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Technology
Thursday, July 05, 2018
Researchers want to know if applications are spying on their users. They find no evidence for this, but they discover something else: Some apps secretly make video recordings and screen captures. Is it still legitimate or even criminal?
With a smartphone in your pocket, you can always be reached, determine your point of view by GPS, take pictures with the front and back camera and send and receive voice messages via the built-in microphones. But the multitude of sensors also scares some users: are there applications that spy on us? Secretly tap cameras and microphones? In search of snoop leads, researchers have now discovered that some apps are still spying on others
Brisanter as the Gmail affair?
That one should be careful when installing applications and carefully study the permissions you give the application, many know it. But supposedly harmless and reputable apps often know more about their users than they think. More recently, The Wall Street Journal has reported that app developers can read messages from Gmail users. But the scandal is smaller than it seems, because users have given their consent, even if it was not clear.
Another case that researchers at Boston's Northeastern University have discovered is different. In fact, they wanted to investigate whether apps like Instagram and WhatsApp secretly listen to their users and send audio to other servers, reports "Gizmodo". They examined the traffic of more than 17,000 popular Android apps, including more than 9,000 camera and microphone compatible apps and more than 8,000 apps sending data to Facebook. The good news: none of the applications studied found any evidence that they secretly intercepted their users and secretly sent audio to external servers
Screenshots and Videos unrecognized
But researchers have discovered something else: some applications seemingly unnoticed how users interact with them by taking screenshots and sharing screenshots and videos with third-party servers. The Gizmodo case was the "GoPuff" app, which provided the screen content to the servers of the "AppSee" service. AppSee uses the recordings to help application developers make their applications more user-friendly. However, the fact is that users usually do not know it or are not informed when their usage behavior is recorded.
Appsee emphasizes to Gizmodo that application developers who use its services must inform their users. this screen content may be registered by third parties. In addition, no personal data should be recorded. To guarantee this, customers could exclude certain parts of the application from being registered. But the application developers are responsible for that, in this case GoPuff.
After the announcement of espionage, GoPuff stated that it was no longer using the AppSee services and that it was removing the AppSee interface code of the application. AppSee, on the other hand, announced that it had disabled the tracking feature on GoPuff and removed all personal data from its servers.
Methods can also be used by criminals
Companies blame each other. But for the users, it is not the question of guilt. Much more scary, Gizmodo emphasizes how easy it is to record screen content and interactions in applications without users noticing. Finally, screen shots and video can contain private messages and personal information, and even reveal secret pbadwords: many applications briefly display the letter as it enters the pbadword before it starts. To be blackened
As with "AppSee", users must be informed that third parties can read the content. But in most cases, these clues are spongy and deeply hidden in terms and conditions – so most users will agree with them without knowing it. And if services like AppSee can easily save content to the screen, criminals can theoretically use the same methods to obtain sensitive data with the help of manipulated apps.
How researchers can effectively protect their behavior against on-screen recording is not revealed by the researchers. In addition, they do not exclude that some applications secretly spy on their users, even if they could not find any evidence for it. However, the problem is not just a secret photo of the screen, camera and microphone, says David Choffnes, one of the scientists involved: "People do not seem to realize that in life Everyday, can get a complete picture of a user. "
Source: n-tv.de
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