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EyeWitness app lets smartphones report war crimes

36 points by SimplyUseless 11y ago

jbob2000 11y ago
"Then, when the user is in a safe location, they can upload their material to a secure database owned by the EyeWitness project." And then the country who is committing the war crimes hacks their database, submits a takedown notice, or serves a subpoena, and removes the content.
pakled_engineer 11y ago
The pics are encrypted with a public key and buried in an online database where lawyers review the images and won't release them except to 'proper authorities'. Not sure if that's a good thing, the user seems to lose control over their own media they can't make copies.
spiritplumber 11y ago
Will this work for police violence?
- blacksmith_tb 11y ago
  I suppose, though there's already 'an app for that' as it were: https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=ACLU+Affiliates https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=ACLU+Affilia...
guard-of-terra 11y ago
Implementation may be subpar but the underlying idea is golden.
Karunamon 11y ago
Then, when the user is in a safe location... Unfortunately, this leaves the reporter vulnerable to having their device confiscated/destroyed. Live uploading would be better, but it's unlikely that the internet infrastructure is in place to allow this in an area where "war crimes" are a serious concern. There's also the "releasing images to proper authorities" bit - I can't think of a reason that this shouldn't be completely open and public instead, if nothing else it makes suppressing the info impossible.
osipovas 11y ago
I'm curious to know what sort of optimizations they have made for the phones and infrastructure being used in these locations.
jimrandomh 11y ago
Is there a GitHub repository for this? There are non-obvious features that I think it would be very good for it to have. One of the core problems is that reporters might have their phones confiscated or destroyed, or the reporters might even be killed. The best solution is live uploading, but network infrastructure usually isn't good enough to stream video (especially in crowds where several people might be trying to do it at once). What I think it should do, is use the connectivity it has to live-upload limited information strategically. First it should upload the location, time, device ID, and a hash of the video recorded so far. This is only a few hundred bytes (could fit in an SMS), and creates a record that video was recorded, which could be used in combination with testimony to support a claim of destruction of evidence. Then it should add, based on the amount of bandwidth available, low-quality audio, higher-quality audio, and selected still frames from the video.
task_queue 11y ago
What will they do to mitigate that fact that the war criminals will be doing network traffic analysis? Pulling updates from the Play Store for the app or pinging its service while being at the wrong place at the wrong time might cause you to disappear.
- osipovas 11y ago
  Android Apps can be deployed and distributed a variety of ways. E-Mail is one of those ways. Bluetooth sharing is another.
  - task_queue 11y ago
    So far its primary distribution network is the Play Store. Most casual/uninformed users won't sideload an application if it's available through an app store.
- jimrandomh 11y ago
  Ideally, they'd add a feature where it makes its traffic take the form of https connections to a variety of IP addresses that also host other things, so that it's hard to identify. I don't think passive network traffic analysis can determine which apps are being downloaded to the Google's Play Store, from connections to the Play Store itself. Even if they aren't doing anything to hide the network traffic, there are events that people want to capture where the main bad actors don't have those capabilities. Taking recent events in Ferguson Missouri, for example, while the NSA could almost certainly tell who was using the EyeWitness app, the corrupt local police almost certainly couldn't.
  - task_queue 11y ago
    This is true. The "war crimes" angle makes it seem as if its for use against state-level actors waging war. In that case, compromising electronic communications has been a key strategy in disrupting organization and identifying targets that pose a threat. We've been very careful about not letting any details leak to the press about our campaigns in the Middle East. If an app puts that control in jeopardy and I'm in an occupied country, I wouldn't want my Google account listing that I have it installed. Nor would I want to use it on a compromised network. The little ToS they have you scroll through when you install it makes it apparent that it shouldn't be used on an untrusted network. Good for them for making it unambiguous.
ars 11y ago
This isn't going to solve the stated problem at the top: Staged scenes. They are quite common in certain areas and even journalists fall for them all the time, this smartphone app will only be worse.
- j_s 11y ago
  Good point! See this documentary for more details: http://www.rubensalvadori.com/index.php/project/photojournalism-behind-the-scenes/ http://www.rubensalvadori.com/index.php/project/photojournal...
- jimrandomh 11y ago
  It doesn't solve the problem entirely, but this does make things incrementally better. Staging a fake video is harder if it's expected to include GPS coordinates pointing to a spot where forensic evidence might be found and a phone subscriber ID that's expected to point to someone willing to testify. YouTube videos usually don't have those things.

