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Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

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Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#191

Post by jrochkind1 »

dylan604 wrote: post #188
jrochkind1 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my reading said that the decisions ERCOT made during the weather event were all very competent. They kept the grid from collapsing, which was their job. The fact that extensive load shedding and brownouts etc needed to happen was not a result of decisions made during the weather event, but lack of infrastructure investment over decades (that may or may not have been under the control of ERCOT, rather than the leg…

> All my reading said Comparing that to "All my expierincing" first hand. Not even close to the same thing. They would not have been in the stressed situtation in the first place had they enforced the recommended corrections for cold weather protection in the first place. The fact that they had to turn off power generation because pipes were freezing at the generating stations is an absolute joke, and is the prime ca…

Thank you for more info!

Do you know of any good journalistic coverage of this, since apparently I've been reading bad stuff?

It seems important info for those who don't have first-hand professional experience to get.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#192

Post by remus »

justinclift wrote: post #155
JimDabell wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you haven’t already, check the time / date / timezone on the device that is generating the codes. Facebook uses TOTP for this, which is time-based. If the time on your device is wrong, the codes will be wrong. I would expect this problem to pop up more frequently this time of year due to errors relating to daylight saving time.

> check the time / date / timezone on the device that is generating the codes. Sounds like that'd be on the FB infrastructure side though?

The clocks on both devices (i.e. fb's server and your phone) need to be fairly closely synchronised. TOTP effectively encrypts a timestamp using a shared secret then decrypts it on the other side and checks you're within some bound. If either clock is out it won't work.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#193

Post by yawaramin »

shadowgovt wrote: post #183
jonathanlydall wrote: post #32

For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a "planned power outage", or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, "load shedding". "Load shedding" is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse. This…

Unfortunately, an under-moderated chat feature is considered a risk these days, like an open email relay or an open proxy. I personally think Google erred too far on the side of caution here, but developers should be aware that chat features aren't as cheap to add as they used to be; they change the risk model of the app.

This. Another example: https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295496/malaysiakini-gui...

> Malaysian news site fined $124,000 for five reader comments

> Malaysiakini’s co-founder avoided jail time

IMHO a lot of sites and apps should just remove chat/comment functionality and only allow emoji reactions.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#194

Post by dylan604 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #191
dylan604 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All my reading said Comparing that to "All my expierincing" first hand. Not even close to the same thing. They would not have been in the stressed situtation in the first place had they enforced the recommended corrections for cold weather protection in the first place. The fact that they had to turn off power generation because pipes were freezing at the generating stations is an absolute joke, and is the prime ca…

Thank you for more info! Do you know of any good journalistic coverage of this, since apparently I've been reading bad stuff? It seems important info for those who don't have first-hand professional experience to get.

I read articles from every where. Local stations had coverage of the damage and lack of "rolling" black outs, national outlets had coverage as well, and I'm pretty sure I remember seeing international coverage from BBC, Daily Mail, etc. I can't remember where I was seeing the scathing reports on ERCOT's ineptitude, but they were plenty.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/texas-power-grid-fai... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9270343/Texas-perfe...

just a snippet of a quick search from soooo many articles

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#195

Post by JimDabell »

kokx wrote: post #173
JimDabell wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't matter, DST-related events can still break TOTP. Example: Device is set to the wrong timezone. It’s nearby, but the difference between the two timezones is that one has DST and one doesn’t. DST comes along, either the time changes by an hour when it isn’t supposed to, or it doesn’t change when it is supposed to. The most visible thing that looks broken to the user is not the timezone, but the time. So th…

I find this awfully thin. About every device that does TOTP by default takes its time from the network provider, and lets the user set the correct timezone, and makes it even really easy to do so. Since most DST settings for timezones in the world are quite predictable (yes I am aware that there are few that have last-minute changes, but most don't, especially not in developed nations), most people never have to adju…

“Lets the user set the correct timezone” is where this falls down. The user doesn’t always get this right. Once that happens, the time looks correct for a while, then looks wrong all of a sudden. So they go into their settings and manually change the time. At that point taking time from the network provider no longer happens, because they overrode that.

The predictability of DST doesn’t help, and “most people never have to adjust their timezone” isn’t relevant either. Perhaps you didn’t fully grasp what was happening in the example? All of the machinery works correctly, it’s just the first time they set up the computer the timezone was wrong, or they moved. Everything after that point can work correctly, but if that thing is wrong, UNIX time will be wrong even if the time looks right to the user.

I’ve literally had to fix this problem for people. “Correct” time, incorrect timezone. It’s not a theoretical example.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#196

Post by tspike »

derekp7 wrote: post #130
swiley wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smartphone app development is a poor investment. Just build a good website.

That brings up a question I've had -- so many web sites seem to work better as an app. Is that because app development is easier, or is there some things that you can do with an app that you can't do through web standards? Specifically what types of items can't be [easily] done as a web app but are easy as a smartphone app?

It's because the web was developed as a means for delivering documents and app development has been bolted on as an afterthought.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#197

Post by jedberg »

zepto wrote: post #177
heavyset_go wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, Apple refuses to implement basic features into Safari that Chrome and Firefox have supported for a while, and they refuse to allow developers to use browser engines other than the embedded Safari on iOS. This forces developers to release iOS apps if they want to target iOS users. What we need is some anti-trust litigation with teeth.

What features?

Notifications is the big one. Only way to push a notification to a user on iOS is to have an app (even through Safari on desktop supports notifications).

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#198

Post by LorenPechtel »

tremon wrote: post #135
jonathanlydall wrote: post #32

For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a "planned power outage", or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, "load shedding". "Load shedding" is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse. This…

Load shedding is the correct technical term for it. It's not just a South African thing either, industrial consumers in Europe have the same stipulation in their power contracts: in case of emergency, the power company (network operator) may choose to suspend power delivery to protect the grid. However, in the EU this 1) isn't a regular occurrence, and 2) the grid has a tiered system for load shedding. I can't find a…

American here--I've experienced load shedding once. The problem was a lineman started a wildfire that took out the primary source of power for the town. Until the line was repaired there was nowhere near enough power available, they directed what they had to things like the hospital etc and everyone else was in the dark.

There is also the mess we currently have in California. High winds blew stuff into high power lines and started a bad wildfire. In the lawsuits that followed the utility was told to shut down the risky lines under high wind conditions--which of course causes massive outages. Of course the utility is "at fault" because the ecology types blocked efforts to keep the vegetation away from the lines.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#199

Post by zepto »

jedberg wrote: post #197
zepto wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What features?

Notifications is the big one. Only way to push a notification to a user on iOS is to have an app (even through Safari on desktop supports notifications).

Web notifications aren’t power efficient the way APNS notifications are.

That’s why it’s easy to build support for it on Desktop safari but not iOS.

I except they’ll support Web notifications on iOS once the technology is mature enough to meet the power budget.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#200

Post by ncallaway »

justinclift wrote: post #155
JimDabell wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you haven’t already, check the time / date / timezone on the device that is generating the codes. Facebook uses TOTP for this, which is time-based. If the time on your device is wrong, the codes will be wrong. I would expect this problem to pop up more frequently this time of year due to errors relating to daylight saving time.

> check the time / date / timezone on the device that is generating the codes. Sounds like that'd be on the FB infrastructure side though?

TOTP generates the codes on both the client and server sides. The user enters the client generated code and the server validates it.

So if the time on the client device is wrong (perhaps it was manually set and not updated for daylight savings), then the server will disagree with what the code should be.

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