Help/Support How to protect an app from screen recording/capturing on rooted Android

[tanis 4 Nexus 5 6.0]

I've been looking around the net for some information regarding protecting your app from screen recording and screen capturing. I know that there's a system flag for "stock" Android that actually tells the media capture API not to record the screen with sensitive information. But that's not working on rooted Android, so I was wondering if there's any trick of the trade that can be employed to actually find out if there's a screen recording app running as a system app or anything like that.

Cheers!

 

[Zahir 394.9k]

This topic was moved from Help & Support to Android Help & Support.

[Ted2 39.1k Donor]

Probably, but that can be bypassed anyway. I don't think it's worth it if it's for a simple app

[tanis 4 Nexus 5 6.0]

@Ted2 well, the problem with this app is that the content has been licensed under terms that prohibit download of such content, sharing in any way and things like that. So they are worried that people could screen-grab the content and publish it on the internet and it would be evident where it comes from, so they'd end up in trouble. So it might be worth it eventually, it all depends how far I should stretch to implement some serious detection code. 

[Ted2 39.1k Donor]

2 minutes ago, tanis said:

@Ted2 well, the problem with this app is that the content has been licensed under terms that prohibit download of such content, sharing in any way and things like that. So they are worried that people could screen-grab the content and publish it on the internet and it would be evident where it comes from, so they'd end up in trouble. So it might be worth it eventually, it all depends how far I should stretch to implement some serious detection code. 

Idk men, this forum is based on cracking/bypassing those kind of checks instead of making them. Maybe there some source codes on Github tho

Use SECURE_FLAG

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28606689/how-to-prevent-screen-capture-in-android

[Ted2 39.1k Donor]

Rooted screenrecorders have root access, so maybe that's why it's bypassing it idk

[tanis 4 Nexus 5 6.0]

Yes, SECURE_FLAG works fine for non-rooted devices. Rooted devices can record the screen through different APIs as far as I know and bypass the SECURE_FLAG entirely. I can think of using direct OpenGL calls to read the buffers and textures, but I don't know if there's anything that advanced available. 

BTW there's no better place than people actually hacking apps/games to check for such things

I've been on your same side for a long time and still am.. but you have to pay the bills so that's why I'm on this hunt now. Do you know any active community involved in making rooted apps eventually?

 

[NoFearGG 641 Pixel 2 XL 8.1]

Not sure if your app could call to the DRM lock on device. This is what Netflix does. Still not "perfect", more complicated to bypass it seems.

Edit:. Search this.  liboemcrypto.so

[tanis 4 Nexus 5 6.0]

2 hours ago, NoFearGG said:

Not sure if your app could call to the DRM lock on device. This is what Netflix does. Still not "perfect", more complicated to bypass it seems.

Edit:. Search this.  liboemcrypto.so

Thanks for the tip! I've had a quick read on that topic and it's definitely interesting, even though it seems more geared towards protecting audio/video with stuff like Widevine that is based off streaming. In my case the content is based mainly on pictures and I'm not even sure a solution like that exists.

[NoFearGG 641 Pixel 2 XL 8.1]

9 hours ago, tanis said:

Thanks for the tip! I've had a quick read on that topic and it's definitely interesting, even though it seems more geared towards protecting audio/video with stuff like Widevine that is based off streaming. In my case the content is based mainly on pictures and I'm not even sure a solution like that exists.

Try taking a screenshot of something in Netflix... It's not just recording...