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Show HN: I made a privacy friendly and simple app to track my menstruation

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Re: Show HN: I made a privacy friendly and simple app to track my menstruation

#171

Post by freedomben »

dangus wrote: post #21
RIMR wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The in-app purchases are a dealbreaker. Not only is there no reason for it, but it necessitates the integration of Google Play Services. If the goal was to be privacy-centric, it already fails at that for this alone. And if the goal was to profit off of women's need for privacy-centric period tracking, then there is absolutely no reason not to find a proper FOSS alternative that cares about its users more than making…

An in-app purchase is an automatic dealbreaker? Doesn’t that depend on what it actually is? It could be an in-app purchase for themes or something like that. It can be a “thanks for supporting the app” cosmetic badge, completely optional, just there to buy a coffee for the author. But you’re dealbreaking it before you even see it? In-app purchase != data collection Also, regarding FOSS alternatives, you should know t…

Damn, that's quite the lecture. Where did GP say that FOSS means free of payment? I only see criticism of the payment method (along with justification), not the need for payment. There are other ways of collecting payment than using Google Play Services. Plenty of apps that are open source are not free-as-in-beer (as you pointed out). OP could keep a Play Store version with in-app payments for users who don't care, but also release an F-Droid open source version that takes payments through Stripe or some other alternative. This would be approximately 10x better anyway due to "commission."

Re: Show HN: I made a privacy friendly and simple app to track my menstruation

#172

Post by Technetium »

freedomben wrote: post #153
stormqueen wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ways to check what data is send trough the network...

Not really, not anymore. Many apps are now using certificate pinning to make it impossible for the user to to modify the trust store. This means that unless it is open source, it is very difficult for people to verify, even when they know very well what they are doing.

There's always a way, even if it's a lot more painful now! https://mas.owasp.org/MASTG/techniques/android/MASTG-TECH-00...

Re: Show HN: I made a privacy friendly and simple app to track my menstruation

#174

Post by InitialBP »

freedomben wrote: post #166
simple10 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open sourcing would just be a PR tactic IMO. Since it's all local storage anyway, there shouldn't be many security maintenance issues. I just think it gives a nice story angle for bloggers and tech press. But agreed, trying to build an active open source project with a community around it is a whole other ballgame and likely not worth the trouble.

It's not just a PR tactic. If the app is closed source, how do you know it's all local storage? Because someone on the internet said so? These days you can't really MitM and investigate the network connections.

Agree with you if privacy first is the goal then open sourcing it is absolutely the right move. However, it IS still possible to MITM these days - although more difficult.

frida.re has a ton of useful features and community tooling built around it including scripts that will let you "un-pin" certificates by hooking and rewriting the functions that verify whether cert pinning worked or not.

https://frida.re/

https://codeshare.frida.re/@masbog/frida-android-unpinning-s...

Re: Show HN: I made a privacy friendly and simple app to track my menstruation

#175

Post by sillysaurusx »

freedomben wrote: post #169
sillysaurusx wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was honestly terrified to post it. I didn’t want to cause you any problems (e.g. if the replies turned into a dumpster fire) or any weirdness (it’s really hard to strike a balance between saying everything you want to, and not being overbearing about it). It’s a relief that the message made it to you and brightened up your day a bit more. All the best to your family as well — we hope to have two one day too.

I debated saying something like this too because I've had it backfire, but in a way I didn't expect. My daughter was excited to go to a coding camp with me, until several people (not all at the same time) each stopped to praise her for being a girl, and me for bringing my daughter. Everyone truly had the best of intentions, but the unfortunate impact was it gave her a bunch of attention that she didn't want, and only…

That! This! Thank you for talking about it and putting it into words. Not only is it applicable, I’ve had so many discussions about it with my wife. Her central theme is "treat us normally; stop making it a big deal" but with the added context of "it sucks that there aren’t many examples of that." So it’s a balance between the two. I told my wife your story and she said yup, that checks out. I wanted to touch on this but couldn’t figure out how to fit it in.

She points out that the thing not to do is to be like "wow, you’re a girl!" and instead showcase examples of women coding. It’s the showcasing part that helps them feel like they belong. She notes that it would be cool if people would just say "this is Ada Lovelace, she was the first programmer" instead of doing the usual thing of saying "the first programmer was a woman". They might seem equivalent to us, but it feels way different to experience, and it’s something that I couldn’t appreciate until a few instances of me feeling out of place as a man. And then I realized that’s how women feel in tech.

