Probably just paranoid and misunderstanding something completely innocent but if this actually does indicate someone GPS tracking me then it's very important for me to know and take action, thanks!
Randomly was browsing my Logger debugger thing and noticed some things i didn't understand and hoping someone can shed some light on whats really happening because I don't want to jump to conclusions based on information I am not qualified to interpret.
What is happening in these instances (copied and pasted only the odd gps parts and put XXX's in place of numbers of my gf, roommate and other friend) search for gtx or gpstracking to see the main area of concern if i posted way too much, sorry
I had to attach it as a DOC because the forum said I couldn't post links to an outside website even tho I didn't and the code didn't appear to turn any of my text into a link but it must've i suppose
Can anyone shed some light on what the log displays and what occurred?
If not can someone maybe point me in the right direction to get my question answered? thanks!
Hm, InstaMapper and GTX do provide GPS tracking services. I'd look in Settings > Applications > Manage applications for anything GPS tracking related.. it does seem odd to me.
hmmm.... try flashing a new rom then and wiping everything because then if its a software tracker it will be gone
Thanks for the replies. Still kind of looking for confirmation on wether its an innocent bacground process tied to a program or if the phone numbers appearing with the process are somehow involved with either activating it or receiving my location.
Thanks!
Worrying article on how apps are using personal information.
www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/30/suspicious_android_apps/
I'm sick that they had to go too such lengths to find out. We need a better net architecture to enable a proper firewall to work.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Also, app naming FAIL!
Well, since they only tested 30 apps and won't release the names of the ones they tested, only saying that they are "the most popular", personally I don't buy it.
And the information these apps are sending out is primarily geolocation. Well, no ****. If an app wants your location and you don't think it should have it, it's either using it for ads or you should decline to install the app and just send an email to the dev asking him why he needs that information.
tjhart85 said:
Well, since they only tested 30 apps and won't release the names of the ones they tested, only saying that they are "the most popular", personally I don't buy it.
And the information these apps are sending out is primarily geolocation. Well, no ****. If an app wants your location and you don't think it should have it, it's either using it for ads or you should decline to install the app and just send an email to the dev asking him why he needs that information.
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Agreed... geolocation is pretty obviously straight forward. I don't know about the 'transmissing every 30 seconds' thing though.
Any thoughts ont he transmitting sim card and IMEI info?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnLujX1Dw4Y
Also discussed here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=795702
With explanation where to get it from http://www.appanalysis.org/
A very well-written reply by "Steven Knox" on The Register, demonstrating how this 'research' is simply a pile of intentionally-misleading statistical rubbish:
By selecting only from applications that access both personal data and the internet, they're overstating the significance of their study by about 3x. Furthermore, their summaries blur this distinction unnecessarily.
Specifically, their FAQ says "We studied just over 8% of the top 50 popular free applications in each category that had access to privacy sensitive information in order to get a sense of the behaviors of these applications." Since there were 22 categories at the time they did the study, that would imply (22*50=1,100 * 8% =) 88 applications. However, they actually only tested 30, because of the 1,100 top 50 applications only (from the PDF) "roughly a third of the applications (358 of the 1,100 applications) require Internet permissions along with permissions to access
either location, camera, or audio data." -- meaning that the other 742 apps don't have the necessary permissions to play badly. The clause "..that had access to privacy sensitive information in order to get a sense of the behaviors of these applications." from the FAQ is grammatically ambiguous in this case (it may refer to "applications" or "category"), and not specific enough to indicate that over 2/3 of the applications are (relatively) safe by dint of not having the necessary permissions.
They also didn't include in their study apps from 10 of the 22 categories, but they don't explain whether that was due to a) there not being any or enough applications in those categories that required internet and personal data permissions, b) a conscious choice to focus on the other 12 categories, or c) the results of random selection (with an explanation of why they did not use a stratified sample).
Once you factor back in the applications they ignored, the numbers don't look quite so bad. Assuming their sample was representative, 2/3 of the 358, or about 239 applications of the top 1,100 of the time use personal data suspiciously. That's about 21.7% or just over 1 in 5 -- still significant, but a far cry from 2 out of 3. In fact, the worst case maximum is actually 358 of 1,100 or just under 1 in 3 (32.45%) because they are as mentioned above the only ones that actually acquire the permissions necessary to do anything "suspicious".
