IPhone app idea

[mik3cap]

This one is good enough and important enough that I don't mind sharing it with the world.

An app for exchanging public keys to build webs of trust. It would make the key swap between phones via secure Bonjour connection, and timestamp, geotag, and "phonestamp" the exchange (meaning you tie the exchange to your phone number and or the device ID of the iPhone). Ideally you would also photograph each other as part of the exchange procedure, and maybe even photograph a confirmation screen displayed by each other's phones.

The procedure should be as simple as a handshake - launch the app, confirm the person, take the pictures. All the info then gets published to various public servers and becomes a true record. People should be able to prove or disprove that they were in that location a that time, et cetera, with all that info.

Now, what to call it? Arachne? Ariadne? Clotho? Skuld?

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Comments

[saintentreri.livejournal.com]

Call it Echelon, if the spooks haven't gotten it copyrighted.

[purly.livejournal.com]

iTrust Map

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

Is that your name for it, or are you saying there's an app of that name somewhere?

[purly.livejournal.com]

No that was just a name I thought of that describes what you're doing. Could also be Trust Graph or something along those lines. I think using Trust in the name is good.

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

I think the hardest parts of this project would be (and not saying they are hard in and of themselves, but the rest of the app would just be drag and drop development):

1) Tying in to public keyservers in a secure way
2) Generating public/private key pairs on the phone (something that only needs to be done if people aren't importing their own, and should be an option for people who don't want to get super technical)

Apple may not make it easy to use or may not even allow any apps using infrastructure outside of their own certified security. I might want to run this one by some of my contacts over there and feel the waters before trying to develop something like this. But if it is kosher to make and sell an app like this (I'd sell for $1.99, I'm not totally altruistic) there might be some open source libraries that could be used. I think it would need to be a totally open project for obvious reasons.