GrapheneOS is Taking Accessibility Seriously!
Our top stories this week:
- Initial release of GrapheneOS Speech Services for text-to-speech
- Researchers Issue Warning About Tech That Could Turn Every Router ‘Into a Potential Means for Surveillance’
- California moves to exempt Linux from its upcoming age-verification law after backlash
- Perfect randomness realized for the first time
- Funding F-Droid and Internet Freedom
TWIP Live 🔴
Updates from the Team
Submit Android apps to our AppVerifier database
Privacy Guides is trying our hand at a new project: maintain our own crowd-sourced AppVerifier directory. The goal is that every time an app updates from a source like F-Droid, Accrescent, or Google Play the update will be noted so we can verify the legitimacy of the update. This is very much a work in progress. If you have can think of an app we haven't added yet or see any room for improvement, please submit it! (We're working on a way for non-GitHub users to be able to contribute as well, so please standby for that.)
jonah
News
Our staff writer Fria was busy again this week, with recaps about Discord's new default end-to-end encryption for all voice & video calls, the first public exploit of Apple's M5 chip, Apple publishing their cryptography, some government cybersecurity goofs, and much more. It was a busy week so check it out!
Jonah Aragon
Sources
Initial release of GrapheneOS Speech Services for text-to-speech
GrapheneOS is releasing a text-to-speech service for Graphene phones. If you're on the latest version, it should be installed and enabled by default but otherwise you can grab it from the Graphene App Store. It currently only works in US English but other languages are planned. It is based on fully open source models. They're also planning to release a speech-to-text implementation in the future.
Researchers Issue Warning About Tech That Could Turn Every Router ‘Into a Potential Means for Surveillance’
Researchers in Germany have been able to use "beamforming feedback information" to determine the identities of people within Wi-Fi range with a 99.5% accuracy level. This is possible because when radio signals interact with any medium - such as walls, furniture, or skin - their travel pattern changes (like sound going through water). Understanding this can help create a map, similar to SONAR or LIDAR.
Bruce Gil
California moves to exempt Linux from its upcoming age-verification law after backlash
Assembly Bill 1856 (AB1856) is currently being considered by California's legislation and would amend the current Digital Age Assurance Act. AB1856 would exempt "software distributed under licenses that allow users to 'copy, redistribute, and modify the software.'" In practice this would include most mainstream Linux distros.
Etiido Uko
Perfect randomness realized for the first time
Creating randomness with computers is surprisingly harder than it sounds. Usually there is some kind of detectable pattern because the computer needs SOMETHING to base the generation on, such as a timestamp, a gyroscope, or some kind of variable feedback. Researchers at ETH Zurich are now claiming they've managed to generate perfect randomness using quantum physics. If their results are peer reviewed, this could have hugely positive implications for cryptography.
Oliver Morsch
Funding F-Droid and Internet Freedom
Some exciting news from F-Droid as they've received $50,000 from the FLOSS Fund. This funding will be used to further update infrastructure and "secure new features," enabling faster bug fixes and updates. It will also be used to support a new format called "funding.json," a new standard that will allow F-Droid to collect donations on behalf of apps and forward it to the developers, reducing friction.
Meanwhile, Tor has created a coalition of 10 nonprofits who are now accepting cryptocurrency donations. You can donate in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Zcash, Monero, and Golem. Cake Wallet, Zcash Community Grants, Logos, and Octant have provided an initial seed fund of $115,000. The 10 nonprofits include SecureDrop, OpenArchive, OnionShare, OnionBrowser, Unredacted, OONI, and more.
F-Droid
pavel
Forum Updates
The_Learner
ParkerS