Contrasting permission patterns between clean and malicious android applications

The Android platform uses a permission system model to allow users and developers to regulate access to private information and system resources required by applications. Permissions have been proved to be useful for inferring behaviors and characteristics of an application. In this paper, a novel method to extract contrasting permission patterns for clean and malicious applications is proposed. Contrary to existing work, both required and used permissions were considered when discovering the patterns. We evaluated our methodology on a clean and a malware dataset, each comprising of 1227 applications. Our empirical results suggest that our permission patterns can capture key differences between clean and malicious applications, which can assist in characterizing these two types of applications.

Is there an app for that? Looking at possibilities and challenges of digital tools for literacy education

 Portable electronic devices such as the iPad are increasingly taking a place in contemporary childhood experiences including those of schooling (O'Mara & Laidlaw, 2011). As digital media theorists suggest, such new tools invite both "hope and fear" (Gee and Hayes, 2011, p.4), consistent with literacy innovations across history. In both Canada and Australia, educational stakeholders are looking to touch screen devices as having much promise, particularly within literacy education. This paper presentation examines the possibilities as well as the challenges and imagines the future of such digital tools within literacy education, looking at experiences and perspectives in Canada and Australia.
We take a qualitative ecological mode of inquiry approach to our data collection and analysis, drawing on complexity thinking (Davis & Sumara, 2006) to bring our multiple points of view together as diversely positioned educators. Within our individual sites, each author has collected data as a part of longer-term research projects. In this paper presentation we compare and contrast these data sets, attending to significant intersections and juxtaposing issues of culture and globalization. Within this mode of inquiry we value the particularity of the individual contexts, and locate them alongside one another in a larger bricolage (Johnson, 2010).
We examined observational data, documents and artifacts using Freebody and Luke's (1990) four resources model and the further adaptions of this model (see e.g. Luke & Freebody, 1999) to understand how touch screen devices are being used and positioned as literacy tools. We have engaged in collaborative data analysis, often working 'together' using digital tools ourselves to enable collective conversations. For example, we have used Facetime on iPads and laptops, Skype and email to facilitate collective analyses. We applied iterative and recursive analyses to uncover reoccurring themes both within and across sites and artifacts.
As our paper will elaborate, mobile touch screen devices such as iPads are widely being taken up in educational settings, and regarded as having the possibility to shift teaching and learning in new directions, as "paradigm breakers" (p. 4, Gov't of AB, 2011). As personal, mobile devices, these tools present challenges that require educators to think differently about learning and teaching. Our paper also addresses the opportunities and affordances that iPads might offer to learners, as having the potential for students to engage in playful exploration, and in the role of designers, creators, and producers, rather than as passive recipients.

Android applications : Data leaks via advertising libraries

Recent studies have determined that many Android applications in both official and non-official online markets expose details of the users' smartphones without user consent. In this paper, we explain why such applications leak, how they leak and where the data is leaked to. In order to achieve this, we combine static and dynamic analysis to examine Java classes and application behaviour for a set of popular, clean applications from the Finance and Games categories. We observed that all the applications in our data set which leaked information (10%) had third-party advertising libraries embedded in their respective Java packages.

6 things I know about Geminoid F, or what I think about when I think about android theatre

On Friday evening I saw one of the finest theatre performances from an actor. Her subtle movements, her natural cadence, her ability to portray her character in a way that demonstrated diligent devotion, careful analysis and measured construction, was simply awe-inspiring. Which actor gave this fine performance? It was an android.

Mining permission patterns for contrasting clean and malicious android applications

An Android application uses a permission system to regulate the access to system resources and users' privacy-relevant information. Existing works have demonstrated several techniques to study the required permissions declared by the developers, but little attention has been paid towards used permissions. Besides, no specific permission combination is identified to be effective for malware detection. To fill these gaps, we have proposed a novel pattern mining algorithm to identify a set of contrast permission patterns that aim to detect the difference between clean and malicious applications. A benchmark malware dataset and a dataset of 1227 clean applications has been collected by us to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. Valuable findings are obtained by analyzing the returned contrast permission patterns. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Android malware detection with contrasting permission patterns

As the risk of malware is sharply increasing in Android platform, Android malware detection has become an important research topic. Existing works have demonstrated that required permissions of Android applications are valuable for malware analysis, but how to exploit those permission patterns for malware detection remains an open issue. In this paper, we introduce the contrasting permission patterns to characterize the essential differences between malwares and clean applications from the permission aspect. Then a framework based on contrasting permission patterns is presented for Android malware detection. According to the proposed framework, an ensemble classifier, Enclamald, is further developed to detect whether an application is potentially malicious. Every contrasting permission pattern is acting as a weak classifier in Enclamald, and the weighted predictions of involved weak classifiers are aggregated to the final result. Experiments on real-world applications validate that the proposed Enclamald classifier outperforms commonly used classifiers for Android Malware Detection.

