IPV Spyware Discovery (ISDi) Tool

ISDi tool checks Android or iOS devices for apps that can be used for surveillaince (a.k.a "stalkerware", "spouseware", "spyware" apps). ISDi's technical details are included in "Clinical Computer Security for Victims of Intimate Partner Violence" (USENIX 2019). The blacklist is based on apps crawled in "The Spyware Used in Intimate Partner Violence" (IEEE S&P 2018).

Contribution Guidelines

For more information about contributing to ISDi, see the contribution guidelines.

Installing ISDi 💻

ISDi currently supports macOS, Linux, and Termux/Android. If you are using a Windows device, you can use the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2), which can be installed by following these instructions. After this, follow the remaining instructions as a Linux user would.

iOS support by platform. On Linux, macOS and Windows, ISDi uses pymobiledevice3 as a Python library, in the same process. WSL2 and Termux have limited iOS support: there ISDi runs the pymobiledevice3 command-line tool (on WSL, the Windows pymobiledevice3.exe), and the afc2 jailbreak check is not available. Running ISDi natively on Windows works for iPhones only for now; Android scanning on native Windows is still to be done.

System Requirements

Python

• Python 3.9 or higher is required (3.11+ for the optional PhoneView screen viewer)
• Check your version: python3 --version
• On macOS, install via: brew install python
• On Linux (Debian/Ubuntu): sudo apt install python3 python3-pip

Operating System Dependencies

ISDi needs adb for scanning Android devices and pymobiledevice3 for scanning iOS devices.

macOS:

brew bundle
# Or manually:
brew install --cask android-platform-tools

For iOS device support on macOS, pymobiledevice3 will be installed automatically with ISDi. For Android device support, ensure adb (Android Debug Bridge) is installed via the android-platform-tools above.

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu):

sudo apt install adb

For iOS device support on Linux, pymobiledevice3 will be installed automatically with ISDi. For Android device support, ensure adb is installed via the command above.

Windows Subsystem Linux (v2):

• Install adb and pymobiledevice3 in Windows and ensure it's in PATH. Use the same pymobiledevice3 version as ISDi (pip install "pymobiledevice3>=11.49,<11.50" in Windows Python). Do not install them in WSL2, as WSL cannot have access to USB devices. Verify the installation by running adb.exe and pymobiledevice3.exe in a command prompt terminal.

Termux/Android: See TERMUX_INSTALL.md for Android device setup.

Option 1: Install via pip (Recommended)

The easiest way to install ISDi is via pip:

pip install isdi-scanner

Option 2: Install from Source (Development)

Clone the repository and install in development mode:

git clone https://github.com/stopipv/isdi.git
cd isdi
pip install -e .

Running ISDi

After ISDi is installed, with an Android or iOS device plugged in and unlocked, run:

isdi run

ISDi will start a local web server on port 6200. Open your browser to http://localhost:6200 for the ISDi UI. In debug mode, the server is on port 6202.

Note: On first run, ISDi will download the app information database (~47MB) from GitHub. This may take a minute depending on your internet connection. An internet connection is required for the first run.

Command Options

isdi run              # Normal mode
isdi run --debug      # Debug mode (verbose logging)
DEBUG=1 isdi run      # Alternative debug flag
isdi --help           # Show all options

Then navigate to the URL shown in the terminal. Click on "Scan Instructions" and follow the instructions to prepare your device for the scan.

It should look something like this:

Connect a device and click on the suitable button Android or iOS. Give it a nickname and click "Scan now". (Please connect one device at a time.) It will take a few seconds for the scan to complete. We are working to have all scan results done at once on Android, but for the time being please leave the device plugged in when clicking on apps on the scan results table.

After the scan, the UI will look something like this:

Viewing the phone's screen (optional: PhoneView)

PhoneView shows the connected phone's screen in the browser, and lets the consultant tap and type on it. It needs Python 3.11+. Install it together with ISDi:

pip install "isdi-scanner[phoneview]"
isdi phoneview status       # shows what ISDi will run

ISDi and PhoneView pin the same pymobiledevice3 version, and ISDi starts PhoneView with its own Python, so the two always share one copy. ISDI_PHONEVIEW_CMD can point at a PhoneView installed elsewhere.

