One ethical quandary my project has is that if this app was state commissioned and for the purpose of assisting the state in apprehending criminals and protecting citizens, then they would arguably have access to all users data that downloads the app.
So to protect users privacy, their data will be encrypted into the app users. Users will have access to a special key that will be kept private. All texts, calls, videos and photos will be protected.
When the alarm is triggered, their GPS location, microphone and cameras will be activated to be used as evidence in case there is a conviction and these files will be stored via a cloud system. However, some crimes may be carried out and there would be no signal to transfer the data into the cloud, so as a backup, the video and audio files will be saved into the users phone or memory card. If the user becomes missing and the phone is recovered, a separate program will be used to only obtain data that the app has recorded and keep their other data private and intact. This would be made possible by allowing the app to take and store data under the users command and to be accessed via a separate program that the operators will have access too and if the physical phone has to be retrieved to extract the data, the operator will plug the phone into the computer where a separate program will extract the data that has been recorded only through the app.
The process of cryptography is the following:
Data is encrypted with an algorithm and an encryption key and this creates “ciphertext” which can only be decrypted with the encryption key. Then you can access the data.
To simplify encryption, we will use the earliest example of encryption which dates back to the Roman era called ‘The Caesar Cipher” and what this meant was that certain letters of the alphabet meant something completely different and you would not be able to solve the cipher without the key so for example: A = B or C = F. You are scrambling the data so that only those with the key can access unlock it with their own encryption key. The data is unreadable without a key.
Encryption is safe and secure for the most part, but that does not mean that is 100% fullproof. One method to unlocking encryption is by trying random keys until the right key is found. This can be further protected by increasing the size of a key, but the larger the size of the key, the more resources are required to process the key.
Another method of hacking encryption is by going after the source of the cipher; exploiting weaknesses and faults in their systems.