Great 'app-eal' but not there yet: a review of iPhone nutrition applications relevant to child weight management

Aims: There is increasing interest in the use of smartphone applications (apps) for delivering child obesity management interventions and supporting lifestyle behaviour change; however, there has been very little academic research on their development. Our aim is to review nutrition-related apps designed for children currently available in Australia for their usefulness in education or support behavioural interventions for child obesity. Methods: Apps available for download in iTunes Australia between 2 April and 3 June 2013 which were suitable for children >12 years were identified. Key words were chosen to identify apps applicable to children, focusing on nutrition. Results: A total of 27 apps were included. Most apps (24/27) were not based on evidence-informed recommendations. A third of apps were developed in the USA (n = 10; 37%) and were free (67%), nine apps required upfront payment, with a mean cost of $A2.80 (range $A0.99-$A7.49). The most common nutrition features were the promotion of energy balance (n = 12 apps) and guidance on appropriate portion size (n = 15). The most common behaviour change feature was goal setting (n = 15). The five apps that scored most highly against the characteristics reviewed were: Calorie Counter Pro by My Net Diary, Weight Watchers, Swap It Don't Stop It, Control My Weight by CalorieKing and Rate What I Ate-Photo Diet Tracker. Conclusions: Very few apps were identified that could be used in education or support behavioural interventions for child obesity. There is a need to harness this technology and evaluate the applicability and use within childhood obesity research interventions.

Sayonara interviews: android-human theatre

Featuring a life-like humanoid robot, Seinendan Theatre Company (Japan) brought their performance Sayonara: Android-Human Theatre to Melbourne in August 2012. Geminoid F, an android, starred alongside Canadian actress Bryerly Long, in a performance that asks the question: What does life and death mean for humans as opposed to robots?

A web-based, social networking physical activity intervention for insufficiently active adults delivered via Facebook app: randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Online social networks offer considerable potential for delivery of socially influential health behavior change interventions. OBJECTIVE: To determine the efficacy, engagement, and feasibility of an online social networking physical activity intervention with pedometers delivered via Facebook app. METHODS: A total of 110 adults with a mean age of 35.6 years (SD 12.4) were recruited online in teams of 3 to 8 friends. Teams were randomly allocated to receive access to a 50-day online social networking physical activity intervention which included self-monitoring, social elements, and pedometers ("Active Team" Facebook app; n=51 individuals, 12 teams) or a wait-listed control condition (n=59 individuals, 13 teams). Assessments were undertaken online at baseline, 8 weeks, and 20 weeks. The primary outcome measure was self-reported weekly moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Secondary outcomes were weekly walking, vigorous physical activity time, moderate physical activity time, overall quality of life, and mental health quality of life. Analyses were undertaken using random-effects mixed modeling, accounting for potential clustering at the team level. Usage statistics were reported descriptively to determine engagement and feasibility. RESULTS: At the 8-week follow-up, the intervention participants had significantly increased their total weekly MVPA by 135 minutes relative to the control group (P=.03), due primarily to increases in walking time (155 min/week increase relative to controls, P<.001). However, statistical differences between groups for total weekly MVPA and walking time were lost at the 20-week follow-up. There were no significant changes in vigorous physical activity, nor overall quality of life or mental health quality of life at either time point. High levels of engagement with the intervention, and particularly the self-monitoring features, were observed. CONCLUSIONS: An online, social networking physical activity intervention with pedometers can produce sizable short-term physical activity changes. Future work is needed to determine how to maintain behavior change in the longer term, how to reach at-need populations, and how to disseminate such interventions on a mass scale. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR): ACTRN12614000488606; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=366239 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6ZVtu6TMz).

Infant feeding websites and apps: a systematic assessment of quality and content

Background: Internet websites and smartphone apps have become a popular resource to guide parents in their children’s feeding and nutrition. Given the diverse range of websites and apps on infant feeding, the quality of information in these resources should be assessed to identify whether consumers have access to credible and reliable information.

Objective: This systematic analysis provides perspectives on the information available about infant feeding on websites and smartphone apps.

Methods: A systematic analysis was conducted to assess the quality, comprehensibility, suitability, and readability of websites and apps on infant feeding using a developed tool. Google and Bing were used to search for websites from Australia, while the App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android were used to search for apps. Specified key words including baby feeding, breast feeding, formula feeding and introducing solids were used to assess websites and apps addressing feeding advice. Criteria for assessing the accuracy of the content were developed using the Australian Infant Feeding Guidelines.

