Build Your Own App Store: Android Media Distribution for Everyone

 Posted on February 22, 2017  |  Torsten Grote

Most people get their Android apps from Google Play. It is usually the simplest and most secure option for them. But there are also many people who do not have access to Google Play. This might be due to lack of a proper internet connection or simply because Google Play is blocked within their country. The F-Droid project already offers tools to create independent app distribution channels for Android apps. [Read More]
bazaar  distribution  F-Droid  fdroid  mobile  open source  security 

Building the most private app store

 Posted on June 2, 2016  |  Hans-Christoph Steiner

App stores can work well without any tracking at all Attackers are increasingly seeing app stores as a prime attack vector, whether it is aimed at the masses like XCodeGhost or very targeted like in FBI vs Apple. When we install software from an app store, we are placing a lot of trust in a lot of different parties involved in getting the source code from the original developer delivered to our device in a useful form. [Read More]
Android  anonymity  bazaar  debian  encryption  F-Droid  fdroid  identity  mobile  open source  privacy  reproducible builds  security  tor 

First working test of IOCipher for Obj-C

 Posted on January 26, 2015  |  Hans-Christoph Steiner

Every so often, we revisit our core libraries in the process of improving our existing apps, and creating new ones. IOCipher has become a standard part of our apps since it provides a really easy way to include encrypted file storage in Android apps. And we are now working on spreading it to iOS as well, headed up by Chris Ballinger, with the first preliminary tests of IOCipher for Obj-C. Testing and contributions are most welcome! [Read More]
Android  encryption  full disk encryption  hsm  iocipher  ios  mobile  obj-c  osx  prototype  security  smartcard  sqlcipher 

Sharing your location privately

 Posted on January 23, 2015  |  Hans-Christoph Steiner

Facebook location sharing embeds the location in every single message, providing a detailed log to the recipient, Facebook, and anyone Facebook shares that data with One handy feature that many smartphones give us is the ability to easily share our exact position with other people. You can see this feature in a lot of apps. Google Maps lets you click “Share” and send a URL via any method you have available. [Read More]
Android  anonymity  facebook  google  location  metadata  mobile  openstreetmap  osmand  panic  privacy  t2 

Improving trust and flexibility in interactions between Android apps

 Posted on January 21, 2014  |  Hans-Christoph Steiner

Activity1 sending an Intent that either Activity2 or Activity3 can handle. Android provides a flexible system of messaging between apps in the form of `Intent`s. It also provides the framework for reusing large chunks of apps based on the `Activity` class. `Intent`s are the messages that make the requests, and `Activity`s are the basic chunk of functionality in an app, including its interface. This combination allows apps to reuse large chunks of functionality while keeping the user experience seamless and fluent. [Read More]
activity  Android  informaCam  intent  mobile  obscuracam  securesmartcam 

Setting up your own app store with F-Droid

 Posted on November 5, 2013  |  Hans-Christoph Steiner

(_This blog post as now been cooked into an updated HOWTO_) The Google Play Store for Android is not available in all parts of the world, US law restricts its use in certain countries like Iran, and many countries block access to the Play Store, like China. Also, the Google Play Store tracks all user actions, reporting back to Google what apps have been installed and also run on the phone. [Read More]
Android  bazaar  debian  distribution  F-Droid  fdroid  free software  howto  mobile  open source  privacy  ubuntu 

Modernizing Expectations for the Nouveau Secure Mobile Messaging Movement

 Posted on July 16, 2013  |  n8fr8

The tl;dr of this lengthy (tho entertaining and immensely important!) post is this: Stopping with “We support OTR” or “We support PGP” is not enough anymore. There are at least seven, if not more, very important security features that any app claiming to provide secure messaging must implement as soon as possible, to truly safeguard a user’s communication content, metadata and identity. Note: The names “Gibberbot” and “ChatSecure” are used interchangeabley below, as we are in the midst of an app rebrand. [Read More]
Android  encryption  mobile  otr  pgp  wechat  whatsapp 

Proposal for Secure Connection Notification on Android

 Posted on November 15, 2012  |  n8fr8

A major problem of mobile applications being increasingly used over web-based applications, is that there is no standard established for notifying the user of the state of security on the network connection. With a web browser, the evolution of the “lock” icon when an HTTPS connection is made, has been one that evolved originally out of Netscape’s first implementation, to an adhoc, defact industry-standard way of letting the user know if their connection is secure. [Read More]
Android  https  man in the middle  mobile  ssl  strong cryptography  tls