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Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Part 2 - ADB keyvalue backups - Call Logs

This is Part 2 of the continuing blog series on ADB keyvalue backups. Today we focus on Call Log Backups. 

Call logs are backed up under 
<Backup.adb>/apps/com.android.calllogbackup/k/com.android.calllogbackup.data
They are backed up only if you specified the -keyvalue option and are available on non-rooted devices too.

This file follows the Key-Value Data format as outlined earlier in part 1. The Keys here are the call ids or serial number of calls, starting at 1 and sequentially rising. The Values are the individual call log records.

Here are the structures used in the Call Log record. All fields here are stored as Big Endian.

1. Text_Record

Position
Type
Description
00
ushort
field_length (in bytes)
02
char[field_length]
field data (text)

2. Call_Log

Position
Type
Description
00
uint
version, 0x03EF (1007) or 1005 seen
04
int64
timestamp
12
uint64
call duration in seconds
20
byte
is_phone_number_present
21
Text_Record
present if is_phone_number_present = 1
..
uint
call type
   1 = Incoming
   2 = Outgoing
   3 = Missed
   4 = voicemail
   5 = Rejected / Declined
   6 = Blocked
   7 = Answered_Externally
..
uint
number presentation
  1 = Allowed
  2 = Restricted
  3 = Unknown
  4 = Payphone
..
byte
is_servicename_present
..
Text_Record
present if is_ servicename_present = 1
..
byte
is_iccid_present
..
Text_Record
present if is_ iccid _present = 1
..
byte
is_own_num_present
..
Text_Record
present if is_ iccid _present = 1
..
byte[12]
unknown bytes, always 0
..
Text_Record
oem namespace string
..
byte[18]
unknown bytes
..
uint
block reason (only on version 1007)
   1 = Screening service
   2 = Direct to voicemail
   3 = Blocked number
   4 = Unknown number
   5 = Restricted number
   6 = Payphone
   7 = Not in contacts
..
byte[18]
unknown bytes (only on version 1007)

The screenshot below shows a raw record in the hex editor.

Figure 1 - Call log record showing some important fields

Using an 010 template to parse this information, it looks like this (below).

Figure 2 - Call log record data parsed in 010 editor
The level of detail on these records is great. There are call status codes known as Call Type (Missed, Incoming, Outgoing, ..) as well as a number Presentation code which is usually 1 (Allowed), although there are a few other values. Calls that show up on your phone as 'Private' numbers, will have presentation code 2 (Restricted). If you have enabled any call blocking features, then those show up too on blocked calls (known as block reason).

Code to automate this parsing

A python script has been created to parse call log records from the com.android.calllogbackup.data file, available here. The 010 template can be downloaded here.

Forensic Gems - Detecting Deleted call records

Since each call record has a key which is the call id or the serial number of the call, I performed an experiment to see if deleting intermittent call records would change this number. It turns out that the number does not change, in effect allowing us to detect deleted call records. This is visible in the screenshot below, where you can see call IDs (serial numbers) of 1 through 8 but its missing 4 and 7. Those are the ones I had manually deleted from the Call logs on the phone through the available feature in the Phone app. This was also tested on a real phone with several hundred call records going back several months and it appears to hold true there too.

Figure 3 - Output of callparser.py, made pretty in Excel showing missing call ids.
This can be useful knowing that there can be records which are missing, perhaps intentionally.

Stay tuned for Part 3, there is more good stuff in these key-value backups.

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