Results: A total of 600 websites and 2884 apps were screened, and 44 websites and 46 apps met the selection criteria and were analyzed. Most of the websites (26/44) and apps (43/46) were noncommercial, some websites (10/44) and 1 app were commercial and there were 8 government websites; 2 apps had university endorsement. The majority of the websites and apps were rated poor quality. There were two websites that had 100% coverage of information compared to those rated as fair or poor that had low coverage. Two-thirds of the websites (65%) and almost half of the apps (47%) had a readability level above the 8th grade level.

Conclusions: The findings of this unique analysis highlight the potential for website and app developers to merge user requirements with evidence-based content to ensure that information on infant feeding is of high quality. There are currently no apps available to consumers that address a variety of infant feeding topics. To keep up with the rapid turnover of the evolving technology, health professionals need to consider developing an app that will provide consumers with a credible and reliable source of information about infant feeding, using quality assessment tools and evidence-based content.

Mobile phone-based electrochemiluminescence sensing exploiting the 'USB On-The-Go' protocol

A low-cost system to generate, control and detect electrochemiluminescence using a mobile smartphone is described. A simple tone-detection integrated circuit is used to switch power sourced from the phone's Universal Serial Bus (USB) 'On-The-Go' (OTG) port, using audible tone pulses played over the device's audio jack. We have successfully applied this approach to smartphones from different manufacturers and with different operating system versions. ECL calibrations of a common luminophore, tris(2,2′-bipyridine)ruthenium(II) ([Ru(bpy)3]²⁺), with 2-(dibutylamino)ethanol (DBAE) as a co-reactant, showed no significant difference in light intensities when an electrochemical cell was controlled by a mobile phone in this manner, compared to the same calibration generated using a conventional potentiostat. Combining this novel approach to control the applied potential with the measurement of the emitted light through the smart phone camera (using an in-house built Android app), we explored the ECL properties of a water-soluble iridium(III) complex that emits in the blue region of the spectrum. The iridium(III) complex exhibited superior co-reactant ECL intensities and limits of detection to that of the conventional [Ru(bpy)3]²⁺ luminophore.

A lightweight virtualization solution for android devices

Mobile virtualization has emerged fairly recently and is considered a valuable way to mitigate security risks on Android devices. However, major challenges in mobile virtualization include runtime, hardware, resource overhead, and compatibility. In this paper, we propose a lightweight Android virtualization solution named Condroid, which is based on container technology. Condroid utilizes resource isolation based on namespaces feature and resource control based on cgroups feature. By leveraging them, Condroid can host multiple independent Android virtual machines on a single kernel to support mutilple Android containers. Furthermore, our implementation presents both a system service sharing mechanism to reduce memory utilization and a filesystem sharing mechanism to reduce storage usage. The evaluation results on Google Nexus 5 demonstrate that Condroid is feasible in terms of runtime, hardware resource overhead, and compatibility. Therefore, we find that Condroid has a higher performance than other virtualization solutions.

Bootstrapping mobile app development

Modern IDEs provide limited support for developers when starting a new data-driven mobile app. App developers are currently required to write copious amounts of boilerplate code, scripts, organise complex directories, and author actual functionality. Although this scenario is ripe for automation, current tools are yet to address it adequately. In this paper we present RAPPT, a tool that generates the scaffolding of a mobile app based on a high level description specified in a Domain Specific Language (DSL). We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach by an example case study and feedback from a professional development team. Demo at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffquVgBYpLM.

A novel APP recommendation method based on SVD and social influence

In order to satisfy requirements of real-time processing and large capacity put forwarded by big data, hybrid storage has become a trend. There’s asymmetric read/write performance for storage devices, and asymmetric read/write access characteristics for data. Data may obtain different access performance on the same device due to access characteristics waving, and the most suitable device of data may also change at different time points. As data prefer to reside on device on which they can obtain higher access performance, this paper distributes data on device with highest preference degree to improve performance and efficiency of whole storage system. A Preference-Aware HDFS (PAHDFS) with high efficiency and scalability is implemented. PAHDFS shows good performance in experiments.

B is for baby: the use of iPhone app technology in childbirth education

Midwives play an important role in antenatal education and there is a need for child birth education to be delivered more effectively and in the earlier stages pregnancy. There are numerous inconsistencies existing between the theory and practice of child birth education. A new direction is needed. The evolution of child birth education needs to quickly gain pace to meet the needs of today's expectant women. Contemporary technology presents a modern approach to support and promote child birth education classes. Consequently, this recent post graduate diploma student midwife project was to investigate the introduction of the use of iPhone app technology as a valuable tool in which to deliver child birth education. The conduction of the project included several elements, beginning with an extensive literature review, ethics approval; a survey completed by thirty two midwives at St Vincents Private Hospital (StVPH) was collected and generated the foundations for the prototype childbirth education iPhone App, and B is for Baby was constructed. This was then presented back to the midwives at St Vincent's Private Hospital as a means to compliment and contribute to the traditional face to face child birth sessions.