Sunday, July 29, 2018

Finalizing the Security features

Hi everyone,

We are in the last 2 weeks of the Google Summer of Code programme and I have been busy this week finalizing the Security related tasks of the project.
What I have done in this week is I have started to work in the feature which is implementing a way to detect user credential changes in the web app and log out the user automatically if there are any changes happened.
There are many different approaches that can be used to achieve this and I have chosen to create a separate service which is sending requests to the server periodically to verify the login credentials.
The service is automatically stopped when the app is killed and start again after app becomes active.
In this way, we can minimize the resources utilization while achieving our target.


That's all for this week and let's meet on next week with the more interesting news. Until then see you.

Sunday, July 22, 2018

10th week of GSoC

Hi guys,

It's almost the 10th week and eventually, we are closing to the end of this year's Google Summer of Code programme and every student including myself has been doing our best to complete the tasks within the available time frame.
In the previous week, I didn't get much time to involve in the project because of some personal matters but I have started to implement the forgot password task and hopefully, I can finish it during the next week so I can move into the final task set of the programme. Up to now, that is the progress and let's meet in the next week with the more interesting news.

Saturday, July 14, 2018

Improving security features

Hello guys,
During the past week, I have been busy with implementing a way where the system detects the changes in user credentials and log out the current user if something changes. This task is related to security features which are assigned as the objectives of this years summer of code project.

It looks like we have to find the most efficient way of implementing this since the way I have proposed in my prosal may lead to some performance issues because running a separate service which is continuously requesting logging details in the background can consume a lot of resources from the device.

Currently, I'm discussing with my supervisor the best ways we can achieve this and soon will complete this and then I can move into the last security task and so on.

So I guess that's all I have to say regarding previous week and let's meet next week with more details.


Saturday, July 7, 2018

8th week of GSoC

The second evaluations deadlines are closing and everyone including myself being busy working with the tasks related to our projects. This week I have been busy with creating a methodology where the database of the application is encrypted using the details derived from the username and password of the user.
previously the encryption key was generated using a random key generated using the Android key generator API and the new approach is somewhat more secure than the previous one.
Apart from the username and password, I have also added the timestamp of the date and time to the key so it will be more secure. The newly created encryption process is as follows


Coming week  I will also have to create a short presentation regarding the things I have done up to now to demonstrate in talks thread. That's all for now and see you all in next week with new exciting stuff.

Sunday, July 1, 2018

Finalizing the UI improvements

Hi people, It's been a busy week for me since I have to prepare for my final year research Viva which is happening in the coming week. Due to the preparations, I couldn't commit much time to the developments but within the time available I have done some tasks related to correcting and finalizing the improvements I have done to the UI in the application.

Some of those include finding redundant codes related to RangedEditText and the Native SeekBar.And I have also replaced all the EditTexts with the Android provided Native Text Input Layout to give the user a better interaction with the application.

After completing my academic works I'm expecting to move into the security-related tasks within next weeks. That is the update for now and see you all later.