Re: [liberationtech] StoryMaker - opinions

2013-07-25 Thread Bill Best 
Many thanks Brian and Nathan for your detailed replies.

I look forward to using StoryMaker and I'll keep up with news about the app.

Good luck with the rest of the project and all the best for now

Bill
--
Community Media Association
http://www.commedia.org.uk/
http://twitter.com/community_media

Canstream Internet Radio & Video
http://www.canstream.co.uk/

On 25 July 2013 07:10, Brian Conley  wrote:

> Hi Bill!
>
> Thanks for your interest, comments below.
>
> 
>
> >
> > https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.guardianproject.mrapp
> >
> > The app is open source (+1) and the developers behind it include Free
> Press Unlimited, The Guardian Project and Small World News so its
> provenance is indeed sound.
>
> Thanks Bill! We all know its a huge challenge but we are trying hard to
> achieve it. Nathan has already done a fantastic job explaining the
> technical details, so I only have a few additional comments, but I'm happy
> to speak with you directly, or any other member of the list who would like
> to know more.
>
> Firstly we can say that our partners reach approached the problem from a
> slightly different direction. We at Small World News come from a background
> working primarily in conflict areas and wanted to find a way to increase
> the safety of citizen journalists while also improving the impact their
> content can make by increasing their professionalism and capacity to tell
> stories.
>
> I hope Niels from Free Press Unlimited will chime in, but I can say
> without their focus on increasing the potential for mobile learning to
> improve the skills of journalists, the learning and curriculum side of the
> app would not be what it is.
>
> >
> > The StoryMaker literature mentions a number of times that the app is to
> be used for "safely reporting and sharing stories" and I wonder how this
> has been substantiated - with particular regard to the fact that it is
> expected that this app will facilitate free journalism in the (hopefully)
> emerging democracies of the Middle East:
> >
> >
> https://www.freepressunlimited.org/en/article/safely-reporting-and-sharing-stories-new-app
>
> As Nathan mentioned he has been deeply involved in planning the security
> functionality, workflow, threat model, etc.
>
> Additionally, the system for delivering lessons utilizes SSL certificate
> pinning to counter MITM attacks and limit the necessity for activists and
> journalism trainees to carry hard copies and insecure manuals. Eventually
> this content should exist entirely in an encrypted container.
>
> > It would be interesting/useful to know how StoryMaker can offer to
> protect a user's safety or, as no absolute guarantees can ever be made, up
> to what degree of security can be expected from this app. So far, I have
> found a short reference to users "are able to send data from their
> smartphone through the Tor network making it difficult to trace".
>
> As Nathan has mentioned, there are a number of elements already
> functioning as part of StoryMaker and by next month we will have a new
> release that integrates obscuracam functionality and hopefully records
> content directly in an encrypted fashion.
>
> We are also pursuing funding to develop the potential for users to publish
> to additional platforms over tor via their public API, and including an
> option for uploading via tor to a private server.
>
> >
> > StoryMaker looks an excellent app and we are looking at its use by
> citizen journalists.
>
> I hope you like it! So far its being treated and implemented in Iraq,
> Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and Zimbabwe. We are pursuing some
> additional opportunities as well, and clearly need to start blogging more
> regularly about the projects progress.
>
> Don't hesitate to get in touch if you have other questions or know
> individuals who might like further information or support deploying
> StoryMaker in their projects.
>
> Thanks do much for the interest!!
>
> Brian
>
> >
> > Many thanks and best regards
> >
> > Bill
> > --
> > Community Media Association
> > http://www.commedia.org.uk/
> > http://twitter.com/community_media
> >
> > Canstream Internet Radio & Video
> > http://www.canstream.co.uk/
>
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Re: [liberationtech] StoryMaker - opinions

2013-07-24 Thread Brian Conley 
Hi Bill!

Thanks for your interest, comments below.


>
> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.guardianproject.mrapp
>
> The app is open source (+1) and the developers behind it include Free
Press Unlimited, The Guardian Project and Small World News so its
provenance is indeed sound.

Thanks Bill! We all know its a huge challenge but we are trying hard to
achieve it. Nathan has already done a fantastic job explaining the
technical details, so I only have a few additional comments, but I'm happy
to speak with you directly, or any other member of the list who would like
to know more.

Firstly we can say that our partners reach approached the problem from a
slightly different direction. We at Small World News come from a background
working primarily in conflict areas and wanted to find a way to increase
the safety of citizen journalists while also improving the impact their
content can make by increasing their professionalism and capacity to tell
stories.

I hope Niels from Free Press Unlimited will chime in, but I can say without
their focus on increasing the potential for mobile learning to improve the
skills of journalists, the learning and curriculum side of the app would
not be what it is.

>
> The StoryMaker literature mentions a number of times that the app is to
be used for "safely reporting and sharing stories" and I wonder how this
has been substantiated - with particular regard to the fact that it is
expected that this app will facilitate free journalism in the (hopefully)
emerging democracies of the Middle East:
>
>
https://www.freepressunlimited.org/en/article/safely-reporting-and-sharing-stories-new-app

As Nathan mentioned he has been deeply involved in planning the security
functionality, workflow, threat model, etc.

Additionally, the system for delivering lessons utilizes SSL certificate
pinning to counter MITM attacks and limit the necessity for activists and
journalism trainees to carry hard copies and insecure manuals. Eventually
this content should exist entirely in an encrypted container.

