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To Possess or Not to Possess - WhatsApp for Android Revisited with a Focus on Stickers

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Secure IT Systems (NordSec 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14324))

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Abstract

WhatsApp stickers are a popular hybrid of images and emoticons that can contain user-created content. Stickers are mostly sent for legitimate reasons, but are also used to distribute illicit content such as Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). As the process of creating stickers becomes easier for users from version to version, a digital forensic analysis is still lacking. Therefore, we present the first comprehensive digital forensic analysis of WhatsApp’s sticker handling on Android, with a special focus on the legal context, i.e. the definition of possession of illicit content. Our analysis is based on 40 scenarios that reflect the full lifecycle of community-created stickers. We show how the distribution channel of a sticker found on a device can be reconstructed, partially even when its traces have been removed from WhatsApp and are not visible through WhatsApp’s user interface. In addition, we show that Google Drive backups recover stickers, making device seizure dispensable; however, stickers can still be permanently deleted. Most importantly, we show that simply finding a sticker on a device is not sufficient to meet the requirements of the legal definition of possession. Therefore, prosecution for possession of a sticker requires additional evidence, which we provide.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Using: Android Studio Electric Eel | 2022.1.1 Patch 2.

  2. 2.

    https://www.whatsapp.com/android/?lang=en.

  3. 3.

    The deleted sticker in the respective chat is replaced by a button that allows the user to re-download a missing sticker.

  4. 4.

    Under the condition that the sticker is not used in another chat.

  5. 5.

    WhatsApp on Android 13 asks the user if “keep app data” is desired. Irrespective of the users’ choice on Android 13 the user stays in control of the sticker files.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute CODE, Universität der Bundeswehr München, Munich, Germany

    Samantha Klier & Harald Baier

Authors
  1. Samantha Klier
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  2. Harald Baier
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Correspondence to Samantha Klier .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

    Lothar Fritsch

  2. OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

    Ismail Hassan

  3. OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

    Ebenezer Paintsil

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A Detailed Description of Executed Scenarios

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Klier, S., Baier, H. (2024). To Possess or Not to Possess - WhatsApp for Android Revisited with a Focus on Stickers. In: Fritsch, L., Hassan, I., Paintsil, E. (eds) Secure IT Systems. NordSec 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14324. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47748-5_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47748-5_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-47747-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-47748-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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