Contact book app how to#
Contact book app android#
Contact book app Pc#

Not all of these contact book apps will work on an Android emulator, but most will. You can also use Bluestacks or other Android emulators, some of which have iOS versions.

Contact book app Pc#

To set up an emulated Android phone for your PC - in other words, a program that you run on your computer that pretends to be a phone - see this guide I wrote for instructions on using Genymotion.

Contact book app how to#

This guide will detail how to use these apps in a relatively safe context - either through an Android virtual machine or on a вЂњburner phoneвЂќ not connected to a researcherвЂ™s actual email accounts or phone number. Using information saved through phone contact book apps is an oft-neglected resource in digital investigations, largely due to the sheer number of these apps and their invasive privacy policies.ДЄdditionally, the vast majority of the apps in question require a phone to use them, while lacking an accessible web version of their database, making research more cumbersome. Two phone numbers we knew to be associated with this man revealed his cover identity used in Ukraine (вЂњAndrei IvanovichвЂќ), while another number revealed his birth name used in Russia, Ivannikov. We have used these apps in our investigations as well, including in the identification of a GRU officer linked to the downing of MH17, Oleg Ivannikov. A guard wearing a name tag with that name appears in a video from 2017 standing next to Prince Mohammed. A search of the name in Menom3ay, an app popular in Saudi Arabia that allows users to see the names other users have associated with certain phone numbers, identified him as a member of the royal guard. Other phone contact books may provide more information about an individualвЂ™s background, such as in a New York Times investigation into the killing of Jamal Khashoggi that used one of these apps to reveal key information:ДЄ fourth suspect traveled with a passport bearing the name of another member of the royal guard, Muhammed Saad Alzahrani. For example, a 2014 article about the now-discontinued app Noknok describes how many women are labeled by insulting names, and one woman found herself on the site listed as вЂњNess booty call 2.вЂќ

Most of these apps are smart enough to figure out that вЂњMomвЂќ or вЂњDadвЂќ is not a useful name to display for an incoming unknown number, but will often refer to the literal name given in a contact book, which can be incomplete, derogatory, or mnemonic. With many of these apps, this information comes as the result of vacuuming up the contact books of its users, then cross-referencing the data with other instances of the same number being used as well as with Facebook profiles that list a number. However, the way that these apps gather information to determine the name of an unknown caller is not as broadly advertised. Popular apps such as TrueCaller or GetContact advertise the ability to see who is really calling you, even if you do not know the number, and alert the app user of spam or scam calls.