Communications of the ACM
Archiving Tech Scans Mobile Apps For Copyright Infringing Content
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has expanded the capability of its mobile apps archiving technology to track copyright infringement in mobile apps across iTunes, Windows Phone Store, Google Play, Amazon, and third party mobile app markets like Baidu and Cydia.
"Creating innovative technology to secure our nation's infrastructure is a key priority," says DHS Under Secretary for Science and Technology Reginald Brothers. "I am proud that our Cyber Security Division continues to lead top notch mobile security R&D projects — allowing us to help protect our nation against e-crime."
As more entertainment and video content is being streamed on smart devices, performers and researchers have seen a rise in copyright infringement and attempts to profit from pirated video content. In a recent study, the mobile app archiving technology used a set of searchable keywords from paid streaming content and was able to discover more than 18,000 apps across Android, iOS, and Windows app platforms linking to pirated content.
"In the past our society stayed home to watch television or went out to the theatre," says Cyber Security Division Mobile Security Program Manager Vincent Sritapan. "Today that has changed. Everyone has a smart phone or tablet. People are now streaming videos from apps; allowing them to watch their shows at their convenience."
The technology is currently being used by the entertainment industry to track free and paid mobile apps that attempt to profit off pirated streamed video content to end-users. However, this technology could easily be applied to other mediums — such as music and photos — or other large enterprise organizations that have an interest in protecting branding of their mobile products and assets. In the case of free apps, an advertisement displayed while the content is streamed often funds the video content.
In May 2015, the technology was presented at eCrime 2015, the Symposium on Electronic Crime Research, a cybersecurity conference focused on cyber-crime investigation, forensic techniques, and infrastructure defense. The research paper, "Analysis of Content Copyright Infringement in Mobile Application Markets," received Best Paper for the conference, edging out 21 other e-crime research topics. The authors of the paper are R. Johnson, N. Kiourtis, A. Stavrou, and V. Sritapan.
With the success of the mobile archiving app technology's expansion, S&T Cyber Security Division will continue to fund research and development for projects that will enable the adoption of secure mobile technologies.
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