AntWall: A System for Mobile Adblocking and Privacy Exposure Prevention

Abstract

Mobile devices have become an essential part of our every-day lives but are also suffering from various privacy and security risks. The ease of app development has led to a plethora of apps that employ poor security practices and often expose personal identifiers to remote servers. Moreover, these privacy exposures often come from third-party libraries that are leveraged by multiple apps, leading to cross-app tracking of users. This tracking is typically used to serve personalized ads, which cost the user extra data and take up screen real estate. In this demo, we will showcase AntWall, a system for preventing exposures of personal information and blocking ads.