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Android Apps > Tools > [root] Pry-Fi
[root] Pry-Fi icon

[root] Pry-Fi

Proof-of-Concept MAC address randomizer
by Chainfire
Google Play
Google Play
500+
Thousand
Downloads
PREMIUM
Est. downloads
PREMIUM
Recent d/loads
3.78
6,861
Rating
Unranked
Ranking
0
Libraries
2/1/14
Last updated
2014
February
App age
71.8 KB
App size
Everyone
Content rating
FREE
+ In-App
Price

Google Play Rating history and histogram

4040
520
490
360
1450

Changelog

  • Oct 3, 2016 Installs 500,000+ installs
  • Mar 8, 2015 Installs 100,000+ installs
  • Aug 21, 2014 Installs 50,000+ installs
  • Feb 4, 2014 Installs 10,000+ installs
  • Feb 3, 2014 Installs 5,000+ installs
  • Feb 2, 2014 Installs 1+ installs
  • Feb 1, 2014 New App Version in Tools for Free

Developer information

Chainfire

[email protected]

Website

5665 CJ
Geldrop
Netherlands

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Description

You are being watched...

Retailers, crooks, the government, and others shady individuals are tracking your movements. Even when your Wi-Fi is turned off, your phone may be broadcasting information to whomever is in range which can be used both to track repeated visits to as well as your exact movements in an area under surveillance.

It's not a big step to couple this to personal information - a retailer for example, could track your trip to the register and correlate with your payment information. Now the tracking hardware and software vendors, the store (or chain) owner, their business partners, they can now all track where you are every time you come into range of one of their systems, and fully profile who you are, what you do, your financials, and your daily patterns!

That is just one example, but there are many uses for tracking you. Make no mistake, this is happening in the real world today.

Pry-Fi

One solution is shutting off Wi-Fi completely (including the background network scanning, a setting most people don't know about), but you would lose benefits like automatically connecting to known Wi-Fi networks and improved location awareness for your apps. It also does nothing to help the situation for others.

Pry-Fi will prevent your device from announcing all the networks it knows to the outside world, but it will still allow background scanning and automatically connecting to Wi-Fi networks. While you are not connected to a Wi-Fi network, the MAC address will constantly be pseudo-randomized, following a pattern that still makes the trackers think you are a real person, but they will not encounter your MAC address again. This will slowly poison their tracking database with useless information.

When you do connect to a Wi-Fi network, unless you specify otherwise, your MAC address will also be randomized - the same MAC address will not be used the next time you connect to this or any other network.

War!

Though of course the companies involved with these trackers claim they wouldn't use the data maliciously, the possibility is there, and we all know that if something can be abused, ultimately it will be. There do not appear to be any laws against these practices yet, nor is it likely Wi-Fi will be redesigned any time soon to get rid of the information leaks.

But we can make an effort to reduce the usefulness of the tracking data for the exploiters. Pry-Fi comes with a War mode, which when enabled tries to make your Android device appear like dozens of people. Just wandering around an area under Wi-Fi location surveillance for a few minutes can ruin the tracking data for the period of your stay.

Proof of Concept

This is proof-of-concept code, and how for it will go in the future depends on interest and how well it works. It has been tested on several devices and seems to work, but it is very young still. The magic the app does to achieve its purpose is ever subject to changing Android security policies and OEM customizations, so even though it works now, there really is no saying if it will still be possible in future firmwares.

Of course you should also keep in mind that tracking can be done in many ways, and these W-Fi signals are far from the only method in use.

More...

Further details, device compatibility information, FAQ, discussion, etc is all available on XDA-Developers.com here:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2631512

Recent changes:
v1.20:
- Force toolbox calls. Typical case of busybox symlinks causing unexpected failures. Probably the primary cause of people losing Wi-Fi completely
- Service receivers are now en/disabled dynamically. Saves a few CPU cycles and a bit of memory when Pry-Fi is installed but disabled.

v1.10:
- Support for multiple simultaneously known SSIDs
- Spoofing MACs *also* while connected to a network is now a seperate feature.
You are being watched...

Retailers, crooks, the government, and others shady individuals are tracking your movements. Even when your Wi-Fi is turned off, your phone may be broadcasting information to whomever is in range which can be used both to track repeated visits to as well as your exact movements in an area under surveillance.

It's not a big step to couple this to personal information - a retailer for example, could track your trip to the register and correlate with your payment information. Now the tracking hardware and software vendors, the store (or chain) owner, their business partners, they can now all track where you are every time you come into range of one of their systems, and fully profile who you are, what you do, your financials, and your daily patterns!

That is just one example, but there are many uses for tracking you. Make no mistake, this is happening in the real world today.

Pry-Fi

One solution is shutting off Wi-Fi completely (including the background network scanning, a setting most people don't know about), but you would lose benefits like automatically connecting to known Wi-Fi networks and improved location awareness for your apps. It also does nothing to help the situation for others.

Pry-Fi will prevent your device from announcing all the networks it knows to the outside world, but it will still allow background scanning and automatically connecting to Wi-Fi networks. While you are not connected to a Wi-Fi network, the MAC address will constantly be pseudo-randomized, following a pattern that still makes the trackers think you are a real person, but they will not encounter your MAC address again. This will slowly poison their tracking database with useless information.

When you do connect to a Wi-Fi network, unless you specify otherwise, your MAC address will also be randomized - the same MAC address will not be used the next time you connect to this or any other network.

War!

Though of course the companies involved with these trackers claim they wouldn't use the data maliciously, the possibility is there, and we all know that if something can be abused, ultimately it will be. There do not appear to be any laws against these practices yet, nor is it likely Wi-Fi will be redesigned any time soon to get rid of the information leaks.

But we can make an effort to reduce the usefulness of the tracking data for the exploiters. Pry-Fi comes with a War mode, which when enabled tries to make your Android device appear like dozens of people. Just wandering around an area under Wi-Fi location surveillance for a few minutes can ruin the tracking data for the period of your stay.

Proof of Concept

This is proof-of-concept code, and how for it will go in the future depends on interest and how well it works. It has been tested on several devices and seems to work, but it is very young still. The magic the app does to achieve its purpose is ever subject to changing Android security policies and OEM customizations, so even though it works now, there really is no saying if it will still be possible in future firmwares.

Of course you should also keep in mind that tracking can be done in many ways, and these W-Fi signals are far from the only method in use.

More...

Further details, device compatibility information, FAQ, discussion, etc is all available on XDA-Developers.com here:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2631512

Recent changes:
v1.20:
- Force toolbox calls. Typical case of busybox symlinks causing unexpected failures. Probably the primary cause of people losing Wi-Fi completely
- Service receivers are now en/disabled dynamically. Saves a few CPU cycles and a bit of memory when Pry-Fi is installed but disabled.

v1.10:
- Support for multiple simultaneously known SSIDs
- Spoofing MACs *also* while connected to a network is now a seperate feature.
Show full description Hide full description
address concept connect crooks device information mac movements network pattern proof pry pseudo randomized retailer scanning still surveillance though trackers tracking war whomever you your

Comments

Tag cloud

android app great mac magisk networks passwords supersu wifi work

Positive comment tag cloud

android app attacks authentication great magisk people tool update work

Negative comment tag cloud

address app keeps mac magisk passwords supersu wifi work working

Google Play Rankings

This app is not ranked

Permissions

Development tools
modify secure system settings
Network communication
view network connections, view Wi-Fi connections, Google Play billing service
System tools
connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi, retrieve running apps, run at startup, prevent phone from sleeping, modify system settings
Extra
android.permission.ACCESS_SUPERUSER

Libraries

No known libraries used.

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