PrivacyCentralApp Alpha

⚠️ Final version will be published on /e/ foundation gitlab https://gitlab.e.foundation/e

An app to let you control and protect your privacy.

Forked to https://github.com/LedgerProject/e_privacycentralapp, embending all /e/ submodules.

Features

The following features are currently part of PrivacyCentral app.

1. Centralized overview dashboard.
2. Fake location.
3. Hiding IP address.
4. Manage granular permissions.
5. Control trackers across apps.

Technologies

• Kotlin as main language
• Kotlin coroutines and flow for asynchronous code
• AndroidX (core-ktx, fragment-ktx, and lifecycle etc.)
• Google Material Design component for UI elements
• Timber for logging
• Room for database (may use datastore too)
• Hilt for DI
• MapBox for map support
• LeakCanary for keeping an eye on memory leaks.
• Junit for unit testing
• Espresso for integration testing.

Flavours

This app comes in two flavours, one for /e/OS and second one for other android (where app doesn't have system access). For more information refer to Architecture Guide

Testing

Need to write test and add code coverage.

Development

Setup

You can use any latest stable version of android studio to be able to build this app.

Supported Versions

• Minimum SDK: 24 (Android N)
• Compile SDK: 30 (Android R)
• Target SDK: 30 (Android R)

API Keys

This project uses Mapbox sdk for displaying maps. To download and use the mapbox sdk, you need to supply API key and secret and set them as follows:

For local build

You can set them in local.properties

MAPBOX_KEY=<insert mapbox public key>
MAPBOX_SECRET_KEY=<insert mapbox secret key>

IMP: Never add this file to version control.

For CI build

When building in CI environment, we don't have local.properties file. So the following environment variables must be set:

export MAPBOX_KEY=<insert mapbox public key>
export MAPBOX_SECRET_KEY=<insert mapbox secret key>

Code Style and Quality

This project uses ktlint, provided via the spotless gradle plugin. To maintain the same code style, all the codestyle configuration has been bundled into the project.

To check for any codestyle related error, ./gradlew spotlessCheck. Use ./gradlew spotlessApply to autoformat in order to fix any code quality related issues.

Setting up pre-commit hooks

To strictly enforce the code quality, this project has a pre-commit hook which is triggered everytime before you commit any changes (only applies to *.kt, *.gradle, *.md and *.gitignore). You must setup the pre-commit hook before doing any changes to the project. For that, this project has a script which can executed as follows:

hooks/pre-commit

Build dependencies

TrackerFilter won't work unless your rom was build with this specific netd project:

android_system_netd

To create an /e/ build with this specific project, follow the documentation to create an usual /e/ build for your device https://doc.e.foundation/devices until repo sync

After repo sync all the sources, replace

system/netd

with this repo android_system_netd

then run the build as usual

This won't include privacy central, you still need to build the app.

This app requires different modules that must be built indivually and pushed to a local maven repository or our gitlab

modules must be build and deployed in the following order:

• privacymodulesapi
• privacymodulese
• privacymoduletor
• privacymoduletrackerfilter

Build

If you'd like to build PrivacyCentral locally, you should be able to just clone and build with no issues.

For building from CLI, you can execute this command:

./gradlew build

How to use PrivacyCentral apk

You can build the apk locally by using above instructions or you can download the latest stable apk from master branch pipeline.

To run apk on /e/OS devices

PrivacyCentral needs to be installed as system app and whitelisting in order to grant some system specific permissions. Follow these steps to make it work properly on /e/OS

1. From Developer options, enable Android debugging and Rooted debugging

2. Sign the apk with platform certificate. You can use this command to do that

   apksigner sign --key platform.pk8 --cert platform.x509.pem PrivacyCentral.apk app-e-release-unsigned.apk

   If you are running your tests on an /test build, you can find keys at https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/os/android_build/-/tree/v1-q/target/product/security

3. Install apk as system app and push permissions whitelist with following commands:

   adb root && adb remount
   adb shell mkdir system/priv-app/PrivacyCentral
   adb push PrivacyCentral.apk system/priv-app/PrivacyCentral

4. Push permissions whitelist.

   • it requires the whitelisting privapp-permissions-foundation.e.privacycentralapp.xml file that can be found in the project repository.
   • then use the following command

     adb push privapp-permissions-foundation.e.privacycentralapp.xml /system/etc/permissions/

5. Allow the fake location service to run in background. Add in the file /system/etc/permissions/platform.xml .

6. Reboot the device

   adb reboot

To run apk on stock android devices

You can simply install the apk. Keep in that mind all features won't be available on stock android devices.

Volla!!!, PrivacyCentral is installed successfully in your device.

Distribution

This project can be distributed as prebuilt apk with /e/OS or it can be published on other app stores for non /e/OS devices.

For developers and contributers

Please refer to Development Guide for detailed instructions about project structure, architecture, design patterns and testing guide.

License

Copyright (C) 2021 ECORP

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
 
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.