I’ve spent part of the day here at the WSJ Data Transparency hack-a-thon helping InformaCam set up an AWS EC2 instance and FTP server. They are going to use it to allow their Android app to upload images with encrypted blurred faces. The app uses facial recognition to create a blurred version (see ObscuraCam) but with the clear picture in the images’s meta data encrypted with the public key of various friends thus allowing them to decrypt it and display the full image (online present). In addition, a host of other meta data will be encrypted and signed with the user’s digital key, creating a evidentiary trail should in be necessary in a court of law. More information is available at the InformaCam link above.
My usefulness at this hack-a-thon is limited for sure. Most of the people here are far better and more competent developers than I. I did attempt to help figure out a problem with the Cryptocat’s encrypted chat on an Android device but lacking the correct version of Android, we couldn’t make much headway.
For the remainder of the event I’m going to work on expanding SalaryBallPark to illustrate the three tiers of the privacy pyramid: promising, protecting, and preserving. I’m also using the time to catch up on my Crypto Class.
P.S. I’ve also broken down and joined Twitter @PrivacyMaverick. Don’t expect me to tweet much.