Android Explorations

In the previous entry , we looked at how the new ICS KeyChain API is used and tried installing a user private key/certificate pair and a CA certificate. Now we'll will try to find out where  they are actually stored and how they are protected. Looking at  frameworks/base/keystore/java/android/security , we notice several interesting classes that are not mentioned in the SDK documentation. The most promising is the KeyStore class, so let's have a look. Sure enough, it is marked as hidden (using the dreaded @hide comment). It does have methods for interacting with the key store ( get() , put() , delete() , reset() , etc.), but where is the actual key store? As it turns out, all methods send command to a local socket aptly named 'keystore'. With a little creative grepping, we find out that there is native daemon with the same name listening on that socket. The source is in frameworks/base/cmds/keystore/keystore.cpp , so let's have a look. The file has some helpful

Update: Sample app code is now available on github . The recently released Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich, ICS) introduces a new, unified UI for both tablets and handsets, lots of 'people-centric' communication and sharing features and other convenient improvements such as a better camera app and the much-hyped face unlock. Since everyone is talking about those, we will have a look at some of the less-user visible, but nonetheless important security-related improvements. Android is often said to be missing crucial security features to be seriously accepted in the corporate world, which has long been the  domain of RIM's BlackBerry. Two of those missing features were the ability to control the system's trusted CA certificates and offer a centralized secure credential storage. Since many companies use private PKI's, the ability to install trusted certificates system-wide is essential for using corporate services secured by those PKI's. Until now, the only wa

It's been a while since the last release, but the latest version is finally available . The focus of this release is an improved new UI and full support for tablets. The app is now using an action bar for easier access to key functionality .  This is a feature originally only available on the Honeycomb (3.x) and Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) Android versions, but Kanji Recognizer uses the excellent ActionBarSherlock  library to bring ot bar to previous versions as well. Functions that were previously only accessible via the overflow menu (displayed when you press the menu key), now have an icon on the action bar. That will hopefully make it easier for new users to find and try them. Here's how the main screen looks in version 2.0: The three icons on the right side of the action bar start the quiz, character search and history/favorites screens, respectively. Less frequently used features, such as the Settings and About screens are still in the overflow menu,  so you need

The newest release is now live in the  Android Market . The highlights of this version are improved Japanese text-to-speech (TTS) and Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich, ICS) support. Version 2.0 introduced Japanese TTS support using the free N2 TTS speech engine, but apparently (and unfortunately) it is not available from the Android Market outside of Japan. In 2.1 I've added support for two other major Japanese TTS engines:  SVOX Japanese  and  AquesTalk TTS . You can now switch the Japanese TTS engine in the Settings screen, check out the screenshot below. The app doesn't check if the engine is actually installed, so you should install the relevant TTS package before changing the setting (if you select an engine that is not available, Japanese TTS support will be disabled throughout the app). Another improvement in this release: the settings screen is now using an action bar, courtesy of  ActionBarSherlock  v3.4.0. Unfortunately, an API to list available TTS engines wa