1 research outputs found
Barometers Can Hear, and Sense Finger Taps
Most modern smartphones are equipped with a barometer to sample air pressure.
Accessing these samples is deemed harmless, hence does not require any
permission. In this work, we show, however, that these samples can reveal
sensitive information in smartphones with ingress protection. For the first
time, it is shown that barometer samples, even at a low rate of 25 Hz, can leak
information about the smartphone's speaker activity. Specifically, we use these
samples to detect with high accuracy (>= 95%) whether the smartphone's speaker
is silent or playing a sound such as a ringtone. In addition, we use the
samples to detect the activity of an external speaker. Finally, we show that
low-rate barometer samples can be used to 1) detect touchscreen finger taps
with 100% accuracy, and 2) gain information about the positions of finger taps