NDLI: Which Android App Store Can Be Trusted in China?

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Yi Ying Ng Hucheng Zhou Zhiyuan Ji Huan Luo Yuan Dong
Copyright Year	2014
Description	Author affiliation: High Technol. R&D Center, Chinese Minist. of Sci. & Technol., Beijing, China (Zhiyuan Ji) \|\| Dept. of Comput. Sci. & Technol., Tsinghua Univ., Beijing, China (Yi Ying Ng; Huan Luo; Yuan Dong)
Abstract	China has the world's largest Android population with 270 million active users. However, Google Play is only accessible by about 30% of them, and third-party app stores are thus used by 70% of them for daily Android apps (applications) discovery. The trustworthiness of Android app stores in China is still an open question. In this paper, we present a comprehensive study on the trustworthy level of top popular Android app stores in China, by discovering the identicalness and content differences between the APK files hosted in the app stores and the corresponding official APK files. First, we have selected 25 top apps that have the highest installations in China and have the corresponding official ones downloaded from their official websites as oracle, and have collected total 506 APK files across 21 top popular app stores (20 top third party stores as well as Google Play). Afterwards, APK identical checking and APK difference analysis are conducted against the corresponding official versions. Next, assessment is applied to rank the severity of APK files. All the apps are classified into 3 severity levels, ranging from safe (identical and higher level), warning (lower version or modifications on resource related files) to critical (modifications on permission file and/or application codes). Finally, the severity levels contribute to the final trustworthy ranking score of the 21 stores. The study indicates that about only 26.09% of level APK files are safe, 37.74% of them are at warning level, and 36.17% of them are surprisingly at critical level. We have also found out that 10 (about 2%) APK files are modified and resigned by unknown third-parties. In addition, the average trustworthy ranking score (47.37 over 100) has also highlighted that the trustworthy level of the Android app stores in China is relatively low. In conclusion, we suggest Android users to download APK files from its corresponding official websites or use the highest ranked third-party app stores, and we appeal app stores to ensure all hosting APK files are trustworthy enough to provide a "safe-to-download" environment.
Sponsorship	IEEE Comput. Soc.
Starting Page	509
Ending Page	518
File Size	201403
Page Count	10
File Format	PDF
ISBN	9781479935758
ISSN	07303157
DOI	10.1109/COMPSAC.2014.95
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2014-07-21
Publisher Place	Sweden
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Smart phones Androids Humanoid robots Google Mobile communication Distance measurement Libraries severity ranking Android app store APK trustworthy
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Computer Science Applications Software

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

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