Location Smartphone To Monitor Power Consumption Through

Owners of a smartphone is not only to follow through their location information, also the power consumption can make clear where one has been. That have researchers from Stanford University in the United States and the National Research and Simulation Center Rafael determined from Israel.

A malicious app on the phone can measure the power consumption and thus determine the position of the owner. "Our approach allows the identification of known routes, real-time tracking and new routes possible by measuring the power consumption," said Yan Michalevsky opposite Technology Review . The idea behind the theory is that the power consumption of the smartphone is dependent on the distance to the base station.

If a user travels changing this distance, whereby the power consumption increases or decreases. The power consumption is therefore highly dependent on the phone's movements and the route taken by the user. Given different routes that a user can take, the power profile will show which route the user has actually taken.

The researchers concluded an Android app called "PowerSpy" develop to prove the theory in practice. The app on different devices was then tested, with 43 different user profiles for four different routes were collected. On the basis of the power consumption, the researchers with an accuracy of 93% were able to determine the selected route. The power consumption of other existing apps, according to the researchers to easily eliminate.

To protect users against this form of tracking apps would have to gain access to power, although this is probably overkill. A better option is apps only allow access to the power that is not associated with radio communications. One option that is also easy to implement. The research and presentation ( ppt to find) the researchers are online.