Hackers, telephone companies, governments, and a variety of third parties gleen all sorts of personal data from your phone, often with little consent or knowledge from you.
They watch you, hear you, and most likely know you better than any other device you own.
“Cellphones are tracking devices that make phone calls.”
Smartphones have long been derided as an invader against digital privacy and anonymity.
Mobile devices like phones and tablets are the most popular, affordable, and fastest-selling devices on the planet.
On home computers, a wide range of tools exist to help guard against unwanted eavesdroppers. For instance, the Tor anonymity network is one of the most popular and powerful privacy programs.
Tor has been available on Android phones for some time, but its utility has been somewhat limited. Now, a new suite of programs allows users to anonymize every app they run, giving them the kind of strong protection needed to maintain real privacy.
Here are the three apps you should download right now.
The newest weapon in your mobile privacy arsenal, first released in July, is Orwall.
Orwall is like a firewall for your phone. It forces almost all applications through the Tor network, and it prevents other applications from having any other kind of network access.
To put it in simple terms, Orwall helps built a barrier between your phone and the outside world. It then opens only a single door to walk through towards the Internet: Apps can only make connections through Tor, or they can’t connect at all.
It was developed by Cédric Jeanneret, a Swiss computer scientist and privacy activist behind EthACK.org, the “Swiss privacy bootcamp.”
Orwall requires root access to your phone, so it’s a little bit of work compared to a simple Google Play installation, but it pays off in expanded usability and protection.
The most essential, is Orbot.
Orbot is what allows you to actually make that connection to Tor. It’s extremely easy to download and install, it also allows some advanced configuration, if you’re willing to put in the work.
Developed by the Android anti-censorship wizards at the Guardian Project, Orbot has several important functions. Like Orwall, it can push many of your mobile apps to use Tor. However, Orbot’s functionality is limited to apps that have proxy options, so using it with Orwall significantly expands the kind of Android apps that can use Tor and locks down the apps that don’t.
“Consider Orbot as a simple connector to Tor,”
That “simple connector” can be fairly called the most important part of the equation.
The final program you’ll need is Orweb, the private mobile Web browser.
Orweb, also developed by the Guardian Project, is Orbot’s sister app. It’s the most private mobile browser on the market.
Utilizing the Tor network and configured to keep your data private, Orweb acts as the Android phone counterpart to the famous Tor browser that allows you to access the Internet anonymously as well as surf Tor’s hidden services.
This application takes care of your connection, NOT what's your sending or receiving! This means you must use applications providing enough privacy in order to avoid sending out your complet device information.
Please be sure of what you're doing. If you want to visit hidden services, please use Orfox or any privacy-aware browser! orWall doesn't take care of what your apps send to the Net. At all. And won't do it. Never. This is not orWall goal. And will never be.
orWall will force selected applications through Orbot while preventing unchecked applications to have network access.
In order to do so, it will call the iptables binary. This binary, present on your Android device, requires superuser access (aka root). It's the application that manages the firewall on Linux and, by extension, on Android.
In short, orWall will add special iptables rules in order to redirect traffic for applications through Tor; it will also add required rules in order to block traffic for other apps.
The redirection is based on the application user id. Each android application runs as a dedicated user, and iptables has support for traffic filtering based on the process owner, meaning it's really easy and pretty safe to do this kind of thing on an Android device.
This application takes care of IP connections only, not GSM. It won't protect you if an attacker sends commands to your baseband through SMS, for example.
Also, on some Android versions (at least 4.1.1), the init-script will not work, meaning you may have outgoing connections before orWall starts.
The application works in two stages: first, an init-script will block all incoming and outgoing traffic. This should prevent leaks, knowing Android sends stuff before you can even access the device.
Second stage comes once the device is fully booted: orWall itself takes the lead on the firewall, and add required rules in order to allow Orbot traffic, and redirect selected application to Orbot TransPort.
A firewall configurator: it allows you to set up your device in order to force apps through Orbot.
A way to prevent unwanted network access: only the apps you select access the Net through Orbot.
An app you should use with caution: if you don't understand what it's doing, you may have some bad surprises.
A replacement for Orbot: you still need Orbot on your device.
A replacement for AFWall/DroidWall – but it may lead to weird problems if you're using both.
Ensure you have Root access on your device.
Ensure you don't have AFWall or other firewall manager installed, or at least deactivate them
Ensure you have Orbot installed.
Ensure Orbot has no Transparent Proxy enabled, like on the screenshot.
Start orWall , select the apps you want to redirect to Orbot.
Reboot.đź“ł