Demo: ReCon: Revealing and Controlling PII Leaks in Mobile Network Traffic

It is well known that apps running on mobile devices extensively track and leak users' personally identifiable information (PII) [1] and users are generally unaware and unable to stop them [2]; however, these users have little visibility into PII leaked through the network traffic generated by their devices, and have poor control over how, when and where that traffic is sent and handled by third parties.

This demo presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of ReCon: a cross-platform (iOS, Android, Windows) system that reveals PII leaks and gives users control over them without requiring any special privileges or custom OSes. ReCon, which has been accepted as a paper to the Mobisys conference, leverages machine learning to reveal potential PII leaks by inspecting network traffic, and provides a visualization tool to empower users with the ability to control these leaks via blocking or substitution of PII. For this demo, we will show how ReCon detects PII in real time, allows users to provide feedback on detected PII, and provides users with controls for blocking or modifying PII leaks. The system is publicly available and we will also help any interested users install it on their mobile devices.