5d ago

ICEBlock climbs to the top of the App Store charts after officials slam it

www.engadget.com

United States | News & Politics @midwest.social

6d ago

ICEblock, which allows users to alert others to the location of ICE officers, is now the top social networking app in the US

www.engadget.com /social-media/iceblock-climbs-to-the-top-of-the-app-store-charts-after-officials-slam-it-004319963.html

Technology @lemmy.zip

cm0002 @lemmy.world

7d ago

ICEBlock climbs to the top of the App Store charts after officials slam it

www.engadget.com /social-media/iceblock-climbs-to-the-top-of-the-app-store-charts-after-officials-slam-it-004319963.html

88 comments

Only good Nazi is a dead Nazi.
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.
- Exactly. Basically "wahhhh this is making it harder for the kidnappers to kidnap people!! stop using the app they're just trying to do their jobs pls feel sorry for them 😭 "
- 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.
- It's so blatant as if theyre using an instruction manual or something 🤔
  
  Stephen Miller is basically a Nazi
- "Just following orders..."
  
  Unjust, following orders
- Well, when you kidnap people in the street assaults against you can happen.
- 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)
These dumb fuckers STILL haven’t figured out the Streisand effect.
- Who owns the app that gets the location data of every illegal immigrant? Maye they do know the Streisand effect.
  
  There are easier ways to get that data without having to trick people into downloading an app. Trump has palantir and Israel in his pocket. He already knows where they all are. The app just lets us all know where they are.
  Trump doesn’t like playing a fair game because he can’t win those.
  
  While you're right to be skeptical, if they just wanted to collect data they would have an Android version. And their stated reason for not supporting it, is that push notifications on Android would require them to at store device-IDs, which they want to avoid for privacy reasons and being vulnerable to subpoenas.
The devs don't really seem to have a clue about smartphone.
https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lt2prfb2vk2r
- Thanks for the heads up.
  Saw it wasn't on F-Droid and was going to ask for source page (to get through Obtanium), but looks like they're allergic to android and derivates. Appreciate you pointing to references.
- 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.
- ...iOS forces uses Apple services including getting apps through Apple...
  Can't speak to the rest of the claims, but Android practically does too. If one has to sideload an app, you've lost 99% of users, if not more.
  It makes me suspect they're not talking about the stock systems OEMs ship.
  Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2501/
  
  It makes me suspect they’re not talking about the stock systems OEMs ship.
  The developers of GrapheneOS, an independent, security-oriented Android distribution are probably not only talking about stock OEM Android. What they're saying is true about stock OEM android though.
  That's a separate issue from whether users are forced to get all their software from a specific source, which is also separate from whether users will actually use other sources when given the option.
  On Android, developers can offer users a way to install an app that isn't easily traced to their identity and on iOS they can't. Furthermore, an Android app can be both on the Play store and available from other sources; there's no exclusivity.
- 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.
"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.
- It is definitely not constitutional protected free speech. Because constitution has nothing to say in this matter. On the other hand there is no law restricting such speech either. Making a law against it, that is valid under the constitution, would be tricky however.
  
  Making a law against it, that is valid under the constitution...
  The part that says...
  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assem- ble, and to petition the Government for a re- dress of grievances.
  Make a law against the part that says not to make a law against it?
  I mean, it's idiotic and on message for Trump.
We need a federated equivalent. Anything centralized can be stopped.
- Federation is an overly complicated solution it's not required. It also wouldn't actually help, they can still take it off the app store there'd be another one but they would just play whack-a-mole and you can achieve the same thing with open source.
  The best bet would be to have the database hosted outside the US and just have apps that pull the data from an API. There's no need for the app itself to store the data in fact that's a really stupid way to do it. You could federate it if you wanted but honestly that's probably unnecessary
  
  Honestly yeah, if we can just torrent the database and have it stored outside the U.S then it's good
  
  Facepalm. If the App does not store the data in a 5 mile radius ... how do you at least see the latest status when the power and internet is down?
- 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
- 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
~~Did anyone else notice that you couldn't use this on an Android device because it it may put the people who use it at risk?~~
~~For shame Android~~
Developer may not actually understand how phones work
https://lemmy.ml/comment/19647328
Good. I hope they're terrified. The same as their victims
- Your wife is going to be grabbed out of your home and thrown into an unmarked SUV and you will never see her again. And you'll let it happen because you would rather be a slave to a regime than confront the fact that you're wrong.
  
  Have you not seen all the people whose legal latina wives have been abducted off the street, shoved into packed prisons and then shipped off to some random country?
  
  Obvious troll is obvious
http://stopice.net/
- 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.
- Stop lice!
Expected this after recent news articles criticizing it for hurting ICE officers.
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.
Is there an android version?
- Fire works on Android and is meant to do basically the same thing. I saw someone post it in another thread, but haven't explored it in depth.
- This is not true. https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lt2prfb2vk2r
  
  Incompetence is not a "privacy implication". You think Apple servers are beyond reach of US warrants?
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.
Yeah, but I think it's also because Republicans are downloading it and using it to spread fake ice raid claims, to confuse. So, I don't think the numbers are necessarily because people hate ice or whatever.
Guess we'll see.

88 comments