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SecUSo / privacy-friendly-netmonitor

Privacy Friendly App that shows active network connections of installed apps.
GNU General Public License v3.0
156 stars 33 forks source link

Question about hidden connections #76

Closed highfellow closed 4 years ago

highfellow commented 4 years ago

I would like to ask what thought you gave in writing this app to the possibility that some processes might be making network connections in a way which is deliberately hidden from the operating system and hence from this monitor? Is this something that is possible in Android. My reason for installing this app was to try to answer a nagging feeling that my Android phone was being used to spy on me. Having identified all the open connections I feel a bit safer in this respect, but I am wondering whether a real piece of spyware would be able to hide its activities from an app like this?

Thanks for your efforts in writing these privacy friendly apps by the way. Digital rights is an important issue and I am glad there are people like you willing to do this work.

schillef commented 4 years ago

Hey Andrew,

glad you like the Project! 🙂

This App was Designer to be the consumer friendly Version of my Thesis App, where network flow should be investigated in terms of Solid encryption.

Since the Security of the Android Framework is working quite well, the original App was only working on rooted Devices.

The App takes the existant connections from the underlying Linux Kernel and matches thembto the invoicing Apps. So that's the connections (sockets) that are opened by the System on the transport layer. There would still be posibilities where traffic is hidden within those connections, but with the Android sandboxing models, the communicating apps are comprehensively listed.

Please Note that the App is now developed by the institute SECUSO at TU Darmstadt and that Students are develpoing this app further. I am very happy about that, because I'm not there anymore to develop that app by myself.

Please ask if you have further questions.

Am 13. November 2019 06:17:22 MEZ schrieb Andrew Baxter notifications@github.com:

I would like to ask what thought you gave in writing this app to the possibility that some processes might be making network connections in a way which is deliberately hidden from the operating system and hence from this monitor? Is this something that is possible in Android. My reason for installing this app was to try to answer a nagging feeling that my Android phone was being used to spy on me. Having identified all the open connections I feel a bit safer in this respect, but I am wondering whether a real piece of spyware would be able to hide its activities from an app like this?

Thanks for your efforts in writing these privacy friendly apps by the way. Digital rights is an important issue and I am glad there are people like you willing to do this work.

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Kamuno commented 4 years ago

Thanks for answering, Felix.

One little correction: The SECUSO Research Group now moved to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. However, it is still true that the Privacy Friendly Apps are being developed by Computer Science students.

I will close this issue for now. If any more questions come up, don't hesitate to open a new issue.