Pronounced "say candy", the goal of SecAndy is to come up with as secure and private of an OS as possible. So as not to reinvent the wheel, we'll base this initiative on our open source code of choice (Android or maybe other developers' choice).
I am not a developer myself but I can without a doubt, because of former professional experiences, organize a project and gather the right people together as a community in order to make sure that project sees the light of day after it has acquired a life of its own if needed, which I think we will agree is something that this kind of project requires because of the scrutiny it will quickly attract.
I am officially calling upon this post all interested developers that could help us fork Android or other open source OS.
Let's get a kickstarter funded and let the party begin. I will update you later today on the advancement of such.
This thread welcomes constructive ideas and developer participation, but here are beginning requirements we'll need to fulfill eventually to privatize and secure android :
- default browser allowing custom search engines such as https://ixquick.com or duckduckgo
- default system search pointing to those custom engines for online component
- control of gps at firmware level to allow full disability
- peer to peer file exchange (think BitTorrent sync) with 1024 to 2048 bit encryption
- implementation of secure sms and mms exchange (think textsecure)
- implementation of encrypted voice channels (think redphone or SIP with end-to-end encryption)
- root vpn for all online access
- systemwide warning of insecure solutions (example : wanting to use gmail or regular email)
- PGP transparent email solution
- Tor option for root vpn (subject to mitm attacks but more on that later)
- peerguardian type auto-updated database to identify suspicious IP address ranges
- systematic in-out firewall control auto updated with peerguardian database and community based rules database
- hardened malware protection and app permissions with automatic permission audit based on application type
- full device encryption and lockup (in case of unauthorized user)
- full remote wipe out and bricking with auto IMEI reporting (in case of theft, might have to be amended because of attack vector)
- full remote location capability with real time tracking (that one might have to be scratched, high security risk because of attack vector)
This obviously doesn't cover all the bases but would be a good start... I know a lot of these options can be implemented with a mismatch of apps and custom Roms but having it all at an OS level AOKP style would greatly help in building an android by the people for the people community that could eventually loosen the stranglehold of less than transparent corporations.
100 views total between both threads in 24 hours and not one comment. Obviously I'm approaching this the wrong way. More news at 11.
Related
I did have a search on here, but didn't find anything particularly relevant so I'm hoping some people could help me out.
My situation is that I manage the deployment of Android Handsets and Tablets within my company. This process is fairly ad-hoc as in, I order a few handsets at a time, set them up with company software requirements + some desktop shortcuts, and ship them to the specific user.
My problem is that the quantity of devices I'm going to be deploying in the next 12 months will grow significantly, and this job is extremely boring, and costing me in time wasted on a repetitive task that could be much better spent on other things.
So I am looking for tools to help make this process more automated/quicker/simpler.
The crux of my requirements are:
a) install software packages (some from market, some not eg Lotus Notes Traveler)
b) Slight desktop customisations (add some app shortcuts, browser homepage etc) - realistically this is optional, but I thought I'd mention it.
Currently I take care of (a) with a homegrown python script which makes some adb calls.
(b) and (c) are entirely manual, and currently depend in part on the device going out - could be any of HTC Desire/Desire S/Sensation, Motorola Atrix/Defy+/Xoom or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
I also have to do this *after* having logged in, set up at least one google account + possibly a motoblur account, and enabled USB debugging - is it possible to get adb shell functionality without needing to get into the OS and enable USB Debugging?
Moving to higher level things, I'm open to the idea of paying for dedicated tools to manage this job - eg Google Apps Domain services, or some other Mobile Data Management service (eg silverback mdm).
However, what these tools are geared to is securing a fleet of devices, but don't seem to offer what I'm looking for, which I believe are pretty simple requirements. ie add some arbitrary apps, and make them accessible on the front screen of the device.
I can't imagine that I'm the first person to need to do this, so what are other people doing to ease the management burden?
Hi all,
I'd like to share great news. Sicher, our free secure messenger finally comes to Windows Phone.
Sicher features true end-to-end encryption of both text messages and file attachments. With anonymous push notifications and the ability to set a timer for when messages will self-destruct, Sicher also includes password protection for the app itself.
Please try Sicher and share your feedback in this post.
FairyMary
Sicher Team
App is free, store link is here: EDIT: Removed because this thing looks like a scam and its description is a lie
I haven't been able to find a lot of info about how the app works (I'm talking about at a very technical level). My general advice regarding crypto code is to open it up for review, either publicly or by a professional security assessment firm (disclaimer: I work at one of those). If the code is already open for review somewhere, that would be awesome; if not, I recommend getting in touch with some external security experts (same disclaimer, but I can provide contact info if you want). The Internet is full of things that the developer claimed (and often even sincerely believed) were secure.
