Abstract
This research investigates the possibility for an Android application to record audio without the user knowing. The researcher proved this to be possible in earlier versions of Android. However, Google released Android 9.0 (Pie) and stated that with this update, apps running in the background cannot access the microphone. This broadened the scope of the research and the remainder of the time was spent attempting to circumvent this change. Through the development of a successful eavesdropping app prototype, the results revealed that the microphone can be accessed in the background of a device running Android 9.0.
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References
MediaRecorder overview. https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/media/mediarecorder
SpeechRecognizer. https://developer.android.com/reference/android/speech/SpeechRecognizer#stopListening(android.content.Intent)
RecognizerIntent. https://developer.android.com/reference/android/speech/RecognizerIntent#EXTRA_SPEECH_INPUT_COMPLETE_SILENCE_LENGTH_MILLIS
Google speech recognition timeout. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38150312/google-speech-recognition-timeout
How to handle background services in Android O. https://medium.com/@kevalpatel2106/how-to-handle-background-services-in-android-o-f96783e65268
Manifest permission. https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission.html
Permissions overview. https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/permissions/overview.html#permission-groups
JavaMail API reference implementation. https://javaee.github.io/javamail/
Android 10. https://www.android.com/android-10/
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Kiskis, A. (2020). Android Microphone Eavesdropping. In: Latifi, S. (eds) 17th International Conference on Information Technology–New Generations (ITNG 2020). Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1134. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43020-7_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43020-7_6
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