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Over 200 Android Apps Are Currently Using Ultrasonic Beacons To Track Users (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by msmash on from the privacy-woes dept.

Catalin Cimpanu, writing for BleepingComputer: A team of researchers from the Brunswick Technical University in Germany has discovered an alarming number of Android apps (234, to be exact) that employ ultrasonic tracking beacons to track users and their nearby environment. Their research paper focused on the technology of ultrasound cross-device tracking (uXDT) that became very popular in the last three years. uXDT is the practice of advertisers hiding ultrasounds in their ads. When the ad plays on a TV or radio, or some ad code runs on a mobile or computer, it emits ultrasounds that are picked up by the microphone of nearby laptops, desktops, tablets or smartphones. SDKs embedded in apps installed on those devices relay the beacon back to the online advertiser, who then knows that the user of TV "x" is also the owner of smartphone "Y" and links their two previous advertising profiles together, creating a broader picture of the user's interests, device portfolio, home, and even family members.

6 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Rearch paper for this. by mystik · · Score: 5, Informative

    Cited research paper:

    http://christian.wressnegger.i...

    Found via the reddit thread on the same topic, It names a few of the apps, primarily using the SilverPush library.

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    Why aren't you encrypting your e-mail?
  2. Re:I call bullshit by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yep, it occurred to a number of people. That's why they're using 18K or so as the frequency. Remember, there isn't a hard wall cutoff here, just a drop in response. If all you're trying to do is send a couple of bytes of information, you can be slow and sloppy.

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    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  3. the apps/developers by nomadic · · Score: 4, Informative

    According to the article, offending apps seem to be mostly from India and the Philippines. They list 5 "representative apps" with developers:

    Application Name Developer Version Downloads
    100000+ SMS Messages Moziberg 2.4 1,000,000 – 5,000,000
    McDo Philippines Golden Arches Dev. Corp. 1.4.27 100,000 – 500,000
    Krispy Kreme Philippines Mobext 1.9 100,000 – 500,000
    Pinoy Henyo Jayson Tamayo 4.0 1,000,000 – 5,000,000
    Civil Service Reviewer Free Jayson Tamayo 1.1 50,000 – 100,000
    TABLE 2: Third-party applications with SilverPush functionality

    1. Re:the apps/developers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Xaxis, who is owned by WPP (one of the largest marketing agencies on the planet) has been selling this service for a few years: https://www.xaxis.com/products/view/xaxis-sync

  4. Re:Oy, how to block this? by ctilsie242 · · Score: 5, Informative

    XPrivacy used to do exactly this on Android. An app wanting a GPS location? Here is one. Contact info? Here is a randomly generated list. Ad IDS? Pick a 128 bit number.

  5. Re:Oy, how to block this? by EndlessNameless · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is this thing called age-related hearing loss. By the time they're in their 30s and 40s, most people will be lucky to hear 15 KHz. It is not uncommon to have healthy adults who are unable to hear above 10K-12K.

    Do you care to adjust your opinion in light of reality? Because you can google this if you don't want to take my word for it. Age-related hearing loss, aka presbyacusis, is very much an established fact.

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    According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.