4w ago

Study Reveals How Mobile Apps Track Users Through WiFi and Bluetooth: 86% of these apps collect at least one type of sensitive data, such as GPS location or unique device identifiers

networks.imdea.org

A study involving IMDEA Networks reveals how mobile apps track users through WiFi and Bluetooth - IMDEA Networks

4w ago

networks.imdea.org /a-study-involving-imdea-networks-reveals-how-mobile-apps-track-users-through-wifi-and-bluetooth/

27 comments

My favorite is when “data not tied to your id” is user ID, name, device ID…
In unrelated news. Alway use a Pihole for your network and a DNS sink (e.g. 1Blocker) on your devices. What would you use on Android for that?
- I mean, there are two problems here.
  The first problem is solving this for the kind of people who are going to set up the above on their networks.
  The other is solving it for the general public, which I would suggest is harder.
  
  Yet, it is the only way forward, unless you can convince commercial entities (techbros) to play by fair rules.
- I use wireguard to VPN back into my network so I'm back on pihole !
- I've never tried Pihole but maybe I'll try to set it up. What happens when ads try to play when it's enabled? Are they just blank? Or if someone is watching a streaming service and an ad tries to come up what happens?
  Also what happens if the device running Pihole goes down, as in if I have it running from an old device and it loses connection or restarts. Does everything just stop resolving names until it's back up? (I assume that's what happens like normal dns servers, but I'm trying to think of a device I have that won't be shut off, my media server has a lot going on with it at the moment, and is far from my router, I should move it)
  
  If the ad is under a filtered domain, it will simply not load. If the ad is under the same domain as the site you are using (ex. Youtube) they will load just fine.
  When the primary DNS is down, the secondary DNS will be used. This is the same regardless if PiHole is used or not, but is how DNS works.
  
  Many add just don't show up. The reserved space stays white. Also, depending on the aggressiveness of your block list, some pages don't resolve (just like they never existed). E.g when you click on adds in a google search result, it leads to nowhere.
  Short outtakes make no difference. It is your primary source for matching names to IPs. Depending on your configuration you can have alternative sources.
- Could use mullvad DNS.
  
  Not exactly what I was aiming for. 1Blocker works as local VPN. It reroutes all iPhone traffic through a local firewall/App, that drops suspicious DNS queries.
- Does pihole help with this sort of tracking? I've never bothered setting it up because I thought it was just for adblocking and I already use ublock, but if it has other uses I might look into it
  
  Rethink/Adguard/pihole all interfere with the DNS lookup. Depending on the quality of your blocklist, the servers they try to send the data too will simply not be reachable.
- You can use the private DNS function with an ad blocking DNS server like AdGuard.
Laughs in f-droid
This is probably why even though phones have gotten faster, they still seem slow.
It’s also hilarious to me how little battery voyager uses compared to most modern apps.
Yes wifi and Bluetooth are used to track your location. That's why Android requires you to grant location permissions to apps that want to access them.
In other words, if they have this information, it's because you explicitly gave them permission to collect it. Don't do that.
Don't mind me, just adding it to idcaboutprivacy
- Why is "bots on Reddit" on the list
Using Duckduckgo App Tracking Protection. I'm not very knowledgeable about it but it shows me what it's blocking and it seems like at least a first step towards privacy without much compromises on Android.
Wifi and Bluetooth must be kept off unless in use.
If you are home on wifi, put your cell into air plane mode.
Don't run shady apps.
TC app shows you what trackers each app has. Rmeove shit you don't need, use browser
- I have a Continuous Glucose Monitor that communicates with my phon3, so I sadly need to always have Bluetooth on.
  
  unless in use.

27 comments