Reengineering the user: Privacy concerns about personal data on smartphones.

Purpose: This paper aims to discuss the privacy and security concerns that have risen from the permissions model in the Android operating system, along with two shortcomings that have not been adequately addressed. Design/methodology/approach: The impact of the applications’ evolutionary increment of permission requests from both the user’s and the developer’s point of view is studied, and finally, a series of remedies against the erosion of users’ privacy is proposed. Findings: The results of this work indicate that, even though providing access to personal data of smartphone users is by definition neither problematic nor unlawful, today’s smartphone operating systems do not provide an adequate level of protection for the user’s personal data. However, there are several ideas that can significantly improve the situation and mitigate privacy concerns of users of smart devices. Research limitations/implications: The proposed approach was evaluated through an examination of the Android’s permission model, although issues arise in other operating systems. The authors’ future intention is to conduct a user study to measure the user’s awareness and concepts surrounding privacy concerns to empirically investigate the above-mentioned suggestions. Practical implications: The proposed suggestions in this paper, if adopted in practice, could significantly improve the situation and mitigate privacy concerns of users of smart devices. Social implications: The recommendations proposed in this paper would strongly enhance the control of users over their personal data and improve their ability to distinguish legitimate apps from malware or grayware. Originality/value: This paper emphasises two shortcomings of the permissions models of mobile operating systems which, in authors’ view, have not been adequately addressed to date and propose an inherent way for apps and other entities of the mobile computing ecosystem to commit to responsible and transparent practices on mobile users’ privacy

A review and survey on smartphones: The closest enemy to privacy

Smartphones have changed the world from a primitive to a high-tech standpoint. However, there have been many incidents where third parties have used confidential data of the users without their consent. Thus, it causes people to be paranoid and distrustful of their smartphones, never knowing which application threatens to expose them. In this paper, we have conducted an in-depth review of the significance of smartphones in human life, and we have discussed the methods used by various authorities to collect and exploit users’ data for enigmatic benefits. Moreover, we surveyed the smartphone users to identify the vulnerabilities leading to privacy violation, and to examine their knowledge about the protection mechanisms. We determined that Technology and Human are the two major vulnerabilities that are exploited to invade users’ privacy. It is the necessity of the moment for the researchers and developers to formulate solutions that could be used to educate and protect smartphone users from potential threats and exploitation of data

Detecting manipulated smartphone data on Android and iOS devices

Ever improving technology allows smartphones to become an integral part of people’s lives. The reliance on and ubiquitous use of smartphones render these devices rich sources of data. This data becomes increasingly important when smartphones are linked to criminal or corporate investigations. To erase data and mislead digital forensic investigations, end-users can manipulate the data and change recorded events. This paper investigates the effects of manipulating smartphone data on both the Google Android and Apple iOS platforms. The deployed steps leads to the formulation of a generic process for smartphone data manipulation. To assist digital forensic professionals with the detection of such manipulated smartphone data, this paper introduces an evaluation framework for smartphone data. The framework uses key traces left behind as a result of the manipulation of smartphone data to construct techniques to detect the changed data. The outcome of this research study successfully demonstrates the manipulation of smartphone data and presents preliminary evidence that the suggested framework can assist with the detection of manipulated smartphone data.http://www.springer.comseries/7899hj2020Computer Scienc