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We intercepted the White House app's network traffic

atomic.computer

41–50 of 85 posts

Re: We intercepted the White House app's network traffic

#42
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure that HN's preferred app would be <5MB, and has zero third party SDKs or telemetry, but half a dozen SDKs and third party domains is basically most mass market apps these days. Is it bad? Yes, but the whitehouse isn't being egregiously bad, but "whitehouse app is bad, just like most other apps" isn't going to get clicks.

"everything else sucks too" is not a great defense for the US govt.

Just because an app embeds YouTube instead of creating their own video hosting solution that does not mean that does not mean that the app sucks.

Re: We intercepted the White House app's network traffic

#43
> We installed mitmproxy on a Mac, configured an iPhone to route traffic through it, and installed the mitmproxy CA certificate on the device.

> All HTTPS traffic was decrypted and logged. No modifications were made to the traffic. The app was used as any normal user would use it.

Is it really that simple to inspect network traffic on an iPhone, namely to get it to trust the user-installed cert? I do quite a bit of network inspection on Android and I find it to be painful, even if the apps don't use certificate pinning.

Regardless, it highlights the importance of having control of our own devices, including the ability to easily inspect network traffic. We have the right to know where our data is being sent, and what data is being sent.

I recall during COVID it was discovered that Zoom was sending traffic to China. There was also the recent case of Facebook tracking private mobile browsing activity and sending it to their servers via the FB app. Imagine how much questionable traffic goes unnoticed due to the difficulty in configuring network inspection for apps.

Re: We intercepted the White House app's network traffic

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps if Trump did not want his opponents to be deranged about him, he should not have published a video where he puts on a crown then gets in a bomber jet and dumps poo on them. But of course, that's the trick; I've been called deranged in the past just for accurately reporting that he published that video!

[flagged]

What's the point of lying like this? You know and I know that Trump would not take it in good humor if a CEO or politician posted a video of themselves pooping on him. Nor would you take it in good humor if your boss posted a video of themselves pooping on you. There's just nothing humorous about it.

Re: We intercepted the White House app's network traffic

#45
post #43

> We installed mitmproxy on a Mac, configured an iPhone to route traffic through it, and installed the mitmproxy CA certificate on the device. > All HTTPS traffic was decrypted and logged. No modifications were made to the traffic. The app was used as any normal user would use it. Is it really that simple to inspect network traffic on an iPhone, namely to get it to trust the user-installed cert? I do quite a bit of n…

Installing the CA requires jumping through some hoops, but yes, intercepting traffic for apps that don’t use cert pinning isn’t that difficult on iOS.

Apps that do use cert pinning is a whole other matter, I’ve tried unsuccessfully a few times to inspect things like banking apps. Needs a rooted device at the minimum.

Re: We intercepted the White House app's network traffic

#46
post #43

> We installed mitmproxy on a Mac, configured an iPhone to route traffic through it, and installed the mitmproxy CA certificate on the device. > All HTTPS traffic was decrypted and logged. No modifications were made to the traffic. The app was used as any normal user would use it. Is it really that simple to inspect network traffic on an iPhone, namely to get it to trust the user-installed cert? I do quite a bit of n…

Yes, it is _a lot_ easier to set up mitmproxy on iOS vs Android. But once you encounter an app with certificate pinning, being on a more open platform that lets you install your own apps can help get around that.

Re: We intercepted the White House app's network traffic

#47
post #43

> We installed mitmproxy on a Mac, configured an iPhone to route traffic through it, and installed the mitmproxy CA certificate on the device. > All HTTPS traffic was decrypted and logged. No modifications were made to the traffic. The app was used as any normal user would use it. Is it really that simple to inspect network traffic on an iPhone, namely to get it to trust the user-installed cert? I do quite a bit of n…

Yes, it is _a lot_ easier to set up mitmproxy on iOS vs Android. But once you encounter an app with certificate pinning, being on a more open platform that lets you install your own apps can help get around that.

that said, mitming stuff even on Android can be a pain, so I use a rooted Android emulator with Frida. Even that can be a hassle sometimes.

https://www.trickster.dev/post/setting-up-rooted-android-emu...

Re: We intercepted the White House app's network traffic

#48
post #40
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ok, so then it just sounds like whataboutism. The flip side of "whataboutism" is "isolated demands for rigor"[1]. Going back to the IRS example, is it a fair retort to point out that IRS's hotline only sucks as much as any other large organization's hotline, or is it "whataboutism"? [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demand...

It's the government, the US government. By far the largest employer and spender in the world. So yes, they are held to a higher standard. Businesses intentionally throttle customer service lines for profit reasons. The government should not. How is this difficult to understand?

>So yes, they are held to a higher standard.

See my earlier comment about how this is a meaningless platitude.

>Businesses intentionally throttle customer service lines for profit reasons. The government should not.

None of this was presupposed in the original comment, only that wait times are long.

Re: We intercepted the White House app's network traffic

#50
I filter the vast majority of adware such as doubleclick.net right at the DNS level. Not that I would use the app anyway...

It's shocking how many third party connections an average website opens. It's particularly true for news websites. Interestingly, atomic.computer also attempts to load Cloudflareinsights and some Google fonts, both of which are denied on my network. This is precisely the kind of requests that make it trivially possible for Google to follow people around the Internet, and the vast majority of webmasters are complicit of this.

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