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Some Android apps caught covertly sending GPS data to advertisers

40 points by lotusleaf1987 16y ago

gte910h 16y ago
And what about the web sites which essentially do the same? Geo IP....
poundy 16y ago
I don't understand technology behind app approval, code review, etc. But, would this happen in the iOS app store? Given their more stringent approval process?
- ergo98 16y ago
  An application in the Apple app store purported to be a flashlight app but was actually a tethering application: There was no secret binary obfuscation or amazing hacking, it just simply said "I am A" while actually being B. That should give insight into the depth of analysis that occurs with Apple's curation: they are concerned about functionality overlap and other high level things, and there are zero guarantees that the application does what it says it does. On Android there are very granular permissions, and an application cannot do anything -- like getting your coarse or fine position -- that it wasn't specifically granted rights to, however like the article mentions it's hardly difficult to social engineer an explanation for why the right should exist. And of course, sometimes benign apps do need far reaching rights in a way that causes user security fatigue. Barcode Scanner, for instance, scans barcodes and looks up products, yet on install it demands -- all or nothing -- that it have access to your contacts. That concerned me greatly, but I later learned that it can also generate barcodes for your contacts. Android security can be improved. For instance apps should have optional right requests. I would say no to contacts on Barcode Scanner, for instance, and it should live without that right, just as I would say "no" to a game where I don't use geolocation matching for if it wants positional data. There should also be the option for an "on use" right setting, where, for instance, whenever it asks for my fine position I have to individually grant that right, which is the one thing that iOS does right. This is ultimately simply an installer issue -- the reality is that apps already can probe to see if a given right is available, and can enable/disable functionality based upon it. All that is needed is for the installer to provide the boolean. Overall, though, I feel far more secure with the granular permissions model of Android than with the all-or-nothing (aside from fine position) iOS model.
  - StavrosK 16y ago
    I don't have an Android device, but what you describe is half-way to a fantastic OS. If each application could specify some text for a permission, the installer could then display it to the user ("This application wants to access your contacts for the following reason: Generating barcodes for contacts") and the user could check/uncheck what he wanted. Obviously, almost everyone would just press "accept" all the time, but users could become more and more educated about security (it's not that hard to grasp that an app needs access to contacts), and that security model would possibly be the best of both worlds.
- jsz0 16y ago
  I'm sure it could get past the App Store approval but launching the app is going to prompt the user to allow location information to be sent. Depending on the application this would raise some red flags for the user. Most importantly there's no downside to not allowing location so the user isn't punished for saying no in the same way that an Android app simply won't install if you don't accept the laundry list of permissions it requests.
meelash 16y ago
Here is the actual research paper that this news story is based on: http://appanalysis.org/tdroid10.pdf http://appanalysis.org/tdroid10.pdf Also addressing the point by ergo98 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1744151 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1744151, a single anecdote does not a convincing argument make. iOS's approval process has a number of explicitly stated goals, one of which is preventing what is happening in this case. So mentioning one app that happened to sneak by the approval process for a short amount of time is meaningless for drawing any real conclusions. In general, having all the permissions of an app determined at install time seems very flawed to me (whether or not those permissions are optional). Why not ask for permission, when necessary, during the app use, so the user knows exactly what is requiring those permissions? That model is used by desktop apps, and it is the way I would implement it. The up-front permissions model is like sites that ask for your email first before they allow you to read their content- generally scams.
- ergo98 16y ago
  >Also addressing the point by ergo98 The reply button is available for your convenience. >a single anecdote does not a convincing argument make It isn't an anecdote. People submit binaries to Apple, and they either do static and dynamic code analysis, or they don't. I have never heard about them rejecting an application based upon such analysis, and in this case we know that it was an incredible deviation from the stated purpose. But let's assume they do start doing such analysis -- because they have such a limited runtime security check, to circumvent it is trivial obfuscation. Of course developers needn't even bother with that. The reality is that we have no frigging clue what apps in the App Store are doing -- Android is an open enough, transparent enough ecosystem that it is an easy, obvious target for researchers. No one, to my knowledge, is doing similar analysis of the iOS market.
  - meelash 16y ago
    If I understand your point correctly, it can be summarized as "Applications are probably doing whatever the heck they want on iOS too, we just don't know about it." If that's not your general idea, please correct me. There are at least two problems with this statement: 1) You are contending that Apple is in an equally powerless position to prevent apps from deviating from stated purposes. Yet even the app in the anecdote you brought as an illustrative example has been removed by Apple. If any other iOS app was found to be in violation by anyone, and Apple found out about it, it could be removed immediately. In contrast, the apps tested in this research paper will likely still be in the Android marketplace one year from now, and because people don't read the news, they will likely be as popular. 2) I don't think it's really that difficult to do similar analysis on the iOS market at all. Just connect to the internet via a router with some kind of packet sniffing. Obviously, until someone actually does it, we're just guessing- you're guessing that apps on iOS are just as bad, and I'm guessing otherwise- but to blame the lack of information on iOS not being transparent enough for researchers doesn't seem accurate.
sixwing 16y ago
This is exactly the reason I'm loving the Privacy Advisor feature in the beta of Lookout's premium product.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

40 points by lotusleaf1987 16y ago

And what about the web sites which essentially do the same? Geo IP....

