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I'm always curious how exactly the fraud detection happens. Is Pixalate doing network analysis? App Analysis? Could I do the same thing myself with wireshark on

• z3t4 8y ago
  Basically all "spyware" traffic is encrypted, you can however see which IP's users of your network connects to (and some meta-data such as domain name, protocol and hand-shakes) using for example Wireshark or tcpdump. My guess is that the fraud is detected by monitoring the traffic on the ad server, see that a "impression" is registered from their test phone's IP, and by looking at the phone they affirm that no ad was displayed.
  • sdossick 8y ago
    It is functionally trivial to rotate IPs from the "test phones". There are shady brokers who will sell you Residential IP-based proxy servers (hacked home machines which will proxy your calls and make them appear to come from homes all around the world).
    • z3t4 8y ago
      I mean in an audit, the test person can install the app on a device he/she has physical access to. And conclude that his/her phone was registered on the ad agency logs, yet no ad where shown. The fraudsters could however make it so the phone only sends fake impressions after a certain amount of engagement, so that audit/test person would have to play "my little pony" eg the child game - for one week ...
• cf498 8y ago
  Quite alot of it is done be measuring the rate of clicks vs views and simple statistics. If people actually click on the ad, its a red flag and likely fraud.