johnhbenetech / authenticon-client

Web client to access the authenticon api

Authenticon prototype Web client

Authenticon is a project proposed by Martus. Briefly, Martus is used by people in hostile environments to transmit evidence of human rights abuses. Their transmissions are encrypted. To detect interception, a 40-digit fingerprint is provided that can be verified out of band (eg, by phone call). Because it is difficult to check a 40-digit number over a phone the fingerprint is rarely checked. The project proposes to provide a more visual view of the fingerprint that is easier to work with.

This repository contains a simple Web client to test the prototype API initially developed at the CHI 2016 day of service. A brief video run-through is here.

• How to install the client
• How to use it
• How it works
• Considerations for further development

How to install the client

Clone the repository into a Web server. It may not work when opened as file://. It will happily co-exist with the prototype API.

How to use it

See the run-through.

How it works

It is a one-page site that uses bootstrap.js for responsive layout with virtually no customisation. Along with jQuery it uses the jQuery Validation plug-in to provide automatic validation of the entry field for fingerprints. Bootstrap is copied into the project; jQuery and jQuery Validation are loaded from a CDN.

The URL for the API is hard-wired near the top of the file. The current section is:

  <script>
      var apiRoot = 'http://52.48.1.222/api/visualise-fingerprint.php';
  </script>

When it loads (using jQuery’s ready() call) it calls the API end point to retrieve an array of encoding methods. It uses these to populate the drop-down in the nav bar that allows the user to change methods.

The main page either shows a form to enter a fingerprint (validated for exactly 40 digits) or shows the result of encoding. The type of the encoding method (image or text) is used to determine how to render the result of calling the API. For text,

 is used to allow line breaks to work. The only styling override in the file is to boost the size of 
 text.

Considerations for further development

This is meant to be a mechanism to test the API only. Presumably the idea is to build the approach into other software using the APi.