How can the app PCAPdroid help a user investigate what a voice assistant sends over the network?
PCAPdroid creates a local VPN on the Android device to capture and inspect the network connections an app makes — letting you see which servers a voice assistant contacts, when, and how much data flows.
PCAPdroid lets you check which network connections arise when a voice assistant activates — a practical way to gain transparency over data flows. The self-test:
- Install PCAPdroid from the Play Store.
- Start recording: the app creates a local VPN to analyse traffic.
- Activate the assistant: say "Hey Google" and watch in real time which connections are built.
- Analyse: examine target IPs, data volume, and connection timing.
In the "Hey Google" test, observed connections went to discover-pa.googleapis.com over DNS (53), QUIC (443), and HTTPS (443) — i.e. data flows when triggered, not as a constant stream.
Tip: A "local VPN" here doesn't tunnel to a remote server — it loops traffic through the app on-device so PCAPdroid can inspect it. It's a capture trick, not an anonymity tool.
Go deeper:
PCAPdroid User Guide — the local-VPN capture tool and its capture modes.