Google Proxy accessing URLs in Messages by Google [closed] - android

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I recently wrote a REST API for a personal project amongst friends. I sent a sample endpoint URL (i.e. à la https://my-api.com/api/resource/4/something) to one of my collaborators over SMS via Messages by Google on Android. Immediately upon sending the SMS, three GET requests came in to my server for that resource. After tracing the IP addresses, (66.102.6.48, 66.249.80.97, 74.125.210.60), I found out that they are from a Google Proxy in Mountain View.
Furthermore, this occurs again each time I send a URL over SMS in this manner.
I am curious why this might be happening? My current suspicion is that Google is doing some sort of caching or minimization. Anybody know?

The reason may be simpler than you think.
In most messaging platforms, when you send a link they make a GET request to the server to display a preview of the website, think about what happens when you share a link on WhatsApp.
It may very well be the application on your smartphone and/or the one of the receiver, trying to fetch a preview for that link.
Try sending it from a different kind of platform, application or phone (do you have an old Nokia sitting around?).
My guess is that you won't see that GET request!

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Mobile phone notifications without an app installed? [closed]

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Backstory: Like most countries in the world, we've been hit hard with the coronavirus. Unlike most countries in the world, our country does not have an app that tracks the virus. We can go to a government website that gives us an outdated summary, but that's about it.
Issue: we have a popular web-based retail site, and we created a web-based map that tracks coronavirus-confirmed cases. We were also in the process of creating a mobile app that provides info on the virus, but then apple store and google play started blocking apps related to this virus unless it's approved by the government. We've been trying to get approval, but it's an uphill battle.
Since our web-based app tracks all cases in real-time, is it possible to send some type of notification to a mobile phone? For example, a notification would say something like "Another patient has tested positive. Please visit our site for more information".
I've seen services like Amazon SNS, but I'm not exactly sure what these services do. I was also considering web push notifications, but I've read that safari doesn't support this. I've also read that Firebase can do this, but I'm not sure how.
I guess the question's really a yes/no question: Is it possible to send some type of notification to an iphone or android phone without installing an app? This wouldn't be spam since the user would approve the notifications received.
You can send an SMS message if you know the device's phone number. You can use FCM on a web app if the user opts into the notification after visiting your site. Otherwise it's impossible if you don't have an app installed that's designed for receiving and displaying notifications (for good reason).
I suggest researching your options before posting to Stack Overflow - it's for programming questions, not for soliciting ideas for products to solve a problem.

Can smartphone firmware be able to sniff outgoing HTTP requests of an Android phone? [closed]

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Can a mobile firmware app sniff all outgoing HTTP packets of a Wi-Fi network on a stock distribution device running Android OS connected to the fixed line (ADSL, for example).
In my understanding regarding what is stated here on PCAP page, for example, such is possible through custom firmware and by gaining root access. If so, could the firmware consist of something of a web proxy like Transproxy? I have doubts regarding the reliability of this approach because I know that there are apps that dont respect the central proxy settings (Firefox is one of them).
Or maybe the firmware could be implemented as an Android service that would act as hub for all outgoing HTTP traffic, by somehow forcing all the other apps to register to it?
Thank you!
The OS handles sending and receiving network data. Therefore the OS will also be able to look at the data if it wants to. I'm fairly sure this would have to be done at a system level, a service can't look at traffic from other apps.

Mobile Facebook hacked via wireless router [closed]

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I Wanna ask a general question..
I have used my mobile Facebook chat in the company. I used the wireless router in the company to access the net..
My question : is there any way that the administrator can read the chat on my phone. Can he hacked it. Or the Facebook chat is so secured...?
The facebook chat most likely uses an open HTTP connection to communicate your traffic in clear text unencrypted. That means that the administrator (or anyone in the network skilled enough) in theory can monitor the text transferred. However the traffic going in and out is most probably tremendous so it requires that this person is REALLY interested in the traffic you are sending and filtering out exactly your traffic or searching for specific keywords targeted for this. The password is most probably transferred encrypted though (HTTPS or similar).
So, the conclusion is that it is theoretically possible for them to monitor your traffic although mostly unlikely. Unless you have committed a crime, or are suspected of something considerably illoyal I would say that the risk is very low. I would say it is very unusual unless you work in a company with very strict policies against facebook usage or similar situation.
If you see signs of info leakage I would rather suspect that you do not have protected your facebook account with the right permissions so that they can see your texts or someone who can see the text has leaked it to them.
I would generally recommend you to not publish anything on facebook that you cannot stand by if confronted by an employer, friend or collegue. Facebook is by nature intented for spreading information, not keeping secrets.

How does Kakao Talk work? [closed]

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I have been doing some research to create an IM application. I saw many sample codes and still trying to decide which method to use. Before starting development I want to ask your opinion if anybody knows how popular IM applications such as Kakao Talk, Line, We Chat, WhatsApp work.
I saw some articles saying to use Google Cloud, and some articles about using XMPP.
I am a kinda new for Android development and before starting development I want to see all my possibilities and choose best method for that.
Thanks for your time.
Well, I would presume they don't all work the same way. There are different techniques one can use to implement a chat client. Each of these companies might have their own proprietory technologies depending on their scale, user base, finances etc.
2 popular options you can check out are :
XMPP - It's supported by most major chat clients and is used by the likes of Facebook (a customized version of it anyway). asmack is a popular XMPP library for Android which might be useful to you.
A Backend-As-A-Service (BAAS) provider like Parse. This will save you a lot of server side heavy lifting and writing backend code like you would have to do if you were considering something like AWS
If this is a learning project, I would suggest implementing a very simple client and writing both the server and client-side code so that you know how the whole stack works. Hope that helps!

Blocking Facebook mobile app [closed]

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This may appear counter intuitive to normal posts here, but I was directed to stack overflow as the forum for questions from the FB developer site so here goes!
I'm a network engineer assisting a local school district with some network upgrades. Part of the upgrades involved setting up a web content filter (Untangle), which works great. For various reasons they want to block access to facebook from the school's network during normal school hours. The normal and mobile websites are blocked, but the web content filter doesn't block the mobile app (since the requests aren't coming from a browser the traffic is analyzed differently).
I've opened a ticket with them to see if there is a work-around, but am looking for a way to block the mobile app from accessing facebook until they have a solution. What IP/hostname/ports can I block on our Cisco ASA to stop traffic to the mobile app site? Is there an easy check the app does for connectivity to FB that I can intercept and "trick" it into thinking it doesn't have network access?
These are personal devices, so we can't make changes to them, and yes I realize that technically they could still get access via their mobile provider.
Thanks in advance for ideas and any suggestions!
-Beaty

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