Lil’ Debi: Easy Installer for Debian on Android

 Posted on June 18, 2011  |  n8fr8

Have an Android phone and want an easy Debian chroot running it? Alpha test our new app, Lil’ Debi. It builds up a whole Debian chroot on your phone entirely using debootstrap. You choose the release, mirror, and size of the disk image, and away it goes. It could take up to an hour, then its done. Then it has a simple chroot manager that mounts and unmounts things, and starts/stops sshd if you have it installed. [Read More]

Orbot 1.0.5.2 now available

 Posted on May 17, 2011  |  n8fr8

Our flagship app, Orbot: Tor on Android, has been updated to version 1.0.5.2. It is available in the Android Market, or through direct download from the Tor Project’s website. This release fixes a number of long standing bigs, includes the latest and greatest release of Tor itself, cleans up the user interface a bit, and adds some new advanced options (you can specify your exit node country!). It also fixes an issue with our “Tor Everything” capability, that allowed some Android system network traffic to leak and bypass the Tor routing. [Read More]

Announcing: SQLCipher for Android, Developer Preview r1

 Posted on May 9, 2011  |  Derek

After some major breakthroughs during last week’s development sprint, we’re extremely excited to announce SQLCipher for Android, Developer Preview r1. SQLCipher is an SQLite extension that provides transparent 256-bit AES encryption of database files. To date, it has been open-sourced, sponsored and maintained by Zetetic LLC, and we are glad to be able to extend their efforts to a new mobile platform. In the mobile space, SQLCipher has enjoyed widespread use in Apple’s iOS, as well as Nokia / QT for quite some time. [Read More]

Our Foolish Hackday!

 Posted on April 6, 2011  |  n8fr8

We had a great group of people show up at our April 1st “Don’t Be Fooled” Hackday here at the OpenMobileLab in New York. There were users, there were devs, and all sorts of other people in between. We tracked some of the brainstormed ideas on an open etherpad at: http://piratepad.net/bQPFn6FOhN (text of this pasted in below). The main outputs of the hacking were LilDebi, an updated Debian installer for Android, the beginnings of a Bitcoin digital currency client, and another called UpOn App, which uses the accelerometer and white noise generators in the device to stop your cellphone from spying on you. [Read More]

Growing Mobile Test Lab and Library

 Posted on April 1, 2011  |  n8fr8

At our new meatspace location in New York City, we are building up a library of mobile devices from around the world for open-source developers to use for testing, and specifically to help verify the security of apps running on different carrier configurations and hardware variables. Mostly our collection has come from picking up what we can, when we can, always with an eye towards anything a few generations back from the state of the art. [Read More]

April 26: “Advancing the New Machine” at UC Berkeley

 Posted on March 22, 2011  |  n8fr8

I, along with a number of others from the Guardian Project core dev team, will be at the UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center “Advancing the New Machine” conference at the end of April. I am on a panel regarding security in the context of human rights. We will also be presenting the Secure Smart Cam project with our partners at Witness. (https://guardianproject.info/apps/securecam/). You can learn more about the event here: [Read More]

Guardian Project: General Update March 2011

 Posted on March 21, 2011  |  n8fr8

We have recently updated our general presentation on the project, and thought we would share it with you here. Please post any comments, questions or feedback right here, and we will get back to you shortly.

You can find this presentation on Google Docs, where you can also find it in downloadable, offline formats.

Photos from our January Hackday

 Posted on March 10, 2011  |  n8fr8

Back in January, we held a very excellent hackday at Eyebeam in New York. We rooted a NookColor, made encrypted calls over SIP, and generally had a full day of talking about the state of mobile security and privacy. Thanks to everyone who attended, and many thanks to _hc and Eyebeam for hosting!

View the full Flickr photo set.
DSC_0083

DSC_0121

Proxy Mobile Add-on 0.0.7 for Firefox on Android

 Posted on March 4, 2011  |  n8fr8

We’ve updated our Proxy Mobile add-on for Firefox on Android that allows user to configure their proxy settings. We first released this back in November of last year, and have done our best to keep up with all the various beta updates of the browser. There are no features in this release, just a few small changes to make sure everything is running smoothly out there. To install the add-on, just search for “Proxy” from the add-on search menu within the Firefox settings screen. [Read More]

Addressing a “Privacy Challenge” with Guardian

 Posted on March 2, 2011  |  n8fr8

Organized by the ACLU, Tor Project, and PrivacyByDesign.ca, the “Develop for Privacy Challenge” is an interesting new software development challenge that was announced last month. Developers (teams or individuals) have until May 31st to come up with apps which address this goal: Develop apps for smartphones or other mobile devices that educate users about mobile privacy and give them the ability to claim or demand greater control of their own personal information. [Read More]
challenge  contest  privacy 

