S not a security hole at all!
The actual metadata is collected at, or near, the source, they only download app "fixes" when you're actively being pursued.
So, this will give a false sense of security to the 99.9 percent of American citizens who are being tracked by the NSA in an Unconstitutional and Illegal manner.
Oh, and we know exactly where you are even when you turn off location services, btw.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I own an app that tracks the trackers that are being tracked by a tracker!
Or maybe, Android could deny approval of applications that try to seek location data for applications that have no location based function. Data mongering fuckers.
While an interesting hack, I wouldn't call it "research". Something like this may or may not be supported forever by Android, may not work on all versions, apps may find ways to hide from it, etc...
Seems a bit low-brow to come from MIT, I'd expect something like this from a guy named HedRandroid93 on the XDA forums.
This is an app that exploits a security hole to detect apps that are exploiting a security hole? What's wrong with this picture?
.. if you go hastefully through the ToS it is very easy to miss that _some_ data will be communicated to 'momma' server _anyway_, regardless of user control settings, and that they reserve the right to do basically whatever they want with it.
Their stated intentions for the collected data, should they (the company behind the addon, working with Mozilla for the time being) not be acquired, go bankrupt or 'experience corporate restructuring', is to produce a public internet map with it to show which megacorp is connected to which other megacorp- but there is no link or even a timeline for that, and they are not really clear as to what data they will make public, how, when and where.
I have my doubts for them, as I do for this app.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Don't apps like this already exist, just the phone has to be rooted? I think some of them even allow you to prevent the offending apps from sending data/accessing resources. Of course A version of Android DID allow you to do some basic restrictions before they disabled the capability for questionable reasons.
It's trackers all the way down.
"Yo, dawg! I heard you like....
Nah, it's just to easy.
What's wrong with this picture?
How much time do you have? How long is your attention span? Did you bring food?(this could take a long time)
I guessed you were asking a rhetorical question and already know some/most of the answers, so I did not elaborate.
If that was a serious question, reply back and I will try my best for you; if not, just ignore my stirring of the puddle. :-)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
To the best of my knowledge Android doesn't allow you to set specific permissions on the app, only to agree or disagree. (on my Nexus 7 2nd Gen)
Android, if they allow the app, will release a patch to stop the "exploit" it's using.
They also don't allow you to access attached USB storage without rooting or other "work around" apps.
There's a reason for this.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Android's operating system is engineered not to allow apps to access information about other apps. But a team at Rutgers University found a way around that, by leveraging a function of Android's API to send a signal whenever an app requests location information from the operating system.
"Android's operating system is engineered not to allow apps to access information about other apps"
"But a team at Rutgers University found a way around that, by leveraging a function of Android's API"
Mr Stuckey needs some edumacation
that's tracking the tracker that you are using to track who's tracking you?
With Android anyway, you have to accept all the access requests before it will download.
Privacy Guard blocks location access to whatever apps it is enabled for.
Generally though, I examine the permissions an app requests _before_ I install it, and if it wants permissions it doesn't need, I don't install it in the first place.
I heard you like tracking, so I put a tracking app to track apps that track you so you can track while being tracked.
It's called "Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services"
In addition to showing you which apps are using location services, you can also enable/disable on a per-app basis right here. Of those that are enabled, it shows you if an app has "recently" used your location, used it within 24 hours, or if it's using a geofence.
Immediately after reading the summary, I suspected this would just use "getLastKnownLocation" and correlate that with the foreground app. From searching through TFA, that is indeed the case. Technically, not very interesting at all.
How about an app that tracks who's tracking you, then mails thousands of junk e-mails to every officer in the companies tracking you.
Oh I dunno, my Galaxy becomes unstable enough with an average sized suite of apps. I can't see how adding more to tell you about the status of the status is really going to help.