Track URLs visited on mobile devices

[mirhagk]

Hey so I was asked to make a program that basically keeps track of every website a user visits, and emails them to a friend. Just for clarification this is something the user would willingly install and agree to. It's basically an accountability buddy based system, where someone else gets to look at every site you visit, making you not want to visit certain sites.

Yes I know that no matter what there will be some convulted way the user can avoid it, but the user is the one installing and wishing to use it, so they ideally won't be trying to get around it (and even if they do try, it'd be difficult to know for sure whether a method worked etc, and it'd take some effort, which may not be worth it).

Basically my question is how I would do something like this on a mobile phone? I can figure out something with desktop versions (there's tons of network monitors out there, many which are open source), but I'm not sure where to start with mobile phones. I'm guessing something like this might be difficult if not impossible with a closed platform like iOS or WP7, but I imagine it's possible to do with android since it's essentially a linux based distro. Does anyone know where I should start?

[Tony]

mirhagk @ Tue Sep 25, 2012 9:54 pm wrote:

Just for clarification this is something the user would willingly install and agree to.

Doesn't matter -- there are too many cases of apps that abuse system access (something like a free single-player game that requires full internet access and ability to read your contact lists). People willingly install spyware all the time.

mirhagk @ Tue Sep 25, 2012 9:54 pm wrote:

Does anyone know where I should start?

Review the list of available permissions an Android app can possibly get -- http://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission.html#READ_HISTORY_BOOKMARKS seems promising.

[Dan]

I would try https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Browser.html

Not sure how this would work with third party browsers or if they clear out the history.

Network monitoring is probably not possible with out root access, tho it is possible (there are packet sniffers for rooted android devices).

[mirhagk]

Thanks guys, I can test that library out with other browsers, at the very least it's somewhere to start for the app.