That’s also why OP’s example meant so much to me. It was completely casual, which is the only way my daughter might feel like she belongs too.

Thanks again, and you also have a wonderful week.

Re: Show HN: I made a privacy friendly and simple app to track my menstruation

#176

Post by freedomben »

kylebenzle wrote: post #164
vsnf wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ctrl-f > "repub" > 1 result It's just you sewing discord in here. It'd be great if you'd stop, thanks.

The WHOLE POINT of this app and this post is the abortion ban in some states in the US, otherwise this topic or app would never come up. We can pretend we are all idiots but lets be intellectually honest about what this post is about. Now, is it a valid fear that white conservative males are trying to obtain period tracking app data so they can persecute young women having abortions? I personally don't think so, whic…

> The WHOLE POINT of this app and this post is the abortion ban in some states in the US

Citation needed.

Dev's website is in German, so I wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't even know about "some states in the US" abortion bans.

> We can pretend we are all idiots but lets be intellectually honest about what this post is about.

intellectual honesty includes providing some reason/backing for your assertions. I agree, let's be intellectually honest.

Re: Show HN: I made a privacy friendly and simple app to track my menstruation

#177

Post by jroseattle »

I really like your on-device storage approach. I did something similar with an app for my smartwatch a few years ago to prompt/track my gym workouts. At the time and on the particular platform, other apps felt very spammy/scammy, and I just didn't care to go through the hassle of pushing/pulling my data with another application for what seemed like little to no value to me.

I haven't touched it in a while, but I've been thinking of a sync-to-another-device capability that I could then use with a locally-running AI instance to dig into. (Disclaimer: this is purely exploratory on my part; I'm sure someone will say 'why not do so-and-so'). As always, your mileage may vary. :-)

Re: Show HN: I made a privacy friendly and simple app to track my menstruation

#178

Post by sillysaurusx »

freedomben wrote: post #168
sillysaurusx wrote: post #101

I’d like to post a different sort of off-topic comment. As someone who’s married to a brilliant programmer and has a daughter almost a year old, thank you for showing a public example of simply being a woman in tech. We don’t plan on shoving our daughter in front of an editor from a young age — we have no expectations of her, and she’s free to be whoever she wants to. But one reason my wife didn’t get into programmin…

> I hope that our daughter Kess Voyager fan by chance? :-D

My wife says "it’s because we liked the name, not because of the show" but for me, it was totally the show. :)

Turns out there are only like a few dozen people named Kess. It’s one of the rarest names, yet short and simple, which is neat.

I sometimes worry I’ve cursed her with the association, since she might find that question annoying someday. But in a decade I doubt there will even be many Voyager fans left, sadly. It’s easy to forget that the show was from 1995, almost three decades ago. Ten years from now Voyager will be turning 40.

Re: Show HN: I made a privacy friendly and simple app to track my menstruation

#179

Post by freedomben »

InitialBP wrote: post #174
freedomben wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just a PR tactic. If the app is closed source, how do you know it's all local storage? Because someone on the internet said so? These days you can't really MitM and investigate the network connections.

Agree with you if privacy first is the goal then open sourcing it is absolutely the right move. However, it IS still possible to MITM these days - although more difficult. frida.re has a ton of useful features and community tooling built around it including scripts that will let you "un-pin" certificates by hooking and rewriting the functions that verify whether cert pinning worked or not. https://frida.re/ https://c…

Neat, thank you! I hadn't heard of frida.re. I'll definitely have to dig in to that!

Re: Show HN: I made a privacy friendly and simple app to track my menstruation

#180

Post by saagarjha »

kylebenzle wrote: post #164
vsnf wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ctrl-f > "repub" > 1 result It's just you sewing discord in here. It'd be great if you'd stop, thanks.

The WHOLE POINT of this app and this post is the abortion ban in some states in the US, otherwise this topic or app would never come up. We can pretend we are all idiots but lets be intellectually honest about what this post is about. Now, is it a valid fear that white conservative males are trying to obtain period tracking app data so they can persecute young women having abortions? I personally don't think so, whic…

It seems like this app is not for you and quite frankly perhaps discussing it isn't either. Why not skip on this one?
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