> It would be interesting/useful to know how StoryMaker can offer to
protect a user's safety or, as no absolute guarantees can ever be made, up
to what degree of security can be expected from this app. So far, I have
found a short reference to users "are able to send data from their
smartphone through the Tor network making it difficult to trace".

As Nathan has mentioned, there are a number of elements already functioning
as part of StoryMaker and by next month we will have a new release that
integrates obscuracam functionality and hopefully records content directly
in an encrypted fashion.

We are also pursuing funding to develop the potential for users to publish
to additional platforms over tor via their public API, and including an
option for uploading via tor to a private server.

>
> StoryMaker looks an excellent app and we are looking at its use by
citizen journalists.

I hope you like it! So far its being treated and implemented in Iraq,
Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and Zimbabwe. We are pursuing some
additional opportunities as well, and clearly need to start blogging more
regularly about the projects progress.

Don't hesitate to get in touch if you have other questions or know
individuals who might like further information or support deploying
StoryMaker in their projects.

Thanks do much for the interest!!

Brian

>
> Many thanks and best regards
>
> Bill
> --
> Community Media Association
> http://www.commedia.org.uk/
> http://twitter.com/community_media
>
> Canstream Internet Radio & Video
> http://www.canstream.co.uk/
>
> --
> Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by
emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
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Re: [liberationtech] StoryMaker - opinions

2013-07-24 Thread Nathan of Guardian 
On 07/24/2013 01:42 PM, Bill Best wrote:
> I understand that some people on this list are involved with StoryMaker

Yes, we are! I can speak to some aspects of the project, but I
hope/expect my colleagues at Small World News and Free Press Unlimited
may also have something to add to this discussion.

The current release is our public beta 1. Active development is still
underway, including a focused development sprint on adding additional
security features (more on that below), and working through a deep audit
of the Android app.

> The StoryMaker literature mentions a number of times that the app is to
> be used for "safely reporting and sharing stories" and I wonder how this
> has been substantiated - with particular regard to the fact that it is
> expected that this app will facilitate free journalism in thecing
> (hopefully) emerging democracies of the Middle East:

At a high level, there is quite a bit of value in the core function of
the app, that lives up to the safely reporting and sharing stories
claim. First, the app itself is a completely self contained media
capture and editing solution for audio, video, photo journalist content.
It can run on an Android device with full disk encryption enabled, and
be used to create well shot, edited stories even if there is no internet
enabled.

In short, since it does not require a cloud backend, or require you to
upload media, it by default, provides more control to the journalist of
their content and sources. You can even share the fully rendered stories
from the app via bluetooth, NFC, wifi mesh or other peer-to-peer
mechanisms, making it an excellent tool for use in internet blackout or
filtering situations.

More specifically, the current public StoryMaker beta offers support for:

- integrated Tor / proxy support for all network traffic
- a custom YouTube video uploader file that integrates with Tor, Google
OAuth (helps with 2-factor accounts) and improved HTTPS verfication (to
defend against man-in-the-middle)
- an entire curriculum module focused on Security for journalists in
practice

The current app also uses SQLCipher to encrypt all of the project data,
but we just haven't exposed the ability to set a password, since we had
some usability concerns to work through.

Right now, the next major development cycle is underway, with the work
including the following r&D:

- Full encrypted, password protected storage of story data (SQLCipher +
CacheWord support)
- Optional import to encrypted storage of all media files post-capture
(IOCipher)
- Optional real-time encrypted media capture direct to IOCipher
- Integration of ObscuraCam features for photo and video redaction,
anonymization, etc.

Some of the features are more stable than others, but we expect all of
the work will get into the primary app over the next few months.

> It would be interesting/useful to know how StoryMaker can offer to
> protect a user's safety or, as no absolute guarantees can ever be made,
> up to what degree of security can be expected from this app. So far, I
> have found a short reference to users "are able to send data from their
> smartphone through the Tor network making it difficult to trace".

This is the primary security feature of the current beta - integration
with Orbot, Tor on Android, for all network traffic, including upload to
YouTube, and retrieval of lesson curriculum.

> StoryMaker looks an excellent app and we are looking at its use by
> citizen journalists.

You can keep up with the project roadmap, open issues, and more here:
https://dev.guardianproject.info/projects/wrapp

There is also a project mailing list here:
https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/mrapp-dev


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[liberationtech] StoryMaker - opinions

2013-07-24 Thread Bill Best 
Hi

I understand that some people on this list are involved with StoryMaker
which is an open source app that enables existing and aspiring journalists
to produce and publish news using their Android phone as safely and
securely as possible:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.guardianproject.mrapp

The app is open source (+1) and the developers behind it include Free Press
Unlimited , The Guardian
Projectand Small
World News  so its provenance is indeed sound.

The StoryMaker literature mentions a number of times that the app is to be
used for "safely reporting and sharing stories" and I wonder how this has
been substantiated - with particular regard to the fact that it is expected
that this app will facilitate free journalism in the (hopefully) emerging
democracies of the Middle East:

https://www.freepressunlimited.org/en/article/safely-reporting-and-sharing-stories-new-app

It would be interesting/useful to know how StoryMaker can offer to protect
a user's safety or, as no absolute guarantees can ever be made, up to what
degree of security can be expected from this app. So far, I have found a
short reference to users "are able to send data from their smartphone
through the Tor network making it difficult to trace".

StoryMaker looks an excellent app and we are looking at its use by citizen
journalists.

Many thanks and best regards

Bill
-- 
Community Media Association
http://www.commedia.org.uk/
http://twitter.com/community_media

Canstream Internet Radio & Video
http://www.canstream.co.uk/
--
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