Interesting ideas and questions, but this isn't a suitable place to ask them, as they're lower level than the SDK interfaces, which is what this group deals with.
I suspect the android-porting group would be your best bet, although maybe there's a group somewhere for people making custom builds. Custom builds are where you'd start out, at least -- although adding privacy features such as this seems like something that might make it into the platform at some point. However, I'll note that turning off the transmit antenna but not the receive isn't going going to leave you with anything useful, with one exception. Cell handoff involves transmission. The one exception is using the cell towers for location -- like what has gotten Apple (and Google) in hot water lately. Further, turning off transmission isn't going to buy you any privacy, except for cell carrier-side location tracking, as any privacy-invading software will simply wait and retransmit when it has a connection. (If that's why you wanted that, fine -- just don't expect privacy it can't deliver). Every smartphone I know of provides this capability, because it's required to be able to use it on airplanes. I presume you want to integrate it further under some sort of privacy UI. Unfortunately, you are never going to achieve your goal of protecting privacy, because privacy runs head-on into usefulness. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try; in particular, an encrypted, anti-forensics filesystem is a real good idea. The ease with which forensics data is pulled off of phones I find utterly appalling. Not that I mind catching crooks, but the potential misuse, in the hands of officialdom (in countries from the most open, to the most despotic) and in the hands of others (criminals, spies, domestic disputes) is disturbing. I view a smartphone as an extension of my brain, and we've long lived without the ability to spy on people's brains, their every move, and their private conversations. On Monday, May 2, 2011 5:49:20 PM UTC-7, bbtad wrote: > with all the commotion around privacy around phones which have any > proprietary software / drivers inside: > > 1. what would it take to make the following privacy features available > on android? [questions 1a, 1b, 1c] > 2. which of the current hardware models could support these privacy > features? [question 2a] > > here is what's needed to provide privacy beyond the security model > already provided by linux: > > for offline privacy: > 1a: ultimately a [LUKS] encrypted root filesystem (/boot would, of > course, have to stay unencrypted) > > for online privacy: > 1b: be able to selectively turn off cell phone transmission antenna > (receiver must stay on even when xmit is off) > ( possibly also be able to turn off Wifi and Bluetooth > transmission antennas ) > 1c/2a: this one might be a tricky one (does that exist any HW which > could support this?) : filter the packets which are leaving through > cell-phone antenna (like filtering GSM packets in Europe) > > > - what other control features would provide for grassroots privacy? > > another question is - how to make sure that none of the proprietary > drivers are collecting (and possibly transmitting when triggered) any > private / personal data from the system? Has anyone at google ever > seen the sources for the binary-only drivers, especially drivers that > drive the cell-phone packet transmission? > > BBTD > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
