[Noisebridge-discuss] Develop for Privacy Challenge

Micah Lee twopointfour at riseup.net
Tue Feb 8 03:16:07 UTC 2011


On 02/07/2011 06:43 PM, Griffin Boyce wrote:
> I am definitely interested in the project; this sounds like a
> wonderful idea.  It's a bit of a broad topic, so it might be best to
> determine who the target audience is first.  Beginners need an
> easy-to-understand, but solid, overview of the issues in plain English
> along with basic guidance to protect their privacy.  Advanced users
> are probably more interested in encrypted calling or Orbot etc.
> Business-owners probably run the gamut here.

I like the idea of doing something functional, like with crypto or proxy
servers or making a custom browser (lots of fun with javascript,
cookies, SSL, proxies). This also is probably really hard to do well though.

I also like the idea of gathering as much info that systems give us
(like the phone OS, or the facebook API if you're logged in, etc) and
displaying it to the user so they know how much info they're leaking.

> Second question is which platform?  There might be the option of
> having it web-based with a wrapper.  iOS would probably be a good
> choice for newbies, with Android or Blackberry if targeting more
> advanced or business users.

I would lean towards either making a web application designed
specifically for viewing on a phone or for making it an Android app.

iPhone would be difficult given their App Store. If we made an iPhone
app that displayed to you all the info about you that iPhone apps have
access to, they might reject it, and you have to jailbreak to install
third-party apps.

Android doesn't have this problem. And I've never used or programmed for
a Blackberry.

I also like the idea of making it a web app. Mobile Safari on iOS has
all these added features that normal webkit browsers don't have, like
access to accelerometer data. And newer Android phones have Flash. We
could make a single website that tells you everything it knows about not
only the phone you're using (including accelerometer data, your carrier
if we can get it, etc), but also other info you're leaking (maybe you're
logged into google or facebook, or automatically allow location
tracking). And of course instructions on how to fix these problems.

If there are others who are interested in this project, maybe we can all
meet at noisebridge, perhaps this weekend?

Micah



More information about the Noisebridge-discuss mailing list