EARP: Principled Storage, Sharing, and Protection for Mobile Apps

Abstract

Modern mobile apps communicate and exchange data with other apps almost as much as they communicate and exchange data with the operating system. Many popular apps now occupy essential places in the app "ecosystem" and provide other apps with services, such as storage, that have traditionally been the responsibility of the OS. For example, an app may rely on Facebook to authenticate users, Google Drive to store users' data, WhatsApp to send messages to other users, Twitter to publicly announce users' activities, etc.