VLDB 2026 Research / reviewers in the wild / expert
Lin Zhang 0062
dblp:37/1629-62
· DBLP profile ↗
2ranked-venue papers
0as first author
2since 2021 · last 2026
0009-0004-6642-2238ORCID · verified
Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several
Software engineering, systems software and programming languages · 2 · 2 since 2021
| Year | Publication | Venue | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | The arts and crafts of android adware across a decade
Chao Wang 0097, Tianming Liu 0001, Yanjie Zhao 0001, Lin Zhang 0062, Xiaoning Du 0001, Li Li 0029, Haoyu Wang 0001 |
Autom. Softw. Eng. | 4 |
| 2024 | Same App, Different Behaviors: Uncovering Device-specific Behaviors in Android AppsabstractThe Android ecosystem is significantly challenged by fragmentation, arising from diverse system versions, device specifications, and manufacturer customizations. The growing divergence among devices leads to marked variations in how a given app behaves across diverse devices. This is referred to as device-specific behaviors. Fragmentation not only complicates development processes but also impacts the overall industry by increasing maintenance costs and potentially harming user experience due to inconsistent app performance. In this work, we present the first large-scale empirical study of device-specific behaviors in real-world Android apps. We have designed a three-phase static analysis framework to accurately detect and understand the device-specific behaviors. Upon employing our tool on a dataset comprising more than 20,000 apps, we detected device-specific behaviors in 2,357 of them. By examining the distribution of device-specific behaviors, our analysis revealed that apps within the Chinese third-party app market exhibit more such behaviors compared to their counterparts in Google Play. Additionally, these behaviors are more likely to feature dominant brands that hold larger market shares. Reflecting this, we have classified these device-specific behaviors into 29 categories based on the functionalities implemented, providing a structured insight that is crucial for developers and stakeholders in the industry. Beyond the common behaviors, such as issue fixes and feature adaptations, we have observed 33 aggressive apps, including popular ones with millions of downloads. These apps abuse system properties of customized ROMs to obtain user-unresettable identifiers without requiring any permissions, posing significant privacy risks. Finally, we investigated the origins of device-specific behaviors, highlighting the significant challenges developers encounter in implementing them comprehensively. Our research aims to inform and equip industry practitioners with knowledge to enhance user experience and user privacy, marking a critical step toward addressing the less touched yet vital aspect of device-specific behaviors in the Android ecosystem. Zikan Dong, Yanjie Zhao 0001, Tianming Liu 0002, Chao Wang 0097, Guosheng Xu 0001, Guoai Xu, Lin Zhang 0062, Haoyu Wang 0001 |
ASE | 7 |