We are in the middle of prepping to launch a kickstarter campaign in the new year so my posts have slowed down as of late. But here are some more updates!! UPDATES: Xen Isolation - We are testing out Xen on android to see if we can use it to create isolated VMs (similar to Qubes OS). The goal here is that you could have a TorVM for Tor and a GoogleVM for the playstore and any apps you need from there. All whilist keeping your personal data safe and out of harms reach. Secure File Deletion - We have ported over the linux shred tool and created a GUI. This will be released shortly to our github and playstore under Shred4Droid. Thanks all Merry Christmas and happy holidays!!
Yeah on our test device it works quite well. We have a fully isolated VM where GApps can roam free. Issue right now is getting our GRSecurity to work along with it. As soon as run a grsec kernel we run into issues with Xen (expected really). We are looking at how to work this out.
I assume you're not using the grsec features that are incompatible with Xen right? I believe it's pageexec but I can't remember the exact one. Another potential option is giving Grsecurity 100 dollars to become a sponsor, and then getting official support.
We have compiled with PAX set as: Code: #CONFIG_PAX_MEMORY_SANITIZE=y # CONFIG_PAX_MEMORY_STACKLEAK is not set # CONFIG_PAX_MEMORY_STRUCTLEAK is not set # CONFIG_PAX_REFCOUNT is not set CONFIG_PAX_USERCOPY=y # CONFIG_PAX_USERCOPY_DEBUG is not set # CONFIG_PAX_SIZE_OVERFLOW is not set CONFIG_PAX_LATENT_ENTROPY=y Everything boots fine but the VM crashes immediately once launched.
There are a couple of mitigation techniques that simply won't work with XEN or virtualization (huge performance issues among other things) but those wouldn't be the ones. UDREF is one of them, but that seems to not be enabled. Not sure what the issue is.
Yeah I did get it to work properly on Qubes OS using autoconfig and a little manual tweaking. I will take another look I may have enabled something by mistake.
This is really awesome. It's the first time I've thought it might be possible to have halfway decent security on a smartphone. Until now, my rule has just been not to do anything with my phone that I don't want someone else to find out or hack. And of course privacy is just a nightmare with smartphones.
still lurking , keep up the great work guys , lovin what your doing with this rom of yours , btw now once you get proper vm support ala qubes for gapps , that means we could use gapps in our hidden os as well , right, btw ive been doing a little research on imsi and imei , and came up with this http://www.endoacustica.com/details_stealth_phone_en.htm and check out this one as well will ya while your at it http://www.endoacustica.com/gsm_crypto02_en.htm can this be done with guardian rom or would you guys require extra modifications on the hardware side as well all this came to mind after checking out this wiki entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSI-catcher
Hi Kyle, How's the testing with the Nexus 5 getting along? Are there any major differences between the 4 and the 5 in terms of how Guardian ROM works? Ta!
Yup. With XEN Isolation support you can run GApps in the hidden OS. One thing to note though is that when in hidden OS we reccomend you disable 3G/Cellular as it may leak the presence of the Hidden OS. WiFi is fine though (although we also reccomend using Tor or a VPN if possible while in hidden OS). I will take a look at the links but it would probably have to be hardware. Nexus 5 is working well. However we have to port mobiflage over to KitKat which is taking time. This is because Google change how encryption works in 4.4 (mainly implementing SCrypt). We are working on launch the kickstarter in Febuary. Once complete we will focus on getting stable 4.2 builds out and then get 4.4 supported after that.
@x942 How does your ROM deal with the VPN bypass vulnerability posted in this thread: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=2334544
I posted a reply over in that thread Basically it requires a malicous app to be installed so we will fix it once patches are released by Google/AOSP - Which isn't too long normally. Our VM solution (once released) would prevent this as long as the app was installed in a VM and not in Dom0.
Will Nexus 5 users be able to start playing with the Guardian Rom when you launch the Kickstarter? I am looking forward to start using it. It won't be my production phone at the beginning, but would like to start trying it out. Thanks,
We should have it ready by then. I am waiting on some new hardware to come in which should speed up development time.
I've just read an amazing question on Security.SE about the possibility that malware could MitM compromise voice calls on smartphones. One hopes that it's not feasible now. But it will be, I'm sure, within a few years. <http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/49657/contact-person-by-phone-when-their-phone-might-have-malware> Android doesn't do very well against this. How would Guardian Rom deal with it?
I will have to look into this in more detail but it seems malware has to be installed. So my best recommendation is to ensure any private conversation happen over two phones that are running Guardian Rom and then follow normal security practice (only install trusted and opensource apps). If you are worried about the integrity of a phone call I would use Redphon or another ZRTP solution. Even if both endpoints are secure what's to stop a MITM over the wire? We already know that a USRP can MITM a GSM network for cheap. The type of malware that could (in-real-time) mute audio and insert it's own message while imatating the other parties voice (else you would notice the difference right away) would require a huge advasary (NSA/Gov) not the run of the mil hacker. Any advasary campable of this could do it over the wire instead of depending on malware, Encrypt calls that need to be secure/private or even just for integrity. DO NOT install closed-source or propreitary tools unless ABSOLUTLEY needed AND ONLY install from trusted vendors or compile yourself.
I am rebuilding all of the roms right now. They should be up on the weekend (fingers crossed). The nexus 7 version is GSM (I don't have a wifi version). If you do have one that is WiFi only shoot me an email (in my signature) and I can send you a test build. It should work as their isn't much of a difference between versions. We also changed the website around check it out: www.guardianrom.com We have to fix the scalling issue on some of our images as they get cut off on lower res. screens.
NOTE: This is soley based on information provided by BlackPhone - AFAIK Source Code is not available yet. I would say Guardian Rom is more secure than Blackphone in the following aspects: We are Open-Source meaning we can be publicly audited. We deploy AES-256-XTS Encryption with Hidden OS options Available We include Tor, OsTel (Encrypted VOIP), ChatSecure (Encrypted Chat) by default. We have a hardened kernel to protect against exploits (GRSecurity & PaX) The main one's that stick out to me personal is the Hardened kernel (which they don't talk about at all on their website - so I assume they haven't hardened it at all) and the fact we are fully Open-Source. We are aiming to have a full repo set up after the kickstarter with easy to run scripts so ANYONE, even non-developers, can compile from scratch if desired. We are still working on including secure texting. However with Moxie being against including TextSecure we are probably going to have to come up with another means or work with him to include WhisperPush from CM. EDIT: I do like the idea of BlackPhone I just think it's misleading from the information available at this time. I would go as far as to say it's probably just AOSP with silent circle apps built in. You can do all of that for free without shelling out $600 for a phone that is equal in specs to a Moto G ($200 USD).
Feature request; deny read/write access from baseband OS: www.fsf.org/blogs/community/replicant-developers-find-and-close-samsung-galaxy-backdoor
