ShieldShare: Building a VPN-backed Android Hotspot for Secure Internet Sharing with Per-User Traffic Accounting

TL;DR

ShieldShare is an Android app that creates a VPN-backed hotspot supporting secure, monitored internet sharing without root, suitable for sensitive environments.

Contribution

It introduces a modular, proxy-based system enabling VPN-backed hotspot sharing with per-user traffic accounting on Android without root.

Findings

Reliable routing of client traffic through VPN tunnels.

Accurate per-client bandwidth allocation and accounting.

Open-source release for community use and further research.

Abstract

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have become essential privacy tools for mobile users, yet current implementations face significant limitations in shared environments. Mainstream VPN providers impose device limits, while Android's native hotspot functionality lacks support for routing shared traffic through VPN connections. Existing solutions either require root access or lack comprehensive monitoring capabilities. This paper presents ShieldShare, a proxy-based Android application that enables secure VPN-backed hotspot sharing with per-user traffic accounting without requiring root access. Our system employs a modular architecture comprising VPN detection, hotspot management, proxy-based traffic forwarding supporting HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5, and comprehensive traffic metering with quota management. Our evaluation shows that ShieldShare reliably routes client traffic through VPN tunnels while maintaining accurate per-client bandwidth allocation and accounting. This enables affordable, community-controlled secure access in censored or high-surveillance environments, benefiting activists, investigative journalists, and shared household networks. We release ShieldShare as open-source software to support further research and real-world deployment.