Back to the Binary: Revisiting Similarities of Android Apps

Abstract

It's been 13 years since "Similarities for Fun and Profit [0]," aka Elsim, was published in April 2012. Python 2.7 was still supported, Android 4.1 wasn't released yet, and it would take another 2 years until a libstagefright bug would get its very own shiny logo. Heck, even Google Code was still around! Things changed, and herein lies our challenge: Code-based Android app similarity is not working (in 2025). The original Elsim code presented by Pouik and G0rfi3ld has seen major changes and improvements over the years, but unfortunately the updated version vanished (worry not, we saved a copy [1], tho we're still tracking down some dependencies). Alternative approaches were developed, but even if they have public descriptions and published code, they lack the generality of Elsim.