I understand why both the researchers and the reporter used the 2/3 figure -- you all believe you have to sell the point as hard as possible*. But the real story is that it's likely that at least 1 in 5 Android Apps use private data "suspiciously" -- and that number is still high enough to cause concern and to justify the further use of tools like TaintDroid. It's a pity you didn't trust the facts enough to avoid the unnecessary sensationalism.
*I am assuming, here, that Mr. Goodin did actually read and digest the paper as I did, rather than simply picking out the figures from the study, the FAQ, or a press release.
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good spot. But one in ten woolf be too many. The point is we should have more fine grained control and transparency off what apps do over the net, and we can't, by design.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
We need to develop a shim that reports modified IMEI/SIM data for different apps. IMO, very few apps need that information. We may not be able to keep all those apps from sending our private information, but we can make that information useless if it appears that we all are using the same IMEI/SIM...
patp said:
...The point is we should have more fine grained control and transparency off what apps do over the net...
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agreed....
if you are rooted. With Root Explorer go to /data/system/ and open accounts.db you might be surprised what you find in it... Some people it will be fine for but mine it shows my exchange email and password in plain text and a few others show up as plain text has well...Its not geo they are worried about (for the most part) and...this file has been known about for awhile
Don't worry though unless your downloaded android specific virus holding apps you wont have any problem. And if your getting all your apps legally through the market then its no big deal =) and if your pirating them...well I don't feel bad for you...
echoside said:
if you are rooted. With Root Explorer go to /data/system/ and open accounts.db you might be surprised what you find in it... Some people it will be fine for but mine it shows my exchange email and password in plain text and a few others show up as plain text has well...
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Click to collapse
Opened it, my accounts are there, but no passwords....
rori~ said:
Opened it, my accounts are there, but no passwords....
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my gmail is somesort of encrypted but doesnt look that great.
Exchange shows up
facebook doesnt show anything at all aha
Thats why I said some might not have anything. Awhile back when I first heard about it one of my friends had two or three right there in plain English I didn't have a phone at the time to check...
Its been reported before but kind of just brushed over no biggy. To go real conspiracy theorist....I think apple is submitting all these articles...
ButtonBoy said:
We need to develop a shim that reports modified IMEI/SIM data for different apps.
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Great idea
The source code/instructions for TaintDroid are now out:
http://appanalysis.org/download.html
Anybody found a (recent) kernel with built-in TaintDroid-support?
I have several outdated android smartphones laying around and would like to re-purpose one for an 8 year old.
The thing is, I cannot trust him not to install tons of adware and games on it and play it during school hours which will just cause trouble for everybody. What I'm thinking:
I need the ability to remotely enable/disable lock/unlock the phone and/or turn the phone on or off and/or time periods during which device is automatically locked or unlocked.
I need either a locked down modified cyanogen ROM (or equivalent) or I need to somehow setup everything from scratch.
GPS tracking (realtime constant monitoring isn't necessary but I'd like to be able to ping his location if I'm worried about him and maybe have some sort of perimeter alert system in case he strays into a dangerous neighborhood/gets kidnapped/whatever)
I also need to lockdown which contacts can be called/SMSed/telegramed/IMed/emailed
This kid is sharp, so if there is a way to circumvent these measures, he'll probably figure it out. But I'd like you're ideas and I'll try anyway. How would you go about this? If you're going to tell me I'm a horrible person for tracking my child, I know already.
wow your asking for alot OP. lol eaither this is a really dangours kid, or your extremely protective lol
eaither way il try and help as best as i can. for tracking you can use "wheres my android" app. its gps tracking after you text it a certain phrase, it gives the location to the phone you texted.
you can try cnmod and just install wa app passwors to lock the settings, so the kid wont change anything
Thanks for the reply. He isn't dangerous, he is more of the absent minded genius type. I'm more afraid a stranger will say "lets go to my place to build model rockets" and he won't be able to resist.
What do you mean "wa app passwords"?
You sort of addressed the tracking and locking down apps. Any ideas for contact control so he doesn't just use up all of the minutes calling buddies and 900 numbers?
