After the discussion in the following post I dug a bit deeper the rabbit hole.
While I mostly relied on Exodus to see if an app has trackers in it… I was baffle to see all the sketchy requests it made while dumping the DNS requests with PCAPdroid…
Over 200 shady requests in a few seconds after login… here’s a preview:
While I don’t use AdguardVPN, I have Adguard Home as my DNS server in my homelab… I think It’s time to switch to pi-hole !
Edit: VPN pcapdroid
A lot of paranoia on this community :(
There’s a few sign in checks (The variety makes me think Disqus or something similar.), a couple of keep alives, your phone registering for Wi-Fi calling, Fallback DNS requests, a couple of CDN requests which I would get is likely update checks and finally YouTube content for NewPipe. I think I’m seeing five tracking cookies based on the rest of your apps here, probably being sent “Do Not Track” requests.
This dump is only from AdguardVPN app. This traffic is not my routed traffic to the VPN.
As you can see on the second screen my vpn is connected to PCAPdroid.
And 800 requests in less than a minutes on a rooted/debloated android?
I have seen a lot of keep alive/cdn packets and fallback dns… and I know how a VPN and routing works. I have setup my whole homelab with selfhosted wireguard/dns/router… I have seen a lot of request on my Adguardhome and played arround with wireshark to see the whole network traffic.
Sure on a whole network there is a lot of traffic, but this amount of request for a single app? There’s something fishy !
Edit: Try it for yourself and post some screenshots.
These all seem like pretty run-of-the-mill dns requests. Are there specific requests that give you some pause?
Hummm… These are probably normal request for the “average user”, but not for privacy advocates from this community:
37.120.218.14 33across.com33Across has over 15 years of experience building identity resolution technology, programmatic monetization, and audience segmentation through big data and a global first-party publisher foundation. Future-proofing the industry’s addressable infrastructure, 33Across provides direct access to critical signals that power privacy-safe …
193.19.204.51 usc1-gcp-v61.api.snapchat.comSnapchat’s Marketing API
66.203.113.242 match.prod.bidr.io/Match.prod.bidr.io. Match.prod.bidr.io is an application for Chrome, Firefox, Edge and other Windows browsers that can annoy you with hundreds of pop-up ads, banners and promotional messages. In addition to that, Match.prod.bidr.io may automatically redirect your web searches to pre-defined web pages that generate pay-per-click revenue.
212.102.40.187 init.supersonicads.cominit.supersonicads.com is ‘s script. Going forward, it’s going to need help adding value to your business’ marketing efforts. Since 2017, this script has been at least 20-25% less effective than you think. Why? Because privacy-first browsing is here. This is a game changer for scripts like init.supersonicads.com and businesses like yours …
Just to name a few… The list goes on… If this doesn’t raises an eyebrow of suspicion, than the privacy community is probably useless…
Also, most of those links are blocked by default by uBlock origin.
Edit: Why would a VPN application make a request to
tiktokcdn.com.c.bytefcdn-oversea.com? Okay It’s “just” a CDN, but why In the hell tiktok? I have never used any of those sketchy apps why would It need to go to tiktok or snapchat?
I recommend Wireguard VPN, is in kernel.