Think about all of the freedom
technologies that would not
be possible if every developer
had to fully KYC themselves.
I mean, just imagine, Bitcoin's
creator, Satoshi Nakamoto having
to KYC himself to Google in order
to distribute Bitcoin to the world.
Right?
It's, it's laughable.
It's the antithesis of freedom
technology and the cypher punk ethos
of write code, let people download
it, let them run it, and, you know,
run it outside or parallel to the
existing centrally controlled system.
Welcome to the Sovereign Computing
Show, presented by ATL BitLab.
I'm Jordan Bravo, and this is a
podcast where we teach you how to
take back control of your devices.
Sovereign Computing means you own your
technology, not the other way around.
This episode is sponsored by ATL BitLab.
ATL BitLab is Atlanta's
freedom tech hacker space.
We have co working desks,
conference rooms, event space,
maker tools, and tons of coffee.
There is a very active
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Every Wednesday night is
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We also have meetups for cyber security,
artificial intelligence, decentralized
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We offer day passes and nomad passes
for people who need to use the lab only
occasionally, as well as memberships
for people who plan to use the lab
more regularly, such as myself.
One of the best things about
having a BitLab membership isn't
the amenities, it's the people.
Surrounding yourself with a
community helps you learn faster
and helps you build better.
Your creativity becomes amplified
when you work in this space,
that's what I think at least.
If you're interested in becoming
a member or supporting this space,
please visit us at atlbitlab.
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That's A T L B I T L A B dot com.
Alright, on to our show.
Welcome to the Sovereign Computing Show.
I'm Jordan Bravo, and today we have a
little bit of a different show for you.
first of all, I am solo, so Steven
will not be joining us for this
episode, and this is gonna be a
little bit of a shorter episode.
today was, or this week was a holiday
week, and, I wanted to make sure we
got something out rather than nothing.
So.
this will not be the typical
length episode, but I do have some
interesting stuff to talk about.
We're gonna take a look at a article
that came out, and for those of
you watching the video, I'm gonna
put it up on the screen here.
But of course, all the links
will be in the show notes as
well, so you can check those out.
Okay.
The headline of this article is Google
Will Block Side Loading of Unverified
Android apps starting next year.
Let's talk about this word
side loading for a second.
This word is a psyop by, I wanna say
apple, but just anybody who wants to
control you and your apps and psyop
you into thinking that it's somehow.
Abnormal to download an app from anywhere
on the internet and install it yourself.
So I think this goes back to Apple when
they have the iPhone, they have the
centrally controlled software distribution
channel, which is the app store.
So if you notice that you, you're on
an iPhone, it's, you can't really,
unless you jailbreak the phone and
do stuff that kind of voids your
warranty is not well supported.
You can't put applications on there that
you didn't download from the app store.
Now, if you do, if you, if you jailbreak
your phone and you route it or whatever.
And you just drag and drop or load
something on there that is, that
you downloaded from somewhere else.
That is called, they
call that side loading.
And I think this term is confusing because
really what you're just doing is you are.
Downloading it from a different source,
but they wanted to give it this special
term because it, it makes you think
you're doing something different or
wrong, like you're breaking the rules.
And they, apple goes with the
security over freedom model.
Like if you have a spectrum of, security
on one end and freedom on the other.
Apple's all the way on the security
side and with minimal freedom.
Now, I would argue that they don't
always have to be diametrically opposed.
You can have some freedom
and security as well.
but let's just keep it simple for now.
So Google is gonna be shifting to be more
like iOS on the iPhone and starting next
year, they're not going to allow stock.
Google Android users to just si to
quote unquote side load apps by, for
example, if you were to download an
a PK from a website, from GitHub or
Foid or any of these alternative app
stores that we talked about in previous
episodes, they are going to make that.
More difficult, starting next
year for stock Google, Android.
And the way that they're gonna do
that is they will start requiring any
developer, uh, let me back up right
now, if you wanna load an A PK on your
Google Android phone, you can do that.
You might get a warning about it,
but it will allow you to do that.
Uh, and by that I mean.
Putting an app on there, that's
an A PK package, that's an Android
package that you're not getting
from the Google Play Store.
So you might be getting it from another
source such as Foid or Tanium, which
you can pull directly from places
like GitHub and GitLab to get it
directly from developers or code bases.
So.