Aaaand just for fun, I decided to take a look at the app and see if there was anything obviously wrong. Let's start with the presence of no fewer than *three* advertisement networks, shall we? Begun Advertising is Russian and Google-owned, Google AdMob is self-explanatory, as is Microsoft Advertising Mobile. Your store description claims you
don’t use any advertising engines
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
. Did you really think nobody would check this?
WTF are you trying to pull here?!? I can't think of any way to faster burn trust in a "secure" app than to make a claim that is trivially disprovable in a way that benefits nobody except you.
I'll come right out and say it: Sicher looks like a scam!
Oh look, a Facebook library as well. Totally expected to see that, given that you
don’t integrate social network SDKs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, and before anybody asks about responsible disclosure, that's for when there's an unintentional bug in somebody's code. This just looks like pure exploitation of your users! (I say "looks like" because I haven't actually decompiled the code to see if those libraries are being used, but it's hard to imagine why you'd have them otherwise...). The only responsible way to disclose malware is to do it publicly, and this looks malicious.
EDIT: I'll give you 24 hours to give me a good argument why I shouldn't report my findings to the stores themselves.
Time's up. You actually got over 48 hours because I was busy yesterday. Hope not too many people got scammed and tracked by your "secure" and "private" app...
Hey @GoodDayToDie, unfortunately I don't know where else to ask this, since you seem to be really interested (and skilled) in this topic, what messengers do you consider secure? WhatsApp is obvious, the only ones on Windows Phone I know of that come to my mind are Telegram and (soon) Threema.
What do you think about the two? I have basically no knowledge, but what seems odd to me about Threema is their faqs answer to "what about MITM?" they just say they use certs, hardcoded in the app. Aren't they with their servers in control then? How I understand this, the Threema servers could perfectly perform a MITM attack.
And Telegram has a completely confusing protocol.. So please share your thoughts!
I have no personal knowledge of one, sadly. Take anything I say here with a huge grain of salt (including the fact that Sicher looks like a scam; I haven't actually verified that it *uses* all those ad networks + Facebook that it integrates, just that it has them) as I'm not spending the time & effort for a full security review of these apps at this time.
Threema actually looks quite good.
Pros:
They don't try to implement the crypto themselves (they use NaCl, which is both written by people who know what they're doing, and well-reviewed).
The design of their end-to-end solution makes sense (it connects through the server since phone networks won't allow incoming/direct connections, but the messages are encrypted to only the recipient and doesn't require that the recipient be online to receive the message).
They are relatively open about how things work (although those *could* be lies; I haven't pulled the app apart).
It is possible for the user to verify the key of another user.
Cons:
They don't have Perfect Forward Secrecy on messages. PFS would require that the intended recipient be online at the start of any given conversation (to negotiate the ephemeral keys) so this isn't terribly surprising, but it is disappointing. An attacker (including a government agency) who gets access to your private key could decrypt historical traffic to you if they'd recorded it.
The app is proprietary; there's nothing stopping them from pushing a malicious update.
The server supplies the public keys of users; until such time as the user validates the other party's key (which is difficult to do except in person) the server could have sent a public key that the server has the private key for (instead of the user's own public key) and then MitM the user's traffic. This would break down when verified though, unless the app lied about the result of the verification process (you don't actually see the key itself).
To address your concern about MitM, the app says they use certificate pinning (a standard and very smart security measure, assuming they did it right) for app-to-server communication, so nobody (including third-party security engineers) can MitM the app traffic. They also claim to use PFS. However, if the server itself is untrusted (i.e. some government thugs show up to demand access, although bear in mind that apparently the servers are all in Switzerland) then the server could give you the wrong public key for a user you try and add, allowing the server to MitM you. Also, the company could push an update that is malicious.
The only protection against the server-sends-wrong-key threat is to either require that the user manually import all keys (think PGP minus keyservers and assuming trustworthy key exchanges) or exactly verify the key (i.e. personally ensure that it matches the other user's key by actually checking the bytes or at least the hash). The only protection against the malicious update is to make the source code available and have a method by which users can either compile it themselves (though see "Reflections on Trusting Trust") and/or have a way to verify the application binaries.
I'll look at Telegram later. For the moment, though, I would loosely recommend Threema once it's available. There's also Skype, of course, but while it was decompiled once long ago (and found to use secure encryption, although some non-crypto vulns were found) that was many versions ago (and, in particular, was before Microsoft bought them).
Hello.
I am here seeking for help and advice on how to approach the development of a security framework (via APP or via hacked Android ROM to be used by kids, that could be monitored by adults (parents or legal tutors).
