Related papers: Investigating Software Developers' Challenges for …
Software developers often submit questions to technical Q&A sites like Stack Overflow (SO) to resolve code-level problems. In practice, they include example code snippets with questions to explain the programming issues. Existing research…
Mobile apps used by children often make use of harmful techniques, such as data tracking and targeted advertising. Previous research has suggested that developers face several systemic challenges in designing apps that prioritise children's…
Privacy, security, and accessibility, like ethical concerns in mobile applications (a.k.a. apps), commonly subsumed under non-functional requirements, are generally reported by users through app reviews available in app stores. However,…
Mobile software apps ("apps") are one of the prevailing digital technologies that our modern life heavily depends on. A key issue in the development of apps is how to design gender-inclusive apps. Apps that do not consider gender inclusion,…
Vendors in the Android ecosystem typically customize their devices by modifying Android Open Source Project (AOSP) code, adding in-house developed proprietary software, and pre-installing third-party applications. However, research has…
The ubiquity of smartphones, and their very broad capabilities and usage, make the security of these devices tremendously important. Unfortunately, despite all progress in security and privacy mechanisms, vulnerabilities continue to…
Building Android applications reliably remains a persistent challenge due to complex dependencies, diverse configurations, and the rapid evolution of the Android ecosystem. This study conducts an empirical analysis of 200 open-source…
While protecting user data is essential, software developers often fail to fulfill privacy requirements. However, the reasons why they struggle with privacy-compliant implementation remain unclear. Is it due to a lack of knowledge, or is it…
Android applications collecting data from users must protect it according to the current legal frameworks. Such data protection has become even more important since the European Union rolled out the General Data Protection Regulation…
Developers use different means to document the security concerns of their code. Because of all of these opportunities, they may forget where the information is stored, or others may not be aware of it, and leave it unmaintained for so long…
Android's open-source nature facilitates widespread smartphone accessibility, particularly in price-sensitive markets. System and vendor applications that come pre-installed on budget Android devices frequently operate with elevated…
Application Programming Interface (API) incompatibility is a long-standing issue in Android application development. The rapid evolution of Android APIs results in a significant number of API additions, removals, and changes between…
Current smartphone operating systems regulate application permissions by prompting users on an ask-on-first-use basis. Prior research has shown that this method is ineffective because it fails to account for context: the circumstances under…
We introduce a novel type system for enforcing secure information flow in an imperative language. Our work is motivated by the problem of statically checking potential information leakage in Android applications. To this end, we design a…
Third-party security apps are an integral part of the Android app ecosystem. Many users install them as an extra layer of protection for their devices. There are hundreds of such security apps, both free and paid in Google Play Store and…
Data privacy legislation, such as GDPR and CCPA/CPRA, has rendered data privacy law compliance a requirement of all software systems. Developers need to implement various kinds of functionalities to cover law needs, including user rights…
Mobile devices are used more and more in everyday life. They are our cameras, wallets, and keys. Basically, they embed most of our private information in our pocket. For this and other reasons, mobile devices, and in particular the software…
With millions of apps that can be downloaded from official or third-party market, Android has become one of the most popular mobile platforms today. These apps help people in all kinds of ways and thus have access to lots of user's data…
Throughout 2021, GitGuardian's monitoring of public GitHub repositories revealed a two-fold increase in the number of secrets (database credentials, API keys, and other credentials) exposed compared to 2020, accumulating more than six…
The management of data and digital assets poses various challenges, including the need to adhere to legal requirements with respect to personal data protection and copyright. Usage control technologies could be used by software platform…