Installing Tetherand

This page walks through installing Tetherand on a 5364C13D for the first time. It assumes you have the device factory-reset and signed in.

What you'll need

• A 5364C13D on Android 16 (SDK 36). The app technically runs on any Android 14+ device but the cellular threat heuristics are tuned for the 5364C13D's MediaTek MT6878 modem.
• A laptop (macOS or Linux) with adb on your $PATH. Install via Android Platform Tools.
• A USB-C cable.
• Optional: an RTL-SDR dongle (~$30) and a USB-C OTG cable if you want the SDR detection path. Tetherand works without these.

Step 1 — Enable Developer Options on the 5364C13D

1. Open Settings → About phone.
2. Tap Build number seven times. You'll see a "you are now a developer" toast.
3. Go back, open System → Developer options.
4. Turn on USB debugging.

Step 2 — Plug into the laptop

Connect the 5364C13D to the laptop via USB-C. On the phone, accept the "Allow USB debugging?" prompt and tick Always allow from this computer.

Verify the device is visible:

adb devices

You should see one line with device after the serial number. If you see unauthorized, re-check the prompt on the phone.

Step 3 — Download the APK

Grab the latest signed release from the releases page. Two convenient choices:

• tetherand.apk — the full bundle, every native library included. Best if you want every privacy hop without rebuilding.
• A specific subset zip from dist/bundles/ — useful if you want to keep the APK small and only ship the hops you'll actually use. See Bundle Combinations for the menu.

Step 4 — Verify the download

shasum -a 256 tetherand.apk
openssl dgst -sha3-256 tetherand.apk

Both should match the tetherand.apk.sha256 and tetherand.apk.sha3-256 sidecar files from the same release page. Full details and worked examples at Verifying downloads.

Step 5 — Install

adb install -r tetherand.apk

You should see Success. If you see INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE, free at least 100 MB on the device.

Step 6 — Pre-grant VPN consent

Tetherand uses Android's VpnService API for the privacy chain. By default each VpnService launch shows a confirmation dialog the first time. To skip that dialog (handy during smoke testing, but optional):

adb shell cmd appops set dev.tetherand.app ACTIVATE_VPN allow

Step 7 — Launch the app

Tap the & icon on the 5364C13D. You should land on the Tether tab.

The bottom navigation has four tabs:

• Tether — start and stop the laptop-tether.
• Privacy — compose the privacy chain.
• Threat — cellular and Wi-Fi alerts, hardened-mode controls, incident response.
• AI — AI Guard defenses and field guide.

Step 8 — First tether

Back on the laptop, with tetherand on your $PATH:

tetherand run

This sets up adb reverse and starts the relay. On the phone, the Tether tab now shows the VPN service running. The laptop will block on Ctrl-C; press it to tear down.

From here

• Privacy chain — add WireGuard, Tor, Nym, Mullvad.
• Threat detection — what the alerts mean.
• Hardened Mode — one-tap 5364C13D lockdown.
• CLI reference — every tetherand subcommand.