The idea would be to develop a (white hat) hacked ROM, that would allow the kids to communicate with their friends, but also would allow their parents to supervise/monitor in real time what their children are doing, who are they communicating with and that way protect their children. The thing is not to spy on our kids, but to be able to check regularly if there is anything wrong going on with our kids (mobbing, insults or harassment). Kids aged (10-14) could be influenced by other kids, adults, or adults simulating being kids, and on some occasions they can be tricked to do things without their parents consent/knowledge that can lead to a tricky situation.
When I was a kid, we had the telephone (wired telephone, of course) on the middle of the hallway, so all our conversations were basically family-public. The truth is that there are not many secret things a 10yo kid could/should talk about, but nowadays, it could be a little bit worrying to lend a smartphone to a kid. I think it's just as letting a kid drive a car; he can do it right, or not be able to evaluate the whole consequences of driving a car.
Talking to other parents around me, they all found very interesting the idea of having a telephone that one could lend to their son, having the kid available all the time, and with the peace of mind that you could know what's going on. Of course the kid should be aware of this, and that the telephone comms are being supervised. I think it's no big deal. "Kid, it's very simple. The telephone is mine, and if you want to use it you have to use it under my terms".
Probably, all of us working for a company, have also our communications supervised, cannot make personal phonecalls with the company's telephones, probably cannot navigate to webs looking for personal content, and we asume those rules (because neither the company's phones nor the computers are ours but our company's). It's basically the same, switching the company-employee role to a father-son one.
So, let's get to the point (technically). I am a tech-geek, linux pro-user, have compiled a few ROMs just for personal use, but don't feel capable enough of starting a project of these magnitude alone. If there is anyone willing to help, opine, or whatever, will be very welcome.
First of all, APP or ROM? I basically think that the ROM is the way to go, but I'm asking just in case someone can convince me on the contrary. I will make a poll on this question.
APP An APP could be easily downloaded and installed but would require a rooted phone, and I don't see it clearly if an APP could resolve all the needed issues (access to communications for example) and could be fairly easily uninstalled too.
ROM On the other hand, a ROM would be trickier to uninstall (basically flashing another ROM) but wouldn't be as easy to install as an APP (though the installer model of cyanogenmod could be kind of a solution). There could be an universal (if possible) independent flashable module, over whatever android ROM, or an entire ROM solution.
Features that I want to develop in this ROM (by the way, I call it 'Vigilante ROM'):
Suitable for as many devices as possible
Web interface for parents available to see device-related information
Some hack-proof measures to avoid kids bypassing the ROM's security
Alerts triggered on some events (offensive words, whatever)
Position of the mobile -just in case-
Suitable for as many devices as possible
The first thing I though was what platform should be used for this ROM. To select Android over others (iOS, Blackberry, W7) was a no-brainer. Now, the question is should we use pure Android or make a CyanogenMod fork?
In my opinion, even though every phone maker has to supply their ROM sources publicly, they usually introduce so many modifications (HTC Sense, Samsung Touchwizz and so on) that it looks more difficult to develop a common security framework over each manufacturer's version of Android, rather than using a more standardized one like CyanogenMod.
CyanogenMod already works with a wide number of devices (and a wider one if you count the unofficial supported devices), I think CyanogenMod should be the base of this ROM. If all the 'things' needed could be flash on top of any Android device, would be even better, but technically I need help with this one.
I understand that basically there should be an internal proxy setup, so that all the communications go through this internal proxy, and based on the kind of communication, we could log whatever we need. For example:
Visited URLs
Whatsapp or other messaging apps should be decrypted
Incoming/Outgoing calls/SMS
Social network activity
I know the Whatsapp protocol because I'm familiar with a project called WhatAPI. The key point to be able to intercept whatsapp messaging is a key generated and exchanged during the app install (although there are ways to later ask the Whatsapp server to renegotiate this keyword) and that's used later to encrypt all the messages between the phone and the whatsapp server.
Web interface for parents available to see device-related information
Behind every kid with a smartphone there should be a responsible adult supervising the kid -even if it's remotely-. In my idea, logs of messaging activity, incoming/outgoing calls/SMS and even the position should be available to the supervisor through a web interface.
Some hack-proof measures to avoid kids bypassing the ROM's security
That's an easy one. CRC checks on some keyfiles would guarantee that the device is not being 'counter-hacked'. Some kids are also very techie, and we should make some defences against kids trying to hack (counter-hack?) the phone.
Alerts triggered on some events (offensive words, whatever)
It could be interesting if somehow the supervisor could receive a notification whenever the kid sends/receives and offensive word, or tries to enter some special tagged website.
Hi all
I a searching for someone who is very experienced in making a secure custom rom for Android.
I have given some example links as a reference.
Create Custom ROM for Android —* which phones do you recommend ?
