Roadmap 2023

[Norman Feske]

Hi Will,

thanks for chiming in!

> Where I'm headed with this is, please do keep nav in the forefront of 
> mind - working nav though, not just occasionally maybe it's usable in a 
> demo nav. I would love to use a phone with control over the TCB that 
> would, when needed, get me from point a to point b with a minimum of 
> fuss. 5 stars for " I'm thinking of an Open-Street-Map client and a 
> messenger as particular examples". Also, wouldn't it be nice if the nav 
> function were completely under the user's control, meaning that when the 
> user turned it off, their location in realtime would not be tracked? I'm 
> sure there are valid uses for point in time requests for a device to be 
> located, but continual tracking, not so much.

your privacy interests are perfectly aligned with mine.

Regarding positional tracking, my idea is to have a GPS switch in the 
"Phone" part of Sculpt's UI. So the user is always in control to switch 
this modem feature on/off. If GPS is enabled, the modem driver feeds the 
current GPS coordinates as polled from the modem into a GPS report.

Now when integrating the OSM component, one can deliberately decide how 
to connect the GPS ROM requested by the OSM component. Normally, one 
would connect it to the GPS report that reflects the position provided 
by the modem. Alternatively, one could provide a hand-crafted GPS ROM 
(pretending that you are somewhere else), or none (by directing the GPS 
ROM request to the black hole).

When using an offline map, the OSM app would neither need network access 
nor write access to any file system. Therefore, we don't need to trust 
the app. That's the best protection against positional tracking we can 
achieve.

Note, however, that the network provider or a malicious/compromised 
modem firmware might still be able to track you. This could only be 
mitigated by taking the GPS position from a distinct GPS device that is 
independent from the modem, and leave the modem switched off.

 From your posting I get that you have probably higher expectations from 
an OSM client application than me. I'd be happy enough with a plain map 
that helps me finding my way to the nearby Hostel when arriving by train 
at a foreign place. The crafting/porting of a more competent OSM app 
would be a perfect topic for contributing because as an actual user of 
such features, you have the incentives to get it right.

Since such an application would merely consume a GPS ROM, it can be 
developed without any physical GPS device or phone. The GPS position 
could come from a component that reports fake GPS positions. Compass 
sensory data could be handled similarly.

Cheers
Norman

-- 
Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske
Genode Labs

https://www.genode-labs.com · https://genode.org

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Geschäftsführer: Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske, Christian Helmuth