Question

If a URL request is made from an iPhone app, is it possible for the service to which the request is made to identify the app? Generally, a service can see the IP address from which the request is made, but is more identifying information included in the request? My aim is to ensure that the app cannot be identified.

Answer 1

Log the simulator network traffic to a file:

sudo tcpdump -s 0 -A -i en0 port 80 > log.txt

Then read the file and see if your app behaves any different from a browser. Note that your network interface may vary. Run ifconfig -a to see if you are on en0, en1, or what.

You can change the user agent and any other header if you need to…

• If you are using ASIHTTPRequest:
  [ASIHTTPRequest setDefaultUserAgentString:@"firefox blah blah"];

• If you are using NSMutableURLRequest:
  [request setValue:@"firefox blah" forHTTPHeaderField:@"User-Agent"];