Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Saturday June 02 2018, @03:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-hear-you dept.

Ultrasound-firewall for mobile phones

Defence against unwanted audio tracking by acoustic cookies

The permanent networking of mobile devices can endanger the privacy of users and lead to new forms of monitoring. New technologies such as Google Nearby and Silverpush use ultrasonic sounds to exchange information between devices via loudspeakers and microphones (also called "data over audio").

More and more of our devices communicate via this inaudible communication channel. Ultrasonic communication allows devices to be paired and information to be exchanged. It also makes it possible to track users and their behaviour over a number of devices, much like cookies on the Web. Almost every device with a microphone and a loudspeaker can send and receive ultrasonic sounds. Users are usually unaware of this inaudible and hidden data transmission.

The SoniControl project of St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences has developed a mobile application that detects acoustic cookies, brings them to the attention of users and if desired, blocks the tracking. The app is thus, in a sense, the first available ultrasound-firewall for smartphones and tablets. "The most challenging part of developing the app was to devise a method that can detect different existing ultrasound-transmission techniques reliably and in real time", said Matthias Zeppelzauer, Head of the project and Senior Researcher in the Media Computing research group of the Institute of Creative\Media/Technologies at St. Pölten UAS.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:05AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:05AM (#687568)

    Seriously, enough of this shit.

    Or send me his home address and I'll take care of it.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +1  
       Informative=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   1  
  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:37AM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:37AM (#687577) Journal

    We collect hashed IPs, not actual IPs. But the sicko has an effectively unlimited amount of IPs/VPNs, so blocking would do no good.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 02 2018, @05:48AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 02 2018, @05:48AM (#687592)

      What's the point of hashing IPs? If they're v4 IP address you can easily create a lookup table.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @08:48AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @08:48AM (#688293)
        So they can stand in court (actual or public opinion) and say "We don't collect IP addresses. The IP addresses are pseudonymized by a standard FIPS certified NSA designed secure hash function."

        In many case that works better than saying "we collect IP addresses".
  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday June 02 2018, @06:16AM (2 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Saturday June 02 2018, @06:16AM (#687597) Journal

    Maybe if we moderated this shit as SPAM, then only a few people will be annoyed with it.

    These are not troll posts... they are spam. ( Actually, I love a good troll! I have my preferences set to boost a troll. They can make way for some lively discussion. )

    Apparently, a lot of us like trolls... some are even carefully moderated on up to +5, troll .

    Those who don't mind seeing spam can set their preferences accordingly, just as those who would just as soon not see it can do the same.

    All I would ask is only people with karma>45 be able to moderate a post as such, and all spam moderations logged for review by SN staff so as to distribute the moderation, and make sure even one rogue moderator does not stay in power for long.

    But nothing wrong with setting up a mechanism so those of us who wanted to censor our own feed could do so.

    Providing the ones empowered to moderate to such a level had their own dog in the fight too.

    Just because someone serves to me does not mean I have to eat it, or even look at it.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday June 02 2018, @02:57PM (1 child)

      by deimtee (3272) on Saturday June 02 2018, @02:57PM (#687695) Journal

      I posted something like that in a previous discussion and set my preferences to -1 spam and +1 everything else. Then after a while they all started getting modded troll, and once they are -1 you can't mod them spam. I suspect the poster has a logged in account and deliberately mods them troll to prevent spam mods.

      --
      If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 03 2018, @06:23AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 03 2018, @06:23AM (#687949)

        I have noticed that, too... think we should start moderating those spam trolls as funny, so the next guy can trounce it?