Relatedly, I just registered for PACER to download court documents. It's pretty shocking that to get public legal documents the US Federal Court system requires full name, birthdate, address, phone, email, credit card info... and I THINK (it's past the initial registration page so can't confirm 100%) also mother's maiden name and 2 common security questions. Just a treasure-trove of PII if it ever falls into the wrong hands. (What's esp frustrating is even after going through this, I had to call a number and wait on hold for 1 hour to activate the account.)
Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban
21–30 of 302 posts
Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban
#22[dead]
Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban
#23The closing point is the one that should get more attention — every single one of these apps could be replaced by a web page. And from a product standpoint, there's really only one reason to ship a native app when your content is just press releases and weather alerts: you want access to APIs the browser won't give you. Background location, biometrics, device identity, boot triggers — none of that is available throug…
Exactly what big businesses do, and governments think what businesses do is good practice. Fore everyone to use an app.
The UK's Companies House (required for anyone who is a director or has a shareholding of more than 15% etc.) requires a Onegov ID now. They offer a web version with a scan of a photo ID (passport or driving license). I tried it. I thought one of those would work. Apparently the web version needs to ask security questions (reasonable, as the app used NFC to read your passport) but despite the vast amount of information the government has on me (to issue those IDs, to collect taxes, etc) it cannot do that, so i had to either use the app or go in person to a post office in a different town.
Similarly I got an email from Occado saying that if I used the app I could change orders without checking out again. If I do it on the website i have to checkout again. Why?
Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban
#24There is currently an attempt going on by several governments to crack down harder against the people. While before it was "only", say, California and their age-sniffing laws infiltrating and tainting Linux - thus declaring war against the people, as revealed by Meta acting as primary lobbyist here - today I read that now that age-sniffing was also approved in some european countries (in one EU country the parents are required to install a sniffing app and thus verify the age of the kids; I think it was in Greece. I'd never help any government act as fascist sniffing proxy trying to control and monitor by kids, that is an act of betrayal of such a government), their next line of attack is against VPN. Suddenly the picture shifts, because if VPNs are targeted, how does finding an excuse such as "but but but think about the kids", make any sense? That is very clearly governments becoming increasingly fascist. Add a few lobbyists here and there who benefit financially from this and now we suddenly understand how democracies are undermined. See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_corruption_scandal_at_th...
Democracy needs to be adjusted - right now private interests can too easily sabotage and undermine it.
Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban
#25You could not pay me to use any of these apps. All of my own devices run some form of Linux (Debian for servers, Arch for desktop/laptop, GrapheneOS on phone). I generally refuse to use non-free software, the main exception being Steam on a dedicated gaming rig. I really don't understand why everything has to be an "app." My phone only has a handful of apps, including two web browsers, through which other things are…
Apps can gather data, and there are lots of things that requires apps now.
Edit: I meant apps can gather data.
Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban
#26Do these posts just get upvoted due to the graphics/animations? I find this site incredibly difficult to read with things re-playing as you scroll up and down and the articles I've read from here are often light on details. The graphics seem very AI-generated (overlapping text and other little issues) which makes me think the whole thing is from an LLM. While this post does have some interesting information, I have t…
Speaking for myself unless I know the site and like how they do things, my default these days is a reader view.
It helps a lot!
In this case it helped me lose interest in the article within about 20 seconds.
Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban
#27The closing point is the one that should get more attention — every single one of these apps could be replaced by a web page. And from a product standpoint, there's really only one reason to ship a native app when your content is just press releases and weather alerts: you want access to APIs the browser won't give you. Background location, biometrics, device identity, boot triggers — none of that is available throug…
> access to APIs
It's mostly static data. Just publish it under a URL that won't change. Then we could actually cache and archive it.
Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban
#28You could not pay me to use any of these apps. All of my own devices run some form of Linux (Debian for servers, Arch for desktop/laptop, GrapheneOS on phone). I generally refuse to use non-free software, the main exception being Steam on a dedicated gaming rig. I really don't understand why everything has to be an "app." My phone only has a handful of apps, including two web browsers, through which other things are…
Apps can gather data, and there are lots of things that requires apps now. Edit: I meant apps can gather data.
Apps obviously gather data. In fact, on common phone operating systems, they tend to have access to an insane amount of information, including what other apps are used, hardware identifiers, information related to Google/Apple accounts and more.
As for things "requiring" apps, I am happy to do without those. If I cannot access something through a website on a device under my control, I will not use it. No convenience is worth more than my freedom and privacy.
Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's ming boggling just how....cringe... these billionaires that want to run the world are. Makes you wonder if the personas that seek billions are correlated strongly with mental illnesses.
I do not think it is the money that made them terrible. I know all sorts of terrible people that would do the exact same things. The only difference really is they do not have the money to execute on those ideas. Money does not make you a good or bad person. It just makes you more of who you are already.
Of course the money doesn't make them terrible. Being terrible makes them money. Lots of money. There aren't really other ways of obtaining so much money, which is why if you see someone that has that amount, they should be viewed with suspicion.
Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban
#30Do these posts just get upvoted due to the graphics/animations? I find this site incredibly difficult to read with things re-playing as you scroll up and down and the articles I've read from here are often light on details. The graphics seem very AI-generated (overlapping text and other little issues) which makes me think the whole thing is from an LLM. While this post does have some interesting information, I have t…
> Do these posts just get upvoted due to the graphics/animations?
I don't think so. It's more likely that they're upvoted as a signal-boost; convene here to talk about bad government tech.
Some submissions are less about the subject matter than they are about providing a space to talk about only the subject in general. I've found this to be the case when the content is AI-generated.