demagogue on 16/7/2014 at 05:08
I'm working in Yangon (Rangoon) Burma on human rights issues, and I had an interesting idea that my Burmese coworkers liked to make a phone app to let local people report human rights abuses that they experience or witness, as well as maybe browse other people's reports, and maybe collect some basic statistics, right from their phone in a simple-to-understand way.
Another part of it would just be giving basic human rights information, maybe in a simple Q&A format, like when human rights abuses happen & what rights people have or what law holds, like workplace risks or abuse, land takings, forced labor, trafficking, etc.
I'd like to work on such a project, but I need some help since I've never made a phone app before. I think Android is more widespread, but cross platform is probably best. Does anybody have some ideas about how to get started on such a project? Or even better, does anybody have skills & are interested in helping develop the basic skeleton & functions of such a project that we could then build on? Or have friends that could do something like that? And then they could fill me in technically so I could understand what's going on. It wouldn't be for pay, but of course it's doing good work for humanity & you get bonus karma points. The people here can handle the language and content side; it's the technical side that I need help on.
If anyone has any general ideas they'd like to throw out, feel free to do that too. Cheers.
Yakoob on 16/7/2014 at 05:43
I'd vote for using Unity as it gives easy cross-platform compatibility + UI options and IIRC you are already familiar with it right?
demagogue on 16/7/2014 at 06:22
Well I think it'll just be largely text based and maybe things like maps & pie graphs, so that might be overkill. On the other hand, it might make it easier to make it look quite polished and professional. So I won't rule it out. I'll think about it. And yes, I do have experience on it as you know.
Al_B on 16/7/2014 at 06:25
For a straightforward app that just needs to record and display information I'd expect Unity to be overkill and may make it harder to integrate with other library services (e.g. map display) but that's from someone who's never used Unity on a mobile platform. It may also raise the required spec of mobile device.
Have you considered the social implications of the app and that it may make people a target themselves? I can definitely see the benefit in making it easier to record real-world data but given the nature of the information it would be unfortunate if it lead to people being vulnerable to more abuse.
demagogue on 16/7/2014 at 07:47
The main point would be for people to submit reports to our organization, not releasing stories. And obviously it wouldn't be releasing names or identifying information in any event.
I was just thinking it might send a powerful message to have some very general stats so that people get a rough idea of what's actually happening & getting reported. But yes, we would want to think about the implications.
The thing is that there is a lot of documentation projects going on, so it's an issue we deal with all the time as it is, and there are standards to follow to protect people, like pseudonyms and redacting certain information.
WingedKagouti on 16/7/2014 at 10:39
Simplest way to make it crossplatform would be a HTML5 + CSS3 + jQuery page, you can make a very polished and responsive interface if you know how to use them. There are also various tools that will convert such a page to a native app for each mobile OS, with varying results in performance/stability.
SubJeff on 16/7/2014 at 10:51
Yes.
I make cross platform HTML5 apps that run natively for Android and iOS, though I could stretch to Windows phones (and I'm in bed with Firefox OS at the moment too). Right now I'm using jQuery Mobile and PhoneGap Build, but I plan to move to a different, faster, javascript framework.
PM me. Mucho interested in helping.
demagogue on 16/7/2014 at 11:03
Ok, let me do some brainstorming with the people here to get some good ideas what we might like to do over the next while & get some plans, and I'll be in touch.
If this works out, it might be a model for other countries too. Of course there might be something like it already out there? I should do some research... One thing though, wifi is rather weak & unreliable here and I only get it at work, so that's something to know about & work around.
SubJeff on 16/7/2014 at 11:15
Research is really important. There might be something out there already. Or there might be something out there that can be adapted for this use. There are a lot of social media apps that allow you to create your own groups and allow submission and sharing of focused information.
Twitter is very powerful if used in an organised way.
The benefit of developing something specific is branding and proliferation of the idea. And of course you control how it works and decide what you want on it.
Let me know what you decide.
Muzman on 20/7/2014 at 02:51
It's a good idea. There are some security matters with android phones though, I think. Without care in certain areas it might be making a digital clearing house of informant information for the security services.
I don't know what the situation is like there at the moment though or how diligent they are or might become though. Not that I want to turn people off the idea, but it's another thing to consider.
ed. I found a couple of tales about companies developing intrusion measures for intercepting mobile data and so forth
(
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/06/more_on_hacking.html)
(
http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/saudi-surveillance/)
They're not
directly applicable. But it gives some idea of the lengths some government will go to get into large messaging apps in the name of halting terrorism.
The name of these guys came up once or twice;
(
https://whispersystems.org/)
Their stuff is open source end-to-end encryption for mobiles. Maybe that cold be reworked to Burmese language and whatever else is needed.
