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Guardian: Secure, Private, Anonymous Telephone built on Google Android
You can review a detailed presentation on this concept here: http://nathanialfreitas.s3.amazonaws.com/Guardian022709.pdf
Last year, I ran the global communications network for Students for a Free Tibet's campaign at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Over seventy people had decided to travel to Beijing to take visible action, sacrificing their own personal liberty and safety for a cause they believed in. This included organizers, media spokespeople, documenting bloggers/videobloggers/photographers and the actual protesters themselves. In addition to the teams in Beijing, SFT also worked to get all of the information possible out from the ongoing uprising inside of Tibet.
Beyond the Tibet cause, there are many compelling stories about the power of mobile phones in human rights causes. However, there are almost as many stories of how the authorities use these same phones against the people.
The common question in both of these scenarios ("free" people traveling into an authoritarian state and citizens of the state trying to find some freedom within) was how everyone could have their voices heard, and communicate safely, security and effectively with the outside world. How SMS messages be sent with vital information without that same message being used to reveal or incriminate someone? How can the amazing power of these tiny mobile computing devices be fully realized, while at the same time not being used against them by the power of the who usually runs or at least monitors all mobile phone communication. While great strides have been made in Internet-based security, privacy and anonymity, the same can't be said for our telephones. This project gives power to regular people to own and control their mobile phones without being afraid they are their own worsed enemy.
Existing mobile security products show promise, but are out of date, not good enough or too expensive. A movement is already underway to create custom versions of Android for a wide variety of phones and purposes.... we just need to tap into that!
What should a secure, private, anonymous phone offer?
- Hidden / Invisible
Simple / Automatic Public Key Mgmt
Secure Inst Msg and SMS / MMS / Email
User Auth / Biometrics
Anonymous & Private Mobile Web Browsing
Secure / Anonymous VOIP Telephony
Encypted / Remote Storage
Instant Erase / Remote Poison Pill
All security functions must be hidden with the standard operating system.
How we'll make it happen:
- Launch an official, public project in order to recruit open-source developers, supporters and potential users and funders
- Recruit the top open-source Android kernel hackers, app developers
- Find pilot project partners to test and validate technology in the field
- Create a strong brand around the project, like TorProject.org has
excellent
Your idea is simultaneously groundbreaking, important and very practical. Create a simple upgrade to a tool (phone) already used by millions of people living or working in authoritarian surveillance states enabling them to communicate securely, privately, anonymously. Nice job.
vote for this
If you vote for something, vote for this. There's a clear need in the "market" (ie: oppressed people) - and there is one guy who has a track record of making this kind of thing fly - and that's Nathan.
Obama Phone
Glad to see that our conversations about "the everyman" getting an "Obama phone" had success. This is such an important project and I'd love to see it applied in the field. Digital Democracy would certainly find use in this, particularly given the development of RapidSMS on Android. Great job!
Thanks!
Appreciate the support... yes, the key to this is the ability to upgrade existing phones to do more. This isn't about pushing new gadgetry at all.