présentée et soutenue par

Mobile devices are increasingly becoming the primary device to access the Internet. De-spite this thriving popularity, the current mobile ecosystem is largely opaque because of the vested monetary interests of its key players: mobile OS providers, creators of mobile applications, stores for mobile applications and media content, and ISPs. This problem of opaqueness is further aggravated by the limited control end-users have over the infor-mation exchanged by their mobile devices. To address this problem of opaqueness and lack of control, we designed a user-centric platform, Meddle, that uses traffic indirection to diagnose mobile devices. Compared to an on-device solution, Meddle uses two well-known technologies, VPNs and middleboxes, and combines them to provide a solution that is agnostic to OS, ISP, and access technology. We use Meddle for controlled experiments and an IRB approved study, and observed that popular iOS and Android applications leak personally identifiable information in the clear and also over SSL. We then use Meddle to prevent further leaks using a DNS based packet filter. We also use our platform to detail the network characteristics of video streaming services, the most popular Web-service i