Research

Lab Technical Reports

Longer reports in a research-paper format (abstract, method, results, limits, references). Each one has a number, a version history and a BibTeX entry. They are Lab Technical Reports, not peer reviewed.

What a Lab Technical Report is

A report written like a research paper and published by the Lab under CC BY 4.0. It has not been through peer review. It states what is new and what is not, what was measured and what was not, and it cites only sources the author could check. The shorter, plainly written articles are in the research index.

TABLE ILab Technical Reports
IDTitleTypeStatus
LAB-TR-0001Making Silent Failures Visible: A Single-Pass Section Reader for Android Bug Reports DOIContributory toolAvailable
LAB-TR-0002What Is Inside an Android Bug Report? A Section Census, Truncation Behavior and a 22-Group Taxonomy Across VendorsEmpirical study Planned
LAB-TR-0003Where Android Records Who Used What: App Ops History in Databases, XML Files and Bug Reports DOIEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0004Informative but Individually Unreliable: An Empirical Study of Android Reset Indicators and Their Clocks DOIEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0005Hidden Second Users: Measuring Silent Data Loss from First-Match Path Resolution in an Open-Source Android Forensic ParserEmpirical study Planned
LAB-TR-0006Empty Is Not Absent: Silent Failure Modes in Open-Source Mobile Forensic Parsers on iOS 26 and Android 16 DOIEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0007Five Under-Parsed Android System Stores on One UI 8: Smart Switch, Health Connect, Bluetooth OPP, Blocked Numbers and the Telephony Network LogContributory tool Planned
LAB-TR-0008What iMessage Keeps After You Edit, Unsend, React or Delete: Database Evidence from Nine iPhone Databases on iOS 18 to 26 DOIEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0009Screen Time on iOS 15 to 27: Mostly Empty Usage Tables and Counts That Change Without the Write-Ahead Log DOIEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0010Reading New iOS Sysdiagnose Files: Container Manager State, BatteryUI Runtime, Associated Domains, Network Extension, brctl, MC Events and Task InfoContributory tool Planned
LAB-TR-0011Log Compression and Archive Structure in the iOS 27.0 Sysdiagnose: An Early Observation Tested Against Ten Archives DOIEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0012What the iOS Unified Log Says About Device Security Controls: Most Leave a Trace, Few Record a ChangeEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0013Residual Traces of Removed Messages in the iOS Unified Log: An Observational StudyEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0014Validating Community Forensic Parsers: Synthetic Fixtures, Independent Recounts, Leak Scans and the Limits of AI-Agent Self-ReportsEmpirical study Planned
LAB-TR-0015Parsing Apple Sysdiagnose, Unified Logs and Android Bug Reports: A Review of Public Research and ToolsReviewAvailable
LAB-TR-0016Seven Kilobytes per Event: Storage Amplification and Memory Peaks When Persisting Parsed Log Events from Android Bug ReportsWhite paperOn hold
LAB-TR-0017Where Device Security Settings Live on Disk: A Verified Path and Key Map for Unmanaged iPhones and Android Phones, and Pitfalls That Produce Silent Empty ReadsWhite paperAvailable
LAB-TR-0019Not Found Is Not Off: Evidence-State Accounting for Reconstructing Phone Security Settings from Full File Systems and Android Bug ReportsEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0020Extracting Event Categories from Multi-Million-Line Mobile Logs with Predicate Rules: Design Rationale and a Repeatable Rule-Construction MethodMethod and evaluationAvailable
LAB-TR-0021Retention Horizons of Volatile Stores in iOS and Android ExtractionsEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0022Most Ordinary Phones Trip a Naive Clock-Anomaly Check: Base Rates of Clock Anomalies in Unselected Mobile ExtractionsEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0023Zeroed Cells, Kept Pages, Pending Logs: What SQLite Leaves of a Deleted Row on 47 iOS and Android DevicesEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0024How Much of a Full File System Extraction Is Needed? Measuring Over-Collection and Third-Party Data in iOS and Android ExtractionsEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0028Device-Life Boundary Indicators and the Classification of Restored Versus Native Records on AndroidEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0029Measuring the Answerability of Date-Bound Questions from Mobile Device ExtractionsEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0030Upper Bounds on Record Loss from Identifier Counters in Android Media and Message StoresEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0031The Footprint of Acquisition on an Android Phone: Footprint Classes, a Separation Rule, and Base Rates in Research DevicesEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0032Resilience of Mobile Forensic Findings to the Loss of a Single Data StoreFormal framework with evaluationAvailable
LAB-TR-0033Synthetic Android Phones That Match Measured Ones Feature by Feature but Not Across Stores: A Calibrated Generator and BenchmarkMethod with evaluationAvailable
LAB-TR-0034What an Empty Result Licenses: A Sound Calculus of Absence Claims for Phone EvidenceFormal framework with evaluationAvailable
LAB-TR-0035Where Removed Apps Leave Traces: A Per-Store Measurement on Android and iOS PhonesEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0036The iPhone Inactivity Restart in a Research Corpus: Rare, Near 72 Hours, and Readable Only BrieflyEmpirical studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0037Silent Parser Failures Hide Findings and Invent Deletions Under Stated Decision Rules: A Fault-Injection Study on Synthetic PhonesSimulation studyAvailable
LAB-TR-0038A Calculus of Temporal Uncertainty for Ordering Phone Timestamps over Clock DomainsFormal framework with evaluationAvailable
LAB-TR-0039Can a Finding Be Traced to Its Bytes? Lineage Coverage of a Phone-Forensic ReconstructionFormal framework with evaluationAvailable
LAB-TR-0040Who Changed the Phone? When Acquirer-Induced Changes Can and Cannot Be Told Apart from the User’s OwnFormal framework with evaluationAvailable
LAB-TR-0041Attributing Interior Gaps in Phone Logs to Restarts, Log Rotation and Clock StepsMeasurement study with an attribution methodAvailable

Planned reports are titles only and may be merged, renamed or dropped. Report numbers that do not appear in the table have not been announced. The DOI link in the table is the version DOI of the first posted version; the DOI in the header and citation of each report is the concept DOI, which always leads to the latest version. New reports also arrive by feed.