Andrew Rice and I ran a ten week internship programme for Cambridge undergraduates this summer. One of the project students, Connell Gauld, was tasked with the job of producing a version of Tor for the Android mobile phone platform which could be used on a standard handset.
Connell did a great job and on Friday we released TorProxy, a pure Java implementation of Tor based on OnionCoffee, and Shadow, a Web browser which uses TorProxy to permit anonymous browsing from your Android phone. Both applications are available on the Android Marketplace; remember to install TorProxy if you want to use Shadow.
The source code for both applications is released under GPL v2 and is available from our SVN repository on the project home page. There are also instructions on how to use TorProxy to send and receive data via Tor from your own Android application.
I look forward to the implementation of a true anonymity layer between Android phones and Google’s ‘My Location’ service, which triangulates [to ~100m] based on mobile cell signals and WiFi networks, and is [with a minimal user warning] activated by default on the HTC Hero.
Though Google claim they will anonymise and aggregate data before using it, I would be considerably happier if the data were not collected at the outset, as per:
“Our contention is that the easiest and best solution to the locational privacy problem is to build systems which don’t collect the data in the first place.”
http://www.eff.org/wp/locational-privacy
Presumably, this would best be done using Tor, and Connell’s exciting work. I’d be interested in anyone’s views on developing such a thing.
I have to use tor in my college in india or at home in Dubia. just that somehow i’m not able to connect to any of the brigdes in my college. any idea why? sorry kinda out of article topic.
btw i have added multiple bridges. all the once i’ve online.
& do you be any chance know a free SSH server? got to use it for puTTY.
thanks
It’s pretty interesting to use Tor in a smartphone.
Google make their money by tracking people around the internet so they can sell adds to them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they crack down on this type of software, as they have done with add-blocking software in the past. If people want true anonymity, efforts should be placed on developing a new mobile OS. Ubuntu touch looks like a promising alternative to android.