Winter Break of Code, Day Seven

Spring Break of Code 2013 I cut open my foot and hand while surfing; both wounds easily warranted stitches. Winter Break of Code 2014 I banged the top of my foot surfing over some coral; the cuts were sealed within minutes. Spring Break of Code 2013 I struggled with the Android SDK, while Winter Break of Code 2014 I caught myself taking a few too many short-cuts. On day zero nothing is easy, but over time you improve, spilling a little less blood every time.

A Hint of Secure Sync

Early this Fall I started work on a new Open Whisper Systems project which at this time we’re referring to as Secure Sync. Secure Sync aims to be a drop-in replacement for the default contact and calendar syncing and backup solution provided by Google by default on Android. Contacts and Calendars will leave your Android device encrypted via a PBKDF, be stored with any CardDAV and CalDAV compliant server and only be decrypted when they’re back on your device. We will be providing a server but the idea is that you could host your own or even use Google as long as their CardDAV and CalDAV APIs stay open.

Adopting CalDAV and CardDAV (admittedly with some hacks) means that we will be able to support existing desktop contact and calendar clients with the addition of a simple proxy service, but I am getting far ahead of myself. While none of our server or client design is anything revolutionary or terribly interesting, I did happen across a prime example of the dangers inherent in social graphs, The Android Contacts Provider, The Social Graph Collider.

The three tables are commonly referred to by the names of their contract classes. The classes define constants for content URIs, column names, and column values used by the tables:

• ContactsContract.Contacts table
  • Rows representing different people, based on aggregations of raw contact rows.
• ContactsContract.RawContacts table
  • Rows containing a summary of a person’s data, specific to a user account and type.
• ContactsContract.Data table
  • Rows containing the details for raw contact, such as email addresses or phone numbers.

– developer.android.com: Contacts Provider.

What the above block quote doesn’t make immediately obvious is that each entry in the RawContacts and Data tables are associated with a single Account and Account Type. Let’s list out three hypothetical records in these tables:

1. Rhodey’s Friend Chloe, +15555555555, account [email protected], account type com.google

2. Rhodey’s Friend Chloe, @rhodeys_friend_chloe, account @notrhodey, account type com.twitter

3. Rhodey’s Friend Chloe, 112390023942, account 112398299433, account type com.facebook

The account and account types tell us that the first contact was sourced from my hypothetical Gmail, the second from my Twitter and the third from my non-existent Facebook. What’s interesting is that as things stand today you will never see those last two records (Facebook and Twitter) because android.permission.READ_CONTACTS grants read permission on all records regardless of account or account type, and if you’re a SyncAdapter android.permission.WRITE_CONTACTS grants write permission on all records regardless of account or account type.

Now the decision for Twitter, Facebook and others becomes: share the user’s social graph with any app that asks or don’t color the user’s contacts app with social graph data. I have yet to find a social network that chose to integrate deeply with the Android contact app and personally I’m glad.

What We’re Missing Out On

Back in ~2011 the API for decorating Android’s contact app was written such that apps could display information to the user without sharing it with other local Android apps. Facebook took advantage of this feature real nicely by patching in the profile pictures of friends along with status updates, etc. At one point Twitter was providing some contact syncing functionality but having never used it and with lack of details I can only say I would enjoy the same from them. Bringing the subject back to Open Whisper Systems, we could decorate the Android contacts app to identify contacts with registered TextSecure or RedPhone compliant clients (woot! CyanogenMod) and provide a small button or something to invite those who are without clients. All of this is possible, but none of it would be responsible.

If Twitter and Open Whisper Systems were to integrate their apps with the Android contacts app, any app with READ_CONTACTS permission would have access to the map of OWS users to Twitter handles. Add Facebook into the loop and you have legal names associated with Twitter handles associated with the phone numbers of OWS users.

The situation with Android’s Calendar Provider is very similar and I think we’re missing out on some cool things there too.

Don’t Be Fooled

At first glance Android’s lack of access control policy seems like a win for open access and thus a win for users, but the data being shared with other apps is already available to the user, in fact it is the user. Unfortunately Open Access, much like Network Neutrality is one of these phrases that can be thrown behind a misguided agenda to trip up an unfamiliar, unsuspecting userbase. Don’t be fooled, the Android Contacts Provider is wack.

Rhodey Orbits

Kauai, Hawaii

13 January 2014