Your Mobile Phone is a Traitor! -- Raising Awareness on Ubiquitous Privacy Issues with SASQUATCH

Abstract

Smartphones may leak personal information about their owner through the built-in Wi-Fi hardware. Most importantly, the list of networks the device has previously been connected to is exposed. Based on this seemingly harmless information, one can not only infer a person's whereabouts but also create a clone of a network the smartphone is trying to connect to. Previous studies have shown that users are often not aware that this information is being leaked. In order to raise awareness about this problem, we have designed a setup consisting of a network scanner and a public display, which alerts users about this problem by displaying private but anonymized information. The setup contains an interactive component which allows people to view the information their own smartphone is leaking, and resents them with a short guide on how to configure their device for increased privacy and security. When asked about their privacy concerns and about their willingness to secure against privacy leaks, we found out that 90% of the participants were worried about information as displayed leaking to third parties, with 81% indicating that they were willing to put an extra effort into securing their smartphones.