The devs don't really seem to have a clue about smartphone.
https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lt2prfb2vk2r
this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Glad others have pointed this out. Their "reasons" for not supporting 70% of worldwide smartphones via Android seemed very suspect.
I think he thinks HE had to store the information, and if he isn't the one storing it, it's anonymous.
Except, on Android, you can also do it where only google stores the information and he doesn't have to store any. And there are no user name or passwords or accounts involved to listen to specific channels like he claims.
You can collect this information, and you'd be able to write a more custom push service, but it isn't needed at all, but Google and Apple will always know who is getting the messages.
not defending the dev here, but iOS is the majority in the US, why would worldwide market share be relevant for a US app?
Think about that for a second. Immigration and Customs Enforcement by definition involves at least one border and 2 countries. Even if they only went after American citizens (which they're trying to do), they'd be deporting you somewhere else.
As it is, I suspect a significant number of at-risk people in the US and their advocates use Android.
Lol, called it.
Incompetence and false bravado is all but guaranteed with development teams. Especially when it's closed source, not audited, and has minimal room for feedback loops.
You don't even need to audit a closed source app to know that Apple knows which devices its sending pushes to. It works because they know.
She said that there's been a 500 percent increase against ICE agents who are just "trying to do their jobs and remove public safety threats from... communities."
Exactly what the Nazis who ran extermination camps claimed.
It's so blatant as if theyre using an instruction manual or something 🤔
I loathe and despise using percentages like this.
500% sounds super scary, but is meaningless without providing the baseline. If there was only one instance before and now there’s 5 it isn’t a significant increase but 500% sure sounds scary.
Worse still it's not even clear what is being discussed. It implied "violence" but that is a wide range from just pushing to serious shooting.
% can also be misleading when a scale is arbitrary. A temperature increase measured in Fahrenheit will be a rather different % when converted to Kelvin.
someone on bsky did the match and found out that 700% increase is still only like 70 incidents (i forget who it was that posted it)
"Just following orders..."
Unjust, following orders
"He's giving a message to criminals where our federal officers are," Bondi said. "...we are looking at it, we are looking at him, and he better watch out, because that's not a protected speech. That is threatening the lives of our law enforcement officers throughout this country."'
Actually, I believe it is protected speech. There are apps that let people know where speed traps are. You mean it's not constitutionally protected to say to someone "hey, did you see the cop down on the corner?" Ridiculous. Of course, what she means to say is that the constitution doesn't matter and laws are made up now, and they're just going to do whatever the fuck they want. They're just not quuuuuite ready to go through the trouble of literally setting the constitution on fire yet.
We need a federated equivalent. Anything centralized can be stopped.
At the very least I hope it's hosted by someone outside the US so it's out of reach to the authorities.
For all we know the app might just be a honeypot itself
This is a genuine concern that we should recognize.
I'm about 99% confident it isn't, but considering it is the kind of caution we should all be exercising these days.
- Is it open source? (No)
- Is it's publishing and build pipeline open? (No)
- Can anyone audit it? (No)
- Does the author make unreliable claims of privacy? (Yes)
- Does the author detail how data privacy and security is implemented? (No)
It's probably not a honeypot. But it's also likely to be negligent enough in implementation that it might as well be.
How would we learn either way if it was or wasn't?
Someone knowledgeable enough would be able to figure out where every upload is going, I'd wager. But that would take Someone that is knowledgeable enough, as well as willing to expose an app like that given the potential consequences.
When the feds come for you for using it
Federated application for a map with markers and notes?
It seems for me that this would be too narrow a purpose.
Maybe a general-purpose public notification map. With some functionality allowing to separate markers by their authors and by tags. Or it can be spammed with bogus markers. By tags - well, for it to be general-purpose. By authors - because moderation can't be left to instance admins.
And, of course, I'm personally for separation of moderation, instance ownership, identities and hosting, but my own toy attempt showed me that the logic of checking the chain of privilege delegation is kinda PITA. That is, separating identities from instances is not that hard. And communities. What's hard is the community owner delegating rights to other identities, and in general authorized actions. It's a task of determining which privileges does an identity currently possess, and how does it affect its own actions on the community, and in which order should those be processed ... Everything is harder than it seems. Sad.
So federation is fine LOL.
Why too narrow of a use case?
Imagine federation with text linked to other text, that'd be crazy, right?
Wait, it's actually more complicated than that 🤔
But FR using existing federated protocols to build something like this is EXACTLY what the protocols are for. You don't need to implement the federation yourself, you can use an existing network
Is it only available in the US App Store? I can imagine that some people who could make good use of it don’t have a US Apple ID.
Send & Receive alerts about ICE raids and activity in your area. Stop ICE Alerts Network works with technology already built into your phone without the need to download an app.
This is the way.
You’ve still got to connect to their servers and they can monitor who connects to what.
I wouldn’t trust it without a non-US based VPN. We should assume anything in the US is compromised by the fed, and that they are watching.
they can monitor who connects to what.
They can also not do that.
We should assume anything in the US is compromised by the fed
International VPNs are not immune from US subpoena.
international VPNs are not immune from US subpoena
And condoms are only 98% effective.
A condom and VPN work on the same principle: a layer of protection. No protection is ever 100% effective, but you can at least try.
Remember, they’re already building the camps. It’s only a matter of time before “helping illegals” is a crime that gets you sent to the camps. I’d rather make the fascists work for it at least.
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Clearly it's just safety minded individuals acquiring it. This app helps keep communities safe from unmarked armored vehicles filled with masked criminal cop impersonators.
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