116 lines
4.7 KiB
HTML
116 lines
4.7 KiB
HTML
<h2>Research Project</h2>
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<div class="squeeze">
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<p>
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The AppCheck research project is an effort to shine light on the background activity of iOS apps.
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Making the otherwise hidden network connections visible to everyone.
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The goal is to make privacy more accessible to the general public.
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And thus make incentives for app developers to respect the users privacy.
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</p>
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<p>
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We want to offer users, activists, data protection authorities, and data protection officers an easily accessible and flexible tool to assess the privacy measures of iOS applications.
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</p>
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<span>AppCheck allows users to:</span>
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<ul>
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<li>get a visiual overview over an apps communication signature</li>
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<li>assess how an app ranks within its peer group or category</li>
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<li>influence the ranking according to their own preferences</li>
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</ul>
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</div>
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<div class="note">
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<h4>Current Notice:</h4>
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<p>
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We have an ongoing <b>research project</b>. Your help is highly appreciated.
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<br>
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For more infos follow <a href="/help/">this link</a>.
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</p>
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</div>
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<h2>Results</h2>
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<div class="squeeze">
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<p>
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This website is the front-end for the evaluated data.
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All app recordings are collected and displayed here.
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In a visual way it shows you how many known trackers an app uses.
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How apps compare to each other, and if there are privacy friendly alternatives.
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</p>
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<p>
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You can go to <a href="/index/apps/">all apps</a> directly.
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Or, if you're interested in details, check the <a href="/results/">results section</a>.
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</p>
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</div>
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<h2>AppCheck – The App</h2>
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<p class="squeeze">
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AppCheck is a pocket DNS monitor and network filter.<br>
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It helps you identify applications that communicate with other parties.
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</p>
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<div class="xscroll">
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<div class="carousel">
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<img src="static/screenshot1.png" height="400">
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<img src="static/screenshot2.png" height="400">
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<img src="static/screenshot3.png" height="400">
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</div>
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</div>
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<h3>How does it work?</h3>
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<p class="squeeze">
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AppCheck creates a local VPN proxy to intercept all network connections.
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For each connection AppCheck looks into the DNS headers only, namely the domain names.
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These domain names are logged in the background while the VPN is running.
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AppCheck does not need to be active all the time.
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</p>
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<h3>What about privacy?</h3>
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<p class="squeeze">
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Your data belongs to you.
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Therefore, monitoring and analysis takes place on your device only.
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AppCheck learns only the destination addresses, not the actual data that is exchanged.
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The app does not share any data with us or any other third-party – unless you choose to.
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</p>
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<h3>How can I contribute?</h3>
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<p class="squeeze">
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AppCheck allows you to record app specific activity.
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You can share these recordings with us and the community.
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This can help you and others avoid phony applications; even before you install an app.
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</p>
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<a id="get-appcheck" class="no-ul" href="https://testflight.apple.com/join/9jjaFeHO" target="_blank">
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<img class="app-icon" src="/static/appcheck.svg" alt="app-icon" width="30" height="30">
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<p>
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Get the iOS App and contribute.<br />
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Join the TestFlight Beta.
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</p>
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</a>
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<p class="snd mg_lr">
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Source code is available <a href="https://github.com/relikd/appcheck/" target="_blank">on GitHub</a>.
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</p>
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<h2>Limitations</h2>
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<div class="squeeze">
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<p>
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AppCheck can not detect if a network activity belongs to one app or another.
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This is due to technical limitations of the VPN network extension.
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Therefore these results can't be taken 100 % certain.
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These <b>wrong attributions</b> can be minimized by running only a single application at a time (during recording).
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Further, results are filtered prior to publication.
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Requests that are contained only in a small subset of recordings are ignored.
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</p>
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<p>
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This project is limited to <b>iOS applications</b>.
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But there are similar projects for Android apps and websites.
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Check these out:
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</p>
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<p>
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> <i><a href="https://github.com/OxfordHCC/tracker-control-android" target="_blank">TrackerControl</a></i> is an Android application that detects and prevents in-app tracking.
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It uses the same approach as AppCheck does.
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Analyzing DNS traffic on device with a local VPN extension.
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</p>
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<p>
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> <i><a href="https://privacyscore.org/" target="_blank">PrivacyScore.org</a></i> is a tool to analyze websites.
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It allows you to create lists for comparison and ranking.
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Not only does it show you how much tracking is present in a given website.
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It also gives you a report on technical security and privacy measures.
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This way you can evaluate related websites and choose the one with greater privacy benefits.
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</p>
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</div>
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