Mission Improbable: Hardening Android for Security and Privacy

[necessity]

Interesting, I had never heard of that project before. I'm currently using CM13 without Gapps. The "privacy guard" and other app permission configs are absolutely terrible ui-wise. There's several places (hidden in nested "Advanced" menus) you need to go to set app permissions (some permissions can be set from two different places and I'm not sure which one has the final say) and it still requires you to manually set permissions for new apps, theres no way to set for instance no internet access as a default for new apps.

[secfirstmd]

Yeh Copperhead, Guardian Project and Tor is definitely the way to go for a locked down Android. Though only supported on the Nexus and Pixel devices I think.

[deep_attention]

You can use a firewall like AFWall+ to deny every app internet by default.

[cmdrfred]

There is a "on by default" option on my CM13 privacy guard. It would suck for an unsavy user to use though I admit.

[emsy]

I'm in the market for a new phone, and I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place. Android is a privacy disaster, but Apple's latest pricing and product decision make it unlikely to buy another iPhone.

[throwaway98237]

The new Blackberry DTEK60 is based on Android but supposedly hardened and has much longer term security updates. You can still use the Play store. I know, Blackberry? But seriously, it's not a bad looking phone and has good hardware specs.

All the same, I'm in the same boat as you. Thinking about switching to land-line and buying a separate camera and GPS navigation device. Hello 1990's! Idk. Not liking my options.

[dandelion_lover]

Previous answers to the same question:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12957435

[viraptor]

Android is what you configure it to be. Sure, there are some switches to flip if you want to be google-free. But you can replace pretty much every privacy-impacting function on the phone.

[subway]

As long as we keep seeing modems on the same silicon as our application processors, attempting to secure a device against even a relatively incompetent state actor is mostly pointless.