Right now you can do that with Google
Android, but starting next year, you
won't be able to, unless the developer
Ky Cs themself and creates a, they have
to create a Google account and basically
they're developing it, to be the developer
portal for Android will be through
Google and all developers will have to.
Register with them and submit their
identity verification, and then they'll
have their signing keys so that even
if you want to, if a developer wants
to distribute an app outside of the
app store, they will still have to
sign themselves up for this Google
program and, identify themselves.
So this means that, You won't be
able to install an app unless it
has gone through the Google, Google
controlled process, which involves
the developers KYC themselves.
So again, this, this is gonna be
more like Apple, but think about
all of the freedom technologies
that would not be possible if every
developer had to fully KYC themselves.
I mean, just imagine.
Sat, Bitcoin's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto
having to KYC himself to Google in order
to distribute Bitcoin to the world.
Right?
It's, it's laughable.
It's The antithesis of freedom technology
and the cypher punk ethos of write code.
Let people download it, let them
run it, and, you know, run it
outside or parallel to the existing
centrally controlled system.
So what's the good news of this?
The good news is that this will not affect
Degod versions of Android such as Graphos.
calx Os is another one we've talked about
that will not be affected Lineage os.
However, it is likely that Google will
continue tightening the screws until it's
impossible for developers to create and
maintain these nongo versions of Android.
And I foresee that in time, Android will
be closed, closed source in all, but
name we saw earlier, a few months ago.
earlier in 2025, we saw that Google
started closing the source code
of their releases on Android.
So you can still get the, the, um,
base source code is open, but we can
no longer see the development process
and getting those final binaries.
It has become opaque and so,
uh, we've seen on Twitter.
Developers of Graphos and other
projects that create other versions
of Android, they, they have stated
that this has made it harder for them
to develop because they're unable
to see the exact process by which
Android is being developed at Google.
So while each of these
steps that Google's taking.
Is not, a hundred percent
locking it down immediately.
It is this slow, gradual boiling of
the frog that is continuing to make
Android more like iOS in terms of being
completely locked down, and it will
essentially be closed source because no
one will be able to develop on top of it.
Even though that technically might have
some source code that's available for
view viewing online, so I, I'm hopeful
that the Freedom Loving development
community, the people of Graphene os
and these other versions of Android
that are degod, I'm hoping that there
are enough people out there in a high
enough demand that should something.
B uh, should Google take further
action that prevents development
of these other versions?
Somebody will, I don't know if forking
is the right word, but somebody will
take either the base Android and
just start developing on top of it
without Google's involvement at all.
Or maybe we'll see a
completely from the ground up.
Mobile operating system written,
that's open source and free.
That's a, that's a big task, and I
don't see that happening anytime soon.
But however, I mean, on the other hand,
look at Ladybird, the browser that's being
built from scratch by first one developer,
now a small handful on that team, not
using any of the pre-existing code.
So it is possible, an an operating
system, even a mobile operating
system is a. It is a huge, huge
project, but, it is possible that one
could be built from the ground up.
And the other option is that we
see further development of the
mobile Linux, uh, operating system.
Right now, the state of mobile
Linux is such that most people are
not gonna be able to use it as a
daily driver just because it's.
It doesn't have a huge ecosystem
of both hardware and software, so
there's a long way to go on that.
But reeling it all back in, I don't
think Android is totally screwed today.
We still have graphene os we
still have, calx and lineage and.
As it is right now.
Graphing on the pixel is a very good
mobile operating system with no spyware
and completely free and open source.
So all in all, I, I think this is,
this is not the end of the world.
I just wanted to sound the alarm bells a
little bit and please keep an eye out for
that in case, uh, Google takes any further
measures to stop this in the future.
That's the end of that topic.
But before I move on to the next item,
uh, I want to remind everybody that you
can boost in on Fountain FM or other
podcasting 2.0 apps to the Sovereign
Computing Show, and you can email
us as well sovereign@atlbitlab.com.
We will read your feedback and we will,
uh, respond to it here on the show.
The next item I have for you is.
Something that is from 2014, and you
might wonder how is this relevant?
Well, we talk a lot on the show
about metadata and how we want
to use apps, especially messaging
and, and things that are.
Use for communication that minimize the
possibility of collection of metadata.
