[clug] Optus MyTab and Android 2.2

[Alex (Maxious) Sadleir]

On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Edward C. Lang <edlang at edlang.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 10:35:23AM +1000, Robert Edwards wrote:
>> What I am also looking for is some sort of transparent proxy to run
>> on the Android itself to allow me to monitor, set and/or sanitize any
>> data leaking out of the browsers, including the user agent string.
>>
>> Having a Linux kernel, I am assuming I can trust that any iptables rules
>> to redirect out-going request packets to another local port will be
>> honoured by any/all browsers, marketplace interfaces, youtube
>> viewers etc. etc.
>>
>> Anyone been there with Android yet?
>
> Many moons ago I asked a similar question:
>
>    http://lists.samba.org/archive/linux/2010-August/028291.html
>
> I never got a response and I couldn't figure out how to make it work, so
> I gave up.
>

Rooted/Custom ROM Android devices can have real iptables running. You
need a kernel with netfilter obviously which some OEM kernels won't
have but most Cyanogenmod ROMs should. There's an App called DroidWall
(http://code.google.com/p/droidwall/) that acts as a GUI for iptables
and it's open source so you can just see it running a bunch of
customised shell scripts:
http://code.google.com/p/droidwall/source/browse/trunk/src/com/googlecode/droidwall/Api.java?r=148#219

Stock Android also supports HTTP proxies through the Access Point
Names settings (although that wouldn't affect wifi). There are
existing apps to run proxies on the device that alter user agents in
this way http://www.androidsoftware.us/Applications/Filter-Proxy.html