A Note on Process
I was starting to feel frustrated by the scope of the project, the shortness of the deadlines, and the lack of communication. Due to scheduling conflicts, our group had only its second meeting last night, and our full writeup was due today.
But after the meeting last night, it became much more clear exactly what the scope of the project will be, and we managed to pare it down to the barest essentials: just a system for posting news stories and photos from your phone, without an initial focus on anonymity or encryption on the mobile end. We also now have clear plans for what each of us will be doing for the project, which is very helpful.
Anonymity and encryption on mobiles are big enough topics to be a dedicated research projects on their own, let alone working them into the context of ICT4D. If we were to try to tackle these problems in the planning phase before implementing even a simple prototype, we might never get off the ground.
As some consolation to our concessions on security, there is a helpful point Adolfo reminded us of regarding the demographics of mobile users in the developing world: a vast majority of people use pre-paid calling plans, not contract services. Consequently, if someone reports some incindiary news from their phone, it is not as big a loss to simply throw away the sim card and get a new one. This is probably the easiest form of personal protection from government intrusion possible, and can work regardless of the additional layers of security we create.
- Login to post comments
