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Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

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Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#11

Post by sumtechguy »

malfist wrote: post #6
john_strinlai wrote: post #5

> This thing also has a "Text the President" button that auto-fills your message with "Greatest President Ever!" and then collects your name and phone number. when is the onion going to go bankrupt? it has to be soon, i imagine. no way it can compete with reality at this point. (the rest of the article is a bit too depressing for me to comment on at the moment, other than saying "wow, gross")

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.

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#12

Post by malfist »

bigyabai wrote: post #10
malfist wrote: post #6

Earlier 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.

They are perfectly aware of their own optics and do it because you can't escape it. See Elon with his cringeworthy Twitter takeover that still hasn't collapsed, Larry Ellison buying up the media or Tim Cook gifting the gold trophy to Trump. Nobody has the guts to boycott them anymore. Billionaires know that you depend on them for news, social media and smartphones too.

> still hasn't collapsed

Which is why he's playing a shell game with xAI "buying" twitter and then SpaceX "buying" xAI

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#13

Post by [deleted] »

john_strinlai wrote: post #5

> This thing also has a "Text the President" button that auto-fills your message with "Greatest President Ever!" and then collects your name and phone number. when is the onion going to go bankrupt? it has to be soon, i imagine. no way it can compete with reality at this point. (the rest of the article is a bit too depressing for me to comment on at the moment, other than saying "wow, gross")

[deleted]

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#14

Post by malfist »

sumtechguy wrote: post #11
malfist wrote: post #6

Earlier 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.

I specifically did not say money makes them mentally ill, but rather the type of person that seeks to hoard so much wealth that they have billions is correlated with mental illness.

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#15

Post by fhdkweig »

joshstrange wrote: post #8

Do 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…

I can't read any of it, but the other comment's descriptions sound like the new mandatory Russian Max app, so it isn't without precedent.

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#16

Post by saadn92 »

The 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 through a browser, and that's by, unfortunately, design.

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#18

Post by fhdkweig »

malfist wrote: post #6
john_strinlai wrote: post #5

> This thing also has a "Text the President" button that auto-fills your message with "Greatest President Ever!" and then collects your name and phone number. when is the onion going to go bankrupt? it has to be soon, i imagine. no way it can compete with reality at this point. (the rest of the article is a bit too depressing for me to comment on at the moment, other than saying "wow, gross")

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.

To get moderately rich doesn't require a special personality type, but obscene wealth requires breaking laws and asking forgiveness later (throwing lawyers at the problem). Not caring who you hurt while reaching for a goal is a trait of sociopathy.

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#19

Post by alephnerd »

saadn92 wrote: post #16

The 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…

> Background location, biometrics, device identity, boot triggers — none of that is available through a browser

Most browsers do in fact offer that level of granularity, especially for PWA usecases [0].

And from an indicators perspective, having certain capabilities turned off can make it easier to identify and de-anonymize individuals.

[0] - https://pwascore.com/

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#20

Post by beejiu »

joshstrange wrote: post #8

Do 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…

I didn't even realise it was an article. I thought the grid thing at the top was just an index page linking out to other pages.
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