Turning a GPS-based dating application into a tracking system

Presented at Nuit du Hack 2016, July 2, 2016, 6:45 p.m. (45 minutes).

In a context of global insecurity, governments set up mass-surveillance programs. While some people have spoken out against, the majority continue to dangerously expose their private life on various social networks. When talking about mass surveillance systems, most people imagine expensive programs and backdoors implemented together with vendors and constructors. While this might be right, another question can be asked: Can people's widespread uses be turned against themselves? States and agencies have a lot of money to buy and develop complete solutions to track people but, unfortunately, we don't have that money. Instead, we will present how to track someone with a cheap -but not complete- solution. We will focus on a famous Android GPS-based dating application. This application's purpose is to notify the user when he's crossing or have crossed the way of people matching his preferences. Using only the initial specifications and features of the application, we will explain how to turn it into a GPS tracker.


Presenters:

  • Julien LEGRAS
    Graduated from the IT Security Master from Rouen University, Julien Legras joined Synacktiv 2 years ago. He's never missed a NDH since 2012 and he likes to study various subjects such as mobile applications. He performed a talk at the JSSI Rouen conference 2014 which dealt about Advanced password breaking and published an article about the famous tool John the Ripper in Linux Magazine in 2015.
  • Julien SZLAMOWICZ
    Also graduated from the IT Security Master from Rouen University, Julien Szlamowicz joined Synacktiv a year ago. He is present at HzV monthly meetings from time to time since 2010 and was a part of the ghosts team in 2011 and 2012. Challenges enthusiast, he often participates in NDH wargames since 2010 and regularly in various online CTF. His preferred fields for such competitions are cryptography, web-based and mobile applications.

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