“Haven” app to Physically Guard your Laptop
The NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden and a team of collaborators have launched a new Android app called Haven on 22nd of December. The app will help Journalists and others in protecting their information from online surveillance and hacking.
Haven will turn laptops and phones into small security systems. Haven was designed to track sudden changes in the environment using phones inbuilt sensor. Micah Lee from The Intercept described the use of Haven to deal with malicious attacks.
If anyone leaves the laptop in a hotel safe and puts Haven phone on it, and if someone tries to open his/her laptop without their presence, then the Haven phone will detect the light changes and may capture a screenshot of that attacker.
Haven takes some serious measures from being turned on by anyone other than the phone owner. In fact, it combines encrypted massaging application to make sure that every picture and audio clip sent to the owner is fully encrypted.
The first public beta version of Haven has officially been released and it available in the Play Store and on F-Droid, an open source app store for Android.
Haven can work with an Android app Orbot which can turn phone into a Tor onion service. This means that Haven phone can be logged into and controlled by a computer or another phone using Tor undetectable connection. According to the founder of guardian project Nate Freitas said that Haven is the most secure and powerful system ever.
Haven can also be used as a cheap home or office security to detect break-ins or mischief while the user is away positioning the phone to send photographs when someone walks within range. Or it can be used for monitoring for wildlife in rural areas, or to capture evidence of human rights violations and disappearances.
Haven can detect the presence of an intruder but can’t prevent him from harming someone. But yet, this will provide potential victims with a significant tool which they never had before.
A clever attacker who knows that anyone using Haven could jam the Wi-Fi, mobile data, and SMS wireless frequencies, preventing Haven from sending the user notifications. The attacker could then attempt to access the phone to delete the local evidence logs from the device as well.
For this reason, it is important to lock down Haven phone. Lock the phone with a strong pass code or password and make sure that phone is encrypted. Users can change their lock screen and security settings from the Settings app. Also, install all updates for Android and for all of apps, and turn off all radios that aren’t being used like Bluetooth and NFC. Also turn off the mobile data and Wi-Fi as well. This will reduce attack surface of the phone making it more difficult for an attacker to hack once they have entered the user’s room.
