The Spyware Used in Intimate Partner Violence
The Spyware Used in Intimate Partner Violence Rahul Chatterjee∗, Periwinkle Doerflery, Hadas Orgadz, Sam Havronx, Jackeline Palmer{, Diana Freed∗, Karen Levyx, Nicola Dell∗, Damon McCoyy, Thomas Ristenpart∗ ∗ Cornell Tech y New York University z Technion x Cornell University { Hunter College Abstract—Survivors of intimate partner violence increasingly are decidedly depressing. We therefore also discuss a variety report that abusers install spyware on devices to track their of directions for future work. location, monitor communications, and cause emotional and physical harm. To date there has been only cursory investigation Finding IPS spyware. We hypothesize that most abusers find into the spyware used in such intimate partner surveillance (IPS). spyware by searching the web or application stores (mainly, We provide the first in-depth study of the IPS spyware ecosystem. Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store). We therefore We design, implement, and evaluate a measurement pipeline that combines web and app store crawling with machine learning to started by performing a semi-manual crawl of Google search find and label apps that are potentially dangerous in IPS contexts. results. We searched for a small set of terms (e.g., “track my Ultimately we identify several hundred such IPS-relevant apps. girlfriend’s phone without them knowing”). In addition to the While we find dozens of overt spyware tools, the majority are results, we collected Google’s suggestions for similar searches “dual-use” apps — they have a legitimate purpose (e.g., child to seed further searches. The cumulative results (over 27,000+ safety or anti-theft), but are easily and effectively repurposed returned URLs) reveal a wide variety of resources aimed at for spying on a partner.
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