qarsan | قرصان

the truth, bit by bit

Download logo as a .png and fat file here.

problem

Freedom of the press promotes better governance, but as long as media is centralized, it is susceptible to takedown. Internet and media censorship inhibits freedom of speech and expression as many platforms are not fully anonymous.

description

Qarsan is a decentralized mobile app based off BitTorrent and Tor, allowing citizen reporting to a news portal that is hosted by everyone who installs the app. Thus, it is uncensorable, un-DDoS-able and will amplify the true voice of the population.

Link to pitch deck here.

name

Qarsan قرصان means "pirate” in Arabic; and this app is about creating a pirate news source for citizen journalists. It leverages the DHT primitive and BitTorrent to create a peer-to-peer network for authorship and validation of user-generated journalism.

presentation requirements

• mic
• mac (it's a keynote presentation)
• android phone to demo on?
• iphone to demo on
• adapters for ios- AND android-to-projector demo

stack

iOS

• native
• Objective-C
• Firebase

Android

• Javascript
• AngularJS
• Ionic Framework
• Phone Gap
• Firebase

team

name	nationality	affiliation	github
Muhammad Zaman	Pakistani/American	LUMS	hambudi
Asyrique Thevendran	Malaysian	NYU Abu Dhabi	asyriqueat
Michael Weingert	Canadian	Stanford	mpweinge
Amn Rahman	Pakistani	MIT	amnrahman
Brooke Hopkins	American	NYU Abu Dhabi	bnhopkins
Ya-Chen Chang	Taiwanese	Masdar Institute of Science and Technology	changyc
Erin McMahon	American	Columbia University	emcmahon013

mentors

name	nationality	affiliation	github
Seth Thompson	American	Google	s3ththompson
Aurelia Moser	American	CartoDB	auremoser
Rafael Harutyunyan	Armenian	Jeltee	rahar