I have a recent Huawei. I would like to avoid spending many hundreds of euros on phones if possible
I would like a custom Secure firmware, that will be*
-*Protection from zero-days viruses
-*Hardened kernel
-*Stronger sandboxing and isolation for apps & services
-*Firewall & network hardening -**MAC Randomization
-*Security-centric user experience changes
-*Man in the middle doctor* —* Protection from SS7 attacks
-*IMSI catcher decor
-*Verifiable Source Code
-*Protection from silent sms
-*Protect your contacts and call history from unauthorised access
- How to change phone identifiers if I wanted to*
An example of phone software that I would like to emulate as much as possible.
sorry I had to remove the links as its my 1st post. It will be easy to find with this info.
esdcryptophone cryptophone-600g
esdcryptophone comparison
Thank you all for taking time to read my request
Felix
Hey guys,
what do you think about GrapheneOS? (https://grapheneos.org)
I think there are some disadvantages:
- only Pixel devices (because only these have some security "flags")
- no root access
- hardcoded Google domains
and some advantages:
- good hardware support
- hardenized aosp
- closed bootloader after flashing
Now I would like to discus about this ROM
I too would be interested to hear about anyones experience regarding this OS
johndoe118 said:
Hey guys,
what do you think about GrapheneOS? (https://grapheneos.org)
I think there are some disadvantages:
- only Pixel devices (because only these have some security "flags")
- no root access
- hardcoded Google domains
and some advantages:
- good hardware support
- hardenized aosp
- closed bootloader after flashing
Now I would like to discus about this ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm interested in this ROM too. I have a Pixel 3a. I haven't flashed it yet because I'm trying to find out what people's experiences are first. There doesn't seem to be a lot of posts about it. Did you ever flash it? Also, what do you mean by "hardcoded Google domains"?
Well, the captiveportal contacts the Google servers regularly when you connect to a WiFi. That was one reason why I lost interest in the ROM. The other was the limited device support and missing root access. I absolutely need access to the iptables. As a one-man show, the ROM can be adjusted at any time.
johndoe118 said:
Well, the captiveportal contacts the Google servers regularly when you connect to a WiFi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have some kind of reference for that? I'm using it now and would really like some proof to bring up in their subreddit as a WTF.
graphene seems great, no root does not
I don't want the bootloader locked.
I want Magisk extensions
I need root for LP _only_ to remove ads. Is there something like LP that allows (interactively) disabling app activities?
hardcoded google domains info from faq
https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-support
GrapheneOS leaves these set to the standard four URLs to blend into the crowd of billions of other Android devices with and without Google Mobile Services performing the same empty GET requests. For privacy reasons, it isn't desirable to stand out from the crowd and changing these URLs or even disabling the feature will likely reduce your privacy by giving your device a more unique fingerprint. GrapheneOS aims to appear like any other common mobile device on the network.
HTTPS: https://www.google.com/generate_204
HTTP: http://connectivitycheck.gstatic.com/generate_204
HTTP fallback: http://www.google.com/gen_204
HTTP other fallback: http://play.googleapis.com/generate_204
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nay_ said:
hardcoded google domains info from faq
https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-support
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, right from there
I have Graphene OS taimen-factory-2020.07.06.20.zip on my Pixel 2 XL.Under "System update settings" is "Check for updates" but nothing happens if I tap.Only the field becomes darker.Has someone experience with this?
Update with adb sideloading to 2020.08.03.22 works.
OTA update from 2020.08.03.22 to 2020.08.07.01 likewise.
I'm personally not a fan of these kinds of projects, they aren't really all that 'secure', you're still using proprietary vendor blobs and such
help please
Hello! In the description
I pointed out that you can change servers just not through the GUI.
Has anyone tried this?
```
Providing a toggle in the Settings app for using connectivitycheck.grapheneos.org as an alternative is planned. The option to blend into the crowd with the standard URLs is important and must remain supported for people who need to be able to blend in rather than getting the nice feeling that comes from using GrapheneOS servers. It's possible to use connectivitycheck.grapheneos.org already, but not via the GUI.
```
captive portal leak + location services data leak
Few points:
1. General idea is that privacy/security oriented OS (as graphene is advertised) should limit network activity as much as possible, and not ping google using captive portal service every few seconds providing perfect IP-based location to google
It is possible to switch it off, but should be off by default
2. Connections of android location services to get GPS constellations were shown before to send sim card imsi and connected cellular tower id to provider (qualcom/google):
"blog.wirelessmoves.com/2014/08/supl-reveals-my-identity-and-location-to-google.html"
Graphene still allows those connections (check their FAQ on website)
W/O root no way to switch this off. Even some devices ignore config files and still leak data (on the level of cellular modem most probably)
3. Android services make other weird connections. Example: AOSP dialler app is querying phone numbers against online database leaking all contacts to google. How was this taken care of in graphene? Are all AOSP services/apps security-verified to not leak any data?
w/o root no way to install afwall to block everything
Is graphene built-in firewall capable of blocking system services from network access?