We talked about how signal the, uh,
private messenger, for example, has a
very good metadata footprint because
it's so small, they really can't see
the, the signal servers cannot see
anything about their users except
for when the account was created.
The, and the, the phone number with
which it was created in the last.
Time that the user was online.
So those are three pieces of
metadata and compared to most
other apps, that's really good.
That's virtually nothing, uh, that you can
tell about the user from that metadata.
Uh, contrast that with WhatsApp.
WhatsApp is a really good
comparison because it uses the same.
Encryption protocol under the hood.
It uses the signal protocol so that
the contents of your messages on
WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted.
So meta the owners of WhatsApp,
they can't actually see your
content in theory if it's not
leaked in other ways like backups.
But let's just say in theory they
can't see the content of your messages.
However, they sure can see the metadata.
They, in fact, they rely on that
metadata in order to be able to
monetize WhatsApp and be able to,
uh, collect user data and ads and
generate ads for that targeted ads.
So what is that metadata
they're collecting?
Well, it's, we, we don't
know exactly because they.
Don't publish that information, but
we can know based on other messaging
apps and the kind of things that
Facebook in general can collect.
So you could think, um, your identity,
the, the identity of your Facebook login,
your real name, which you're probably
using on Facebook, all of your photos.
Your contact list, your contacts,
names, email addresses, phone numbers,
the time that you talked, the length
of your messages, the duration, the
size, so they can really build up a
great picture of who you're talking to.
They can see, um, any websites
that you link in there, they can.
Get your IP address so they know where
you are roughly speaking, they can
tell what, what, um, network you're
on, if you're using your Verizon or
at and t. So there's a lot of metadata
that they can collect about you.
And I want to share this clip from 2014.
This is a video clip of former
director of NSA of the NSA and the CIA.
And he's got this famous quote here.
We kill people based on metadata.
So I'm gonna let this clip play right now.
It's a, it's 45 seconds.
General Hayden, you can find out all these
things David just said about me, about
David, about anyone in this audience that
is a function of operational capability.
I'd like you to talk about
whether you're comfortable with
that operational capability.
If so, why and how often is it used
in the ways that David described?
Yeah.
First, first of all, David's
description of what you can do with
metadata and quoting a mutual friend,
Stuart Baker is absolutely correct.
Okay.
We kill people based on metadata,
but that's not what we
do with this metadata.
Okay.
Thankfully.
Wow.
I was working up a sweat
there for a second.
So in case you didn't catch
that, you have Michael Hayden.
That's the guy who says we
kill people based on metadata.
And who is the former
director of the NSA and CIA.
He's, he's saying, metadata tells
us everything we need to do, we need
to know in order to take action.
he was.
Referring to, somebody else had
quoted the former NSA general
counsel, Stuart Baker, saying that
quote, metadata absolutely tells you
everything about somebody's life.
If you have enough metadata, you
don't really need content, end quote.
And so he's, he's referring to that and
saying, we can, we don't need the content.
We have enough with metadata.
And then he makes a little cheeky joke.
About how, oh, we're not ac we're
not gonna do that with this metadata.
And everybody laughs because it's so
funny that we're all being surveilled.
Ha ha ha.
But the reason I bring this up, I
wanted to emphasize the importance
of not leaking your data in
general and metadata in particular.
And so everything that we talk
about on this show is it is.
pulling in that direction.
So, I'm proud to be helping everybody else
out, and I'm proud to be going on this
journey myself of minimizing my leakage
of metadata and other data in general.
And, it feels good to be giving the
finger to people like this who think that.
It's, um, not only do they kill
people based on the metadata, but
they just do blanket surveillance on
all of us, guilty and innocent alike.
And then on top of that, they laugh about
it and think it's a, it is a big joke.
So with that, I'm gonna
leave you for today.
We will see you pretty soon.
We're gonna have another episode
coming out here in just a few days.
And it'll be back to our
regularly scheduled program.
We'd love to hear from you if you boost
in to the Sovereign Computing Show
or email us sovereign@atlbitlab.com.
We will read it and respond and, can't
wait to hear some more of your feedback.
So thanks everybody, and
we'll see you next time.
Hey, thanks for listening.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
If you want to learn more about
anything that we discussed, you can
look for links in the show notes
that should be in your podcast
player, or you can go to atlbitlab.
com slash podcast.
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Catch you later.