36 points by SimplyUseless 11y ago

jbob2000 11y ago

"Then, when the user is in a safe location, they can upload their material to a secure database owned by the EyeWitness project." And then the country who is committing the war crimes hacks their database, submits a takedown notice, or serves a subpoena, and removes the content.

pakled_engineer 11y ago

The pics are encrypted with a public key and buried in an online database where lawyers review the images and won't release them except to 'proper authorities'. Not sure if that's a good thing, the user seems to lose control over their own media they can't make copies.

spiritplumber 11y ago

Will this work for police violence?

blacksmith_tb 11y ago
I suppose, though there's already 'an app for that' as it were: https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=ACLU+Affiliates https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=ACLU+Affilia...

guard-of-terra 11y ago

Implementation may be subpar but the underlying idea is golden.

Karunamon 11y ago

Then, when the user is in a safe location... Unfortunately, this leaves the reporter vulnerable to having their device confiscated/destroyed. Live uploading would be better, but it's unlikely that the internet infrastructure is in place to allow this in an area where "war crimes" are a serious concern. There's also the "releasing images to proper authorities" bit - I can't think of a reason that this shouldn't be completely open and public instead, if nothing else it makes suppressing the info impossible.

osipovas 11y ago

I'm curious to know what sort of optimizations they have made for the phones and infrastructure being used in these locations.

jimrandomh 11y ago

Is there a GitHub repository for this? There are non-obvious features that I think it would be very good for it to have. One of the core problems is that reporters might have their phones confiscated or destroyed, or the reporters might even be killed. The best solution is live uploading, but network infrastructure usually isn't good enough to stream video (especially in crowds where several people might be trying to do it at once). What I think it should do, is use the connectivity it has to live-upload limited information strategically. First it should upload the location, time, device ID, and a hash of the video recorded so far. This is only a few hundred bytes (could fit in an SMS), and creates a record that video was recorded, which could be used in combination with testimony to support a claim of destruction of evidence. Then it should add, based on the amount of bandwidth available, low-quality audio, higher-quality audio, and selected still frames from the video.

task_queue 11y ago

What will they do to mitigate that fact that the war criminals will be doing network traffic analysis? Pulling updates from the Play Store for the app or pinging its service while being at the wrong place at the wrong time might cause you to disappear.

osipovas 11y ago
Android Apps can be deployed and distributed a variety of ways. E-Mail is one of those ways. Bluetooth sharing is another.
- task_queue 11y ago
  So far its primary distribution network is the Play Store. Most casual/uninformed users won't sideload an application if it's available through an app store.
jimrandomh 11y ago
Ideally, they'd add a feature where it makes its traffic take the form of https connections to a variety of IP addresses that also host other things, so that it's hard to identify. I don't think passive network traffic analysis can determine which apps are being downloaded to the Google's Play Store, from connections to the Play Store itself. Even if they aren't doing anything to hide the network traffic, there are events that people want to capture where the main bad actors don't have those capabilities. Taking recent events in Ferguson Missouri, for example, while the NSA could almost certainly tell who was using the EyeWitness app, the corrupt local police almost certainly couldn't.
- task_queue 11y ago
  This is true. The "war crimes" angle makes it seem as if its for use against state-level actors waging war. In that case, compromising electronic communications has been a key strategy in disrupting organization and identifying targets that pose a threat. We've been very careful about not letting any details leak to the press about our campaigns in the Middle East. If an app puts that control in jeopardy and I'm in an occupied country, I wouldn't want my Google account listing that I have it installed. Nor would I want to use it on a compromised network. The little ToS they have you scroll through when you install it makes it apparent that it shouldn't be used on an untrusted network. Good for them for making it unambiguous.

ars 11y ago

This isn't going to solve the stated problem at the top: Staged scenes. They are quite common in certain areas and even journalists fall for them all the time, this smartphone app will only be worse.

j_s 11y ago
Good point! See this documentary for more details: http://www.rubensalvadori.com/index.php/project/photojournalism-behind-the-scenes/ http://www.rubensalvadori.com/index.php/project/photojournal...
jimrandomh 11y ago
It doesn't solve the problem entirely, but this does make things incrementally better. Staging a fake video is harder if it's expected to include GPS coordinates pointing to a spot where forensic evidence might be found and a phone subscriber ID that's expected to point to someone willing to testify. YouTube videos usually don't have those things.