Low Resource Efficient Abuse Reporting App using Verbwire

Code repo can be found at - https://replit.com/@ReneNel1/SlightEqualLocks

At its core, the project is a website which helps people discreetly report instances of sexual assault and any people,organizations or barriers which hinder the reporting of such matters.

The problem is well suited globally and pinpoints to the underlying cause of continuing violence against those proportionally disregarded in affairs of abuse, of which women make up the biggest concern. The problem however is not limited to single instances of abuse, as those who report abuse in all its forms, in most parts of the world, are often at odds with public systems which fail to efficiently follow through on reports of assault and abuse in most cases.

Even if we were to take a fully and properly functioning system which can handle cases of abuse, there are also several secondary issues to consider as well ,such as, the financial dependency problem ,the problem of inflexible cultural norms,lack of training and education,i.e, the list is non exhaustive. Any reference to statistics on the matter point to a problem within a problem - women, girls, the lbgtqa+ community are afraid to go to the authorities in most cases of abuse. (and the definition here to describe afraid could be multi fold)

Even in countries where one would think the system is supposed to function somewhat better than in other parts of the world, the authorities are like us ,only human after all. Public officials are often ill trained, equipped,and funded to handle such situations and often it leads to a backlash on the officials themselves for taking action (think for example , a social worker having to take the children to a children's home due to a reported instance of abuse by the mother or father. This sensitive matter could lead to further instances of abuse and stigmatization against civil servants for merely doing their work.)

The solution proposed here is not merely a piece of code - but rather the idea that the solutions to instances of abuse should rather be a better understanding of the information between all stakeholders involved in the process. The core principle of being heard without having to sacrifice one’s own safety ,and using the forefront of tech to help people in such precarious positions.

Abuse in all its forms is a complex situation.

It’s quite simple, an anonymous database via the use of blockchain tech to collect as much information on an instance of abuse, covers the first two major hurdles in almost all cases of abuse - lack of information and lack of privacy. By having a database and a proper subset of information, a discreet means of communicating that information could lead to a bank of knowledge which simply does not exist in most parts of the world.

The point of such a database is not to name and shame perpetrators (the project proposes the use of aliases rather than real names for several reasons such as these) but rather to use the advantage of database systems to find new ways of looking at the information via social relationships, cloud computing, AI,etc.

For example, similar cases of abuse could be compared from different parts of the world - look at which solutions worked and which solutions did not work. Or to give public officials some context of their community before going out to police some difficult matters

So how could one start to go about developing such a piece of software or application?

The first step would be to ensure accessibility. The website has to work on outdated and un updated browsers, so the code to be used has to be compatible for all working browsers. We have unfortunately used some javascript which is in violation of this parameter, however, a fully implemented version would switch to only html links in the event such a device is used to access the website.

Security and privacy is of the utmost importance for obvious reasons. The leak of a real name or an emotional spouse catching a glimpse of the html requests has to be completely oblivious to this fact. We have considered that the application could potentially be randomly camouflaged via different css templates to look like a different app for example, and pardon the generalizations ,a beauty app,an iq app,a survey/news app.

This rule is by no means a small feat if one has to consider that parameter one and three have to be followed too. We have used a hack around with basic code to try and make it as secure as possible and probably the only caveat which makes the project in conjunction with this method unique.

Low latency usage. This app obviously has to work on very limited data. For example, one has to consider that in a far rural part of the world ,users do not have freely accessible wifi and that purchased data has to be used sparingly. In a perfect world the app or website would be able to work on zero data .Probably a more reasonable approach would be a decentralized network of sorts such as a mesh network for example in cases where data cannot easily be accessed, although even this approach seems realistic only in urban areas and even so, the last thing a victim wants to think about is asking someone to help them with the technical aspects when trying to report something such as abuse. Another work around could be to store the data until the device accesses a working wifi or data network. This could work for smartphones but would need some proper old school hacking to work on previous generation devices.

This topic ,as others, require some further discussion.

We explored the low latency idea by using an inferential method of using a link tracker between the different pages.

When an end user clicks option A to answer a question. The checkbox data is not sent anywhere, rather a link is generated as an inbetween between page 1 and 2(or an external link) of the website, after answering the question the only data that actually gets tracked is the shortened link sends a message that a user has clicked on the link - that’s it and that’s all. The shortened link itself if clicked tells us the user chose a certain option,

However, any method, such as looking at errors(or lack thereof) on a server log or any encryption method,api,websocket,etc can be explored as long as the code can be compatible with most browsers and be efficient with respect to hardware and network resources .

Anonymous Public Database. There will be two databases - one public and one private. The public database will be updated with fictitious names, fictitious addresses ,etc. The only real thing will be the context and town/city/sub district. (Much how google bard for example return the names john doe and jane doe when the names of certain individuals are requested)

Local officials and the community will have to infer from that point. We feel that this information is enough to draw the line between effective management of abuse (ie the given context tells police to be aware that even though we do not know who they are, we know that this situation exists in our ward,or town or sub district.) and not being able to use that knowledge to blame or hurt others. We want to know for example, that if an abusive partner searches the database he will not be able to know for certain that it is his peculiar situation.

So how about abnormal context’s or scenarios? For example, nine children at home or unique methods of bruising etc? If the context is an outlier, we will adjust it to fit the average context. Any unique identifiers such as a red carpet with a special pattern or big small room or special doors will be excluded(or added)

Built With

• html5
• javascript
• verbwire