SECURED: HTC Wildfires get Guardian

 Posted on March 1, 2011  |  Derek

As we’ve posted in the past, one of the services we provide at The Guardian Project is customizing off-the-shelf Android phones to be generally more secure, privacy minded and updated with a powerful suite of trusted apps. We’ve gotten our mitts on a number of devices over the last few months in this regard, including: myTouch 4G, Motorola Milestone (GSM Droid), HTC Desire GSM, TMobile G2, Samsung Galaxy S, Nook Color, and Viewsonic 10″ GTablet. [Read More]

A note on funding and our mention in Wired

 Posted on February 23, 2011  |  n8fr8

A message from Nathan Freitas, lead developer on Guardian, who has a life long bad habit of being misquoted or selectively quoted, a phenomenon he must now blame on himself, and not the reporters who interview him. Some of you might have seen a story on Wired.com on which I am quoted, regarding the US State Department’s “Internet Freedom” agenda. In particular, I was asked to comment on the entrepreneurial angle they are taking. [Read More]

Stickers!

 Posted on February 17, 2011  |  n8fr8

If you see us in person, make sure to ask for one. Otherwise, if you really, really want some, we can mail them to you. Just fill out our “contact” form with your address, and we’ll do our best to pop a few in this thing called an envelope and they should get there in a week(!).

Create an encrypted file system on Android with LUKS

 Posted on February 2, 2011  |  Derek

LUKS is the standard for Linux hard disk encryption. By providing a standard on-disk-format, it not only facilitates compatibility among distributions, but also provides secure management of multiple user passwords. Building off the work from other great sources, the Guardian Project hack team decided to take a crack at porting LUKS to Android recently, with the goal of creating a proof of concept build process that can be easily adapted to future projects. [Read More]

Seeking Slightly Paranoid Android Developers for Hire and Internships

 Posted on November 10, 2010  |  n8fr8

The Guardian Project is kicking off a three month project focused on finishing up our secure chat app, codenamed Gibber but also known as “OtRChat”. We are looking for developers of all levels to join us in this work. We have already implemented the primary “Off the Record” messaging functionality, and achieved interoperability with desktop clients such as Pidgin and AdiumX. From here, there is work to be done on implementing some unique features, cleaning up the user experience, and ensuring that the implementation is as secure as possible, providing all the necessary features for verifying and managing secure identities and sessions. [Read More]
hiring  jobs 

SECURED: T-Mobile myTouch 4G gets Guardian

 Posted on November 9, 2010  |  n8fr8

One of the services we provide at the Guardian Project is taking any off the shelf Android phone and setting it up to be generally more secure, privacy minded and updated with a powerful suite of trusted apps. Today we were excited to get our hands on a myTouch 4G, manufactured by HTC and sold by T-Mobile. Really beautiful piece of hardware, and once we got our hands on it, a powerhouse of encrypted, anonymous and circumventing communications. [Read More]
hardware 

Proxy Settings Add-on for Firefox Mobile

 Posted on November 8, 2010  |  n8fr8

The latest beta of Firefox 4 on Android is proving to be very usable, stable and an increasingly viable alternative to the built-in webkit browser. However, it is unfortunately lacking the ability to manually configure proxy settings through any sort of standard user interface. This is a common problem for Android, which also lacks the ability to set browser or system wide proxy settings. This has caused real issues for us with getting Orbot (aka “Tor on Android”) to work for un-rooted Android devices, because for routing through Tor to work, you must be able to set the HTTP or SOCKS proxy settings. [Read More]
add-on  fennec  firefox  proxy  tor 

Open Video Conference: Panel and Hackday

 Posted on September 30, 2010  |  n8fr8

Nathan Freitas will be on a panel at the 2nd annual Open Video Conference in New York this Friday and Saturday. He will be on the panel entitled “Cameras Everywhere” led by our partners at Witness, on Saturday at 3pm. Summary: Cameras Everywhere: Human Rights and Web Video – (2:45 PM – 3:30 PM) Description: Once upon a time, video cameras were rare. Now they are ubiquitous—as are the opportunities to share, use, and re-use video. [Read More]
#ovc  hackday  openvideoconference 

Orbot Release 1.0 in the Android Market!

 Posted on September 23, 2010  |  Derek

It’s here! We’d like to officially announce the release of Orbot to the Android Market. After going beta back in March, we’ve seriously re-doubled our efforts for this release. By releasing Orbot to the Android Market, we suspect that our user base will eventually evolve towards the more ‘every day’ Android user – so our goal has been to create an experience that is simple yet informative, straightforward yet powerful. As a step towards that goal, we’ve spent some time creating a new setup wizard at Orbot start-up that walks you through the basics of what Orbot does and does not do. [Read More]