Client work463 flows · 10 ad networks · 7-minute lab session

Android Ad Evidence Capture & DSP Attribution

Automation Engineer / Python Engineer · Android advertising verification PoC

An automated Android ad-inspection system that captures creatives, UI evidence, click destinations, and network traffic to verify delivery paths and investigate DSP attribution such as Smadex.

View source & evidence

Tamper-evident evidence bundles · 95.69% coverage across 90 tests.

How it works

Launch

PowerShell + Python CLI

Control & detect

ADB + uiautomator2

Capture evidence

UI + screenshots + safe clicks

Capture network

ADB reverse + mitmproxy

Attribute & archive

Rules + JSONL + SHA-256

Problem

A screenshot cannot prove which buying platform delivered an ad, while dynamic creatives, stale intents, certificate restrictions, freezes, and non-rooted devices make reliable evidence collection difficult.

Solution

Built a dual-path pipeline: ADB and uiautomator2 record what users see and safely inspect interactions, while mitmproxy captures delivery-chain signals for rule-based correlation and tamper-evident archiving.

Key decisions

Kept UI and network capture independent: Android automation proves what the user saw, while intercepted flows provide delivery-chain evidence.
Required explicit Ad Info, redirect, client-signature, or reporting signals for confirmed DSP attribution; creatives alone remain candidates, never proof.
Captured broadly, matched later, and recorded creative URLs without fetching them—preserving limited-window evidence without creating accidental impressions or clicks.
Externalized provider indicators in JSON and separated attribution into confirmed, candidate, and not_detected states.
Protected artifacts with append-only SHA-256 manifests, recorded measured geo metadata, and added ANR recovery, cold restarts, and proxy restoration for long sessions.

Tech stack

Python 3.11
uiautomator2
ADB
mitmproxy
Pillow
ImageHash
PowerShell
Pytest
mypy
JSON Lines
SHA-256

Key decisions

Kept UI and network capture independent: Android automation proves what the user saw, while intercepted flows provide delivery-chain evidence.

Required explicit Ad Info, redirect, client-signature, or reporting signals for confirmed DSP attribution; creatives alone remain candidates, never proof.

Captured broadly, matched later, and recorded creative URLs without fetching them—preserving limited-window evidence without creating accidental impressions or clicks.

Externalized provider indicators in JSON and separated attribution into confirmed, candidate, and not_detected states.

Protected artifacts with append-only SHA-256 manifests, recorded measured geo metadata, and added ANR recovery, cold restarts, and proxy restoration for long sessions.