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Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

I know exactly how this software works because I have analyzed it deeply. Every packet that goes through the Onavo VPN is analyzed. Using API's available to a normal sandboxed app, the source port is mapped with the process ID, then mapped to the package identifier, and then Facebook knows how much data is being used by which apps. Until SSL was mandatory for apps, they could also analyze the data itself, but that was stopped a couple years ago on iOS.

Once Facebook has all the packets, they can do various analyses and machine learning to even learn which features are most popular within a competitor's app. It is quite sophisticated.

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> Using API's available to a normal sandboxed app, the source port is mapped with the process ID, then mapped to the package identifier, and then Facebook knows how much data is being used by which apps.

This is just not true at all. Where are you getting this information?

They do not do any sort of analysis on the device side as that is not possible. They connect your device to a VPN server (All analysis is conducted there). The APIs you describe can not be accessed from within the App Store sandbox, I believe as of iOS 8 that became no longer possible.

Here are technical details on the local functions of the app:

https://medium.com/@chronic_9612/notes-on-analytics-and-trac...

If it were impossible to perform some analysis on device, how are apps like https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-data-manager-track-your/i... attributing data to apps?

The app you link shows very general services, it’s a ‘vpn’ client so it gets all network traffic. It isn’t hard to show you’re using Facebook or twitter, but there is a firm limit on granularity.

Apps don’t even get a list of all apps you have installed, much less information on how much data another app is using. The system collects that data though, you can see it in the settings app.

That looks like it also contains a VPN component. Wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

Does it have logic to inhibit packet analysis when being tested by Apple App Store reviewers?

You're thinking of Volkswagon's VPN app.

Actually, that's exactly what Uber did: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=uber%20app%20store&sort=byPopu...

Haha, it’s rare on HN that someone gets a joke right. Well done!

Edit: it was worth the downvotes, would do again.

No, it does not.

I guess this speaks a lot about the App Store's review team. This is pure spyware, didn't even try to hide, and then allowed it.

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