Improving trust and flexibility in interactions between Android apps

Activity1 sending an Intent that either Activity2 or Activity3 can handle. Android provides a flexible system of messaging between apps in the form of `Intent`s. It also provides the framework for reusing large chunks of apps based on the `Activity` class. `Intent`s are the messages that make the requests, and `Activity`s are the basic chunk of functionality in an app, including its interface. This combination allows apps to reuse large chunks of functionality while keeping the user experience seamless and fluent. [Read More]

Knight News funding of SecureSmartCam = a #WIN for open-source mobile security

Along with our partner WITNESS, we’ve entered our SecureSmartCam project into the Knight News Challenge, and we need your support to get to the next round. Here’s a bit more about the challenge: The Knight News Challenge, an international media innovation contest, is evolving – and will be offered three times, with three different topics. The first challenge will be centered on networks, and will accept applications Feb. 27 – March 17. [Read More]

ObscuraCam v2 ALPHA (with video!)

We’ve been making exciting progress with our work on ObscuraCam, part of the SecureSmartCam project with our partner WITNESS. The biggest jump forward is the addition of video support, including automated face detection, pixelization and redaction.

Screenshots below, and soon a video below (also at: http://youtu.be/9hi4c_DCrkw)

Source code branch is here: https://github.com/guardianproject/securesmartcam/tree/obscurav2

Latest ALPHA test build at: https://github.com/guardianproject/SecureSmartCam/ObscuraCam-2.0-Alpha-2.apk/qr_code

Introducing InformaCam

These are interesting times, if you go by Times Magazine as an indicator. The magazine’s person of the year for 2011 was The Protester, preceded in 2010 by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Both entities partners with equal stake in freely sharing the digital content that shows the world what’s going on in it, at any time, from behind any pair of eyes.Also casting in their lot with the others is Time Magazine’s 2006 person of the year, You: the You that puts the “you” in “user-generated content;” the You whose miasma of bits, bytes, and the powerful images they express are becoming increasingly problematic. [Read More]

Progress on Mobile Video Privacy Tools

If you are a developer you may just want to skip all the prose below, and just jump over to Github to find our new FFMPEG on Android project{.vt-p} and build system. You can also check out our SSCVideoProto Project{.vt-p} to understand how we are using it to redact faces and other identifying areas of HD video right on the Android phone itself. For more context, read on… Last October at the Open Video Conference 2010, the idea of a camera application that could be designed to understand the needs and requirements of the human rights community was born. [Read More]

Announcing ObscuraCam v1 – Enhance Your Visual Privacy!

We’re very happy to announce the beta release of ObscuraCam for Android. This is the first release from the SecureSmartCam project, a partnership with WITNESS, a leading human rights video advocacy and training organization. This is the result of an open-source development cycle, comprised of multiple sprints (and branches), that took place over the last five months. This “v1” release is just the first step towards the complete vision of the project. [Read More]