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In Android apps, their developers frequently place app promotion ads, namely advertisements to promote other apps. Unfortunately, the inadequate vetting of ad content allows malicious developers to exploit app promotion ads as a new…
Problem: We address the challenge in responsible computing where an exploitable mobile app is misused by one app user (an abuser) against another user or bystander (victim). We introduce the idea of a misuse audit of apps as a way of…
Apple introduced privacy labels in Dec. 2020 as a way for developers to report the privacy behaviors of their apps. While Apple does not validate labels, they also require developers to provide a privacy policy, which offers an important…
In this digital era, online shopping is common practice in our daily lives. Product reviews significantly influence consumer buying behavior and help establish buyer trust. However, the prevalence of fraudulent reviews undermines this trust…
Access to frontier large language models (LLMs), such as GPT-5 and Gemini-2.5, is often hindered by high pricing, payment barriers, and regional restrictions. These limitations drive the proliferation of $\textit{shadow APIs}$, third-party…
In the appstore-centric ecosystem, app developers have an urgent requirement to optimize their release strategy to maximize the success opportunity of their apps. To address this problem, we introduce an approach to assisting developers to…
Machine learning (ML) malware detectors rely heavily on crowd-sourced AntiVirus (AV) labels, with platforms like VirusTotal serving as a trusted source of malware annotations. But what if attackers could manipulate these labels to classify…
Dark patterns in online commerce, especially deceptive user interface designs for apps and websites, undermine consumer autonomy and distort online markets. Although sometimes deception is intentional, the complex app development process…
The digital services economy consists of online platforms that facilitate interactions between service providers and consumers. This ecosystem is characterized by short-term, often one-off, transactions between parties that have no prior…
Prior studies on mobile app analysis often analyze apps across different categories or focus on a small set of apps within a category. These studies either provide general insights for an entire app store which consists of millions of apps,…
Users review about an app is a crucial component for open mobile application market, such as the AppStore and the Google play. Analyzing these reviews can reveal user's sentiment towards a feature in the app. There exist several analytical…
The major mobile platforms, Android and iOS, have introduced changes that restrict user tracking to improve user privacy, yet apps continue to covertly track users via device fingerprinting. We study the opportunity to improve this dynamic…
Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have led to the increase of conversational agents like Replika, designed to provide social interaction and emotional support. However, reports of these AI systems engaging in inappropriate sexual…
This article introduces a framework that is meant to assist in mitigating societal risks that software can pose. Concretely, this encompasses facets of software doping as well as unfairness and discrimination in high-risk decision-making…
Third-party tracking allows companies to collect users' behavioural data and track their activity across digital devices. This can put deep insights into users' private lives into the hands of strangers, and often happens without users'…
Android malware have been growing at an exponential pace and becomes a serious threat to mobile users. It appears that most of the anti-malware still relies on the signature-based detection system which is generally slow and often not able…
The apps installed on a smartphone can reveal much information about a user, such as their medical conditions, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs. Additionally, the presence or absence of particular apps on a smartphone can inform an…
Fake reviews and review manipulation are growing problems on online marketplaces globally. Review Hijacking is a new review manipulation tactic in which unethical sellers "hijack" an existing product page (usually one with many positive…
Mobile apps offer significant benefits, but their privacy protections often remain ineffective and confusing for users. While prior work mainly analyzes app privacy vulnerabilities, few approaches help users understand, set, and enforce…
In todays digital landscape, end-user feedback plays a crucial role in the evolution of software applications, particularly in addressing issues that hinder user experience. While much research has focused on high-rated applications,…