Hello, what phone are you going to give your child?? What I'm thinking is putting custom rom on the device and use the multi user option if the rom supports it. Then maybe, (maybe) you'll be able to omit which things can see/use and disable some of the things you're asking for.
Good luck.
Sent from my 1+1
go0 said:
Thanks for the reply. He isn't dangerous, he is more of the absent minded genius type. I'm more afraid a stranger will say "lets go to my place to build model rockets" and he won't be able to resist.
What do you mean "wa app passwords"?
You sort of addressed the tracking and locking down apps. Any ideas for contact control so he doesn't just use up all of the minutes calling buddies and 900 numbers?
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We use MMGuardian Does everything you want and more and it's pretty cheap. I just assume you know a thing or two about Android so I'll tell you this, mmguardian is amazing, the only thing is you have to turn off persistent notifications for the app. I get why they don't have that built in, but just do that and hide that app and your as good as gold. You can add 'key words' that when come up in a text, IM, email or search, it will send you and alert on your phone. You get transcripts of their texts, im and email (which I was happy for, now I just find creepy and intrusive to my childs privacy) but it's pretty sold service OP
In an unfortunate set of circumstances I must put myself first and betray the trust of a person who I believe might have already done so to me.
I suspect my fiancee of having an affair. I have some partial evidence which might be circumstantial but my gut is telling me to pursuit it and uncover it all.
I know that there are generally apps that are keeping tabs on the phone: it's location, forwarding of facebook messenger, sms texts, call log and gps location, remote camera view snapshots and audio streaming of its surroundings and they operate while being in complete stealth mode.
I ask you if you can recommend such an app or a few so I could choose in order to snoop out what is really going on. :crying:
Please, can you recommend such apps?
Doubledeckler said:
In an unfortunate set of circumstances I must put myself first and betray the trust of a person who I believe might have already done so to me.
I suspect my fiancee of having an affair. I have some partial evidence which might be circumstantial but my gut is telling me to pursuit it and uncover it all.
I know that there are generally apps that are keeping tabs on the phone: it's location, forwarding of facebook messenger, sms texts, call log and gps location, remote camera view snapshots and audio streaming of its surroundings and they operate while being in complete stealth mode.
I ask you if you can recommend such an app or a few so I could choose in order to snoop out what is really going on. :crying:
Please, can you recommend such apps?
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Click to collapse
First of all.Wrong Forum bro.Thr forum rules doesn't allow such Discussion. Secondly don't be so specific while asking stuff.Thirdly it is very much Possible but on old phones like at most android 5.0 due to major changes in Security. Fourthly there is another way but it requires to some extent a higher level of understanding of linux and how an android device handles it's OS.Maybe you can build a backdoor in it.Fifthly the samsung account manager usually handles that.Go look it up.No root no bull**** straight last 15 sms and calls along with location.
Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk
I am trying to figure out if my boyfriend is tunneling his messages or Facebook chat somehow... I'm not very techsavy. Does this kind of thing actually exist for a regular lg phone? Okay so It looks like whenever he unlocks his phone he will sometimes use two different codes like he has one phone two users. One he shows me without all his real incoming messages. And then his storage is always full on his phone but he hardly has any music or pics. He has some casino apps. One I found in his list said in the default app casino.imitation.app is that a vault app or what?
Yes it is possible. I don't know how lg has it implemented or what phone he is using, but there are multiple users in android that you can switch. If lg doesn't have that feature it could be done with a system modification. Since this a real life trust problem I suggest that you talk to somebody that can help, somebody like a psychologist.
Savannah0981 said:
I am trying to figure out if my boyfriend is tunneling his messages or Facebook chat somehow... I'm not very techsavy. Does this kind of thing actually exist for a regular lg phone? Okay so It looks like whenever he unlocks his phone he will sometimes use two different codes like he has one phone two users. One he shows me without all his real incoming messages. And then his storage is always full on his phone but he hardly has any music or pics. He has some casino apps. One I found in his list said in the default app casino.imitation.app is that a vault app or what?
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Click to collapse
Stop. Why not just talk to him, and if the trust is an issue, then your relationship is also....
Thread Closed.