I don't understand technology behind app approval, code review, etc. But, would this happen in the iOS app store? Given their more stringent approval process?

ergo98 16y ago
An application in the Apple app store purported to be a flashlight app but was actually a tethering application: There was no secret binary obfuscation or amazing hacking, it just simply said "I am A" while actually being B. That should give insight into the depth of analysis that occurs with Apple's curation: they are concerned about functionality overlap and other high level things, and there are zero guarantees that the application does what it says it does. On Android there are very granular permissions, and an application cannot do anything -- like getting your coarse or fine position -- that it wasn't specifically granted rights to, however like the article mentions it's hardly difficult to social engineer an explanation for why the right should exist. And of course, sometimes benign apps do need far reaching rights in a way that causes user security fatigue. Barcode Scanner, for instance, scans barcodes and looks up products, yet on install it demands -- all or nothing -- that it have access to your contacts. That concerned me greatly, but I later learned that it can also generate barcodes for your contacts. Android security can be improved. For instance apps should have optional right requests. I would say no to contacts on Barcode Scanner, for instance, and it should live without that right, just as I would say "no" to a game where I don't use geolocation matching for if it wants positional data. There should also be the option for an "on use" right setting, where, for instance, whenever it asks for my fine position I have to individually grant that right, which is the one thing that iOS does right. This is ultimately simply an installer issue -- the reality is that apps already can probe to see if a given right is available, and can enable/disable functionality based upon it. All that is needed is for the installer to provide the boolean. Overall, though, I feel far more secure with the granular permissions model of Android than with the all-or-nothing (aside from fine position) iOS model.
- StavrosK 16y ago
  I don't have an Android device, but what you describe is half-way to a fantastic OS. If each application could specify some text for a permission, the installer could then display it to the user ("This application wants to access your contacts for the following reason: Generating barcodes for contacts") and the user could check/uncheck what he wanted. Obviously, almost everyone would just press "accept" all the time, but users could become more and more educated about security (it's not that hard to grasp that an app needs access to contacts), and that security model would possibly be the best of both worlds.
jsz0 16y ago
I'm sure it could get past the App Store approval but launching the app is going to prompt the user to allow location information to be sent. Depending on the application this would raise some red flags for the user. Most importantly there's no downside to not allowing location so the user isn't punished for saying no in the same way that an Android app simply won't install if you don't accept the laundry list of permissions it requests.

meelash 16y ago

Here is the actual research paper that this news story is based on: http://appanalysis.org/tdroid10.pdf http://appanalysis.org/tdroid10.pdf Also addressing the point by ergo98 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1744151 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1744151, a single anecdote does not a convincing argument make. iOS's approval process has a number of explicitly stated goals, one of which is preventing what is happening in this case. So mentioning one app that happened to sneak by the approval process for a short amount of time is meaningless for drawing any real conclusions. In general, having all the permissions of an app determined at install time seems very flawed to me (whether or not those permissions are optional). Why not ask for permission, when necessary, during the app use, so the user knows exactly what is requiring those permissions? That model is used by desktop apps, and it is the way I would implement it. The up-front permissions model is like sites that ask for your email first before they allow you to read their content- generally scams.

ergo98 16y ago
>Also addressing the point by ergo98 The reply button is available for your convenience. >a single anecdote does not a convincing argument make It isn't an anecdote. People submit binaries to Apple, and they either do static and dynamic code analysis, or they don't. I have never heard about them rejecting an application based upon such analysis, and in this case we know that it was an incredible deviation from the stated purpose. But let's assume they do start doing such analysis -- because they have such a limited runtime security check, to circumvent it is trivial obfuscation. Of course developers needn't even bother with that. The reality is that we have no frigging clue what apps in the App Store are doing -- Android is an open enough, transparent enough ecosystem that it is an easy, obvious target for researchers. No one, to my knowledge, is doing similar analysis of the iOS market.
- meelash 16y ago
  If I understand your point correctly, it can be summarized as "Applications are probably doing whatever the heck they want on iOS too, we just don't know about it." If that's not your general idea, please correct me. There are at least two problems with this statement: 1) You are contending that Apple is in an equally powerless position to prevent apps from deviating from stated purposes. Yet even the app in the anecdote you brought as an illustrative example has been removed by Apple. If any other iOS app was found to be in violation by anyone, and Apple found out about it, it could be removed immediately. In contrast, the apps tested in this research paper will likely still be in the Android marketplace one year from now, and because people don't read the news, they will likely be as popular. 2) I don't think it's really that difficult to do similar analysis on the iOS market at all. Just connect to the internet via a router with some kind of packet sniffing. Obviously, until someone actually does it, we're just guessing- you're guessing that apps on iOS are just as bad, and I'm guessing otherwise- but to blame the lack of information on iOS not being transparent enough for researchers doesn't seem accurate.

sixwing 16y ago

This is exactly the reason I'm loving the Privacy Advisor feature in the beta of Lookout's premium product.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]