ISDi then shows a PhoneView button. Pressing it starts PhoneView (port 6201) and opens it in a new tab, already signed in. PhoneView stops when ISDi stops. The phone's owner still unlocks the phone and approves the connection on it every time.

Remote consultants

ISDi and PhoneView listen on this computer only. To let a consultant work remotely, publish both inside your Tailscale network with tailscale serve. See remote.md for setup, the session checklist, and the security model.

Debugging Tips

Android

Check device connection:

adb devices

iOS

Check device connection:

pymobiledevice3 usbmux list

General

• Run ISDi with --debug flag for verbose logging
• Check logs in ~/.local/share/isdi/logs/
• File issues on GitHub with error messages

Termux/Android

See TERMUX_INSTALL.md for Termux-specific troubleshooting.

Downloaded data

The data downloaded and stored in the study are the following. 1. A sqlite database containing the feedback and actions taken by the user. 2. phone_dump/ folder will have dump of some services in the phone. (For Android I have figured out what are these, for iOS I don't know how to get those information.)

Android

The services that we can dump safely using dumpsys are the following.

• Application static details: package Sensor and configuration info:
• location, media.camera, netpolicy, mount Resource information:
• cpuinfo, dbinfo, meminfo Resource consumption: procstats,
• batterystats, netstats, usagestats App running information: activity,
• appops

See details about the services in notes.md

iOS

Only the appIds, and their names. Also, I got "permissions" granted to the application. I don't know how to get install date, resource usage, etc. (Any help will be greatly welcomed.)

Code Structure

• src/isdi/scanner/ - Core scanning logic

  • parse_dump.py - Parses device dumps (Android/iOS)
  • android_permissions.py - Android permission analysis
  • blocklist.py - Stalkerware/spyware blocklist management
  • lightweight_df.py - CSV/data processing (pandas-free)
  • db.py - SQLite database operations
  • pmd3_wrapper.py - Termux-compatible pymobiledevice3 wrapper

• src/isdi/web/ - Flask web application

  • templates/ - HTML templates for the web UI
  • static/ - CSS, JavaScript, and images
  • schema.sql - Database schema (embedded in code)
  • forms/ - WTForms for consultation forms
  • model/ - SQLAlchemy models
  • view/ - Flask route handlers

• src/isdi/scripts/ - Shell scripts for device interaction

  • android_scan.sh - Android device scanning

• src/isdi/data/ - Static data and reference files

  • app-flags.csv - App classification metadata
  • app-info.db - Cached app information
  • android_permissions.csv - Android permission database
  • ios_permissions.json - iOS permission database

See notes.md for other developer helps.

Releasing to PyPI

From an up-to-date main with a clean working tree:

make bump-version              # 1.0.10 -> 1.0.11; or PART=minor / PART=major

This checks that main matches origin/main and that the tag is new, then:

1. updates pyproject.toml and src/isdi/__init__.py;
2. renames the CHANGELOG's ## Unreleased heading to ## 1.0.11 (date);
3. commits "Release v1.0.11" and creates the tag v1.0.11, both locally;
4. asks Push main and v1.0.11 to origin? This publishes 1.0.11 to PyPI. [y/N].

If you answer no, nothing leaves your machine, and it prints the commands to push later or to undo. Pushing the tag starts .github/workflows/publish.yml. That workflow checks the tag matches the version, runs the tests, builds, runs scripts/check_dist.py and twine check, uploads to PyPI, and creates the GitHub release.

It uses PyPI trusted publishing, so no API token is stored in the repository. One-time setup by a PyPI owner of isdi-scanner: under Manage → Publishing, add a GitHub trusted publisher with owner stopipv, repository isdi, workflow publish.yml, environment pypi. In the GitHub repository settings, create the pypi environment, and optionally require a reviewer's approval before each upload.

make upload remains as a manual fallback.