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

https://www.sambent.com/the-white-house-app-has-huawei-spyware-and-an-ice-tip-line/

by speckx • 4 months ago

683 269 4 months ago

sambent.com

ethagnawl• 4 months ago

The names of the offending apps on the cards need much more emphasis.

pickleglitch• 4 months ago

I'm old enough to remember when people actually took the Hatch Act seriously.

fhdkweig7• 4 months ago

Why is every part of this website animated, and part of the text is backwards? Am I the only one who sees it this way?

explodes• 4 months ago

If the webmaster notices this, the squares aren't great on mobile.

DoingFedTime5• 4 months ago

Thank you for the feedback. I'll try working on them!

nancyminusone2• 4 months ago

I think they are supposed to be like cards that flip over and you see what's on the back.

john_strinlai3• 4 months ago

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")

malfist7• 4 months ago

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.

bigyabai3• 4 months ago

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.

sumtechguy• 4 months ago

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.

fhdkweig7• 4 months ago

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.

psadauskas2• 4 months ago

Right? If I had enough money that I could make a serious dent in local or even global poverty without noticing the change in my lifestyle, and I just... chose not to, I have no idea how I could sleep at night.

fhdkweig7• 4 months ago

You aren't the first one to notice the correlation. It is a heavily studied subject.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wealth+and+sociopathy

th0raway• 4 months ago

It comes down to two things. One is the well documented issue of how, when you are that rich, you are treated differently, and how that will ultimately modify your behavior. The other is the prerequisites to get to the job. Chances are you aren't fully self-made, receiving no investment. From convincing investors, to having immense faith in a project that cannot be obviously good, as otherwise you'd be building what already exists, to the personality to handle the road upward.

This second effect happens in all kinds of places where you have to jumps througha lot of hoops to just get to get there. Every hoop discards candidates, and promotes different things. Sometimes in ways that make sure that nobody capable of attaining the job is fit to actually do it well. You can see the issue all over the place, once you track people's careers. Sometimes things that should be disqualifying for a role are actually requirements in practice.

rhet0rica• 4 months ago

Trump specifically seems to hew awfully close to the symptoms of a long-term cocaine user. The hard drift into self-congratulatory vanity parallels that of Charlie Sheen during a certain infamous interview, for example, and at least two people (Howard Dean and Carrie Fisher) identified him as having compulsive sniffing reminiscent of a cocaine habit during debates prior to his first election.

Remember that Trump is not a first-generation member of the upper class; as a nepo baby, he was born out of touch and has spent his whole life falling deeper into bizarre social bubbles and media silos that were tailored by his ancestors and peers to reassure them that they're doing the right thing. In theory plutarchs should be receiving world-class education from private tutors, but being arch-Conservatives by definition, these teachers are invariably out of date on mental health, and would be forbidden from teaching it even if they had modern material.

Because of this isolation the ultra-wealthy often have certain very uneducated traits around self-esteem—which can paradoxically seem like the result of poverty. They do not have access to DARE or Sesame Street to give them the confidence not to take drugs when pressured, they've never seen Mister Rogers, their biological parents were always off running a business empire, and they have no surrogate figures because their nannies probably get fired at the drop of a hat, even for defending the child's interests.

Ironically, American republicanism makes this worse; in a planned aristocracy, parents internalize the belief that their children deserve "the best" because they are meant to be "the best", but without that noble lie, there is no pressure to create a positive environment for the next generation of tyrant. To make matters worse, these families never start off with healthy values to begin with—which produces a founder effect of regressive masculinity that magnifies everything else I've just mentioned.

literalAardvark• 4 months ago

I think they are, and strongly.

The drive to achieve that level of success often comes from weaponized poor self esteem.

Well adjusted individuals just chill out after a few million and work on whatever is fun/important for them.

Only rarely does this also happen to be something that can take you from 10M to 1B. (and if it can it would take a lot of work you can't be bothered to do unless it's some core value like helping the poor beat malaria)

ashton314• 4 months ago

Most don’t seem to think about morals or quality at all: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/introspection-andr...

keybored2• 4 months ago

Aren’t sociopaths strongly overrepresented among the powerful?

(Assuming that) It’s a bit astonishing that we discuss things like that, go huh, and then go about our day. Effectively acquiescing to rule-by-personality disordered.

andai2• 4 months ago

So, Hormozi boils it down to:

The wealthiest people in the world have:

- A very big goal

- Insecurity: Massive fear of never being enough

- Impulse control to stay on goal

This excellent list, I expand with my Daddy Issues Billionaire Archetype, which we see in basically all "ultra successful" people. (I haven't found any counter-examples yet, but I'm eagerly awaiting the first! It would be extremely valuable information.)

But crucially, in the face of Unrelenting Standards, what's the difference between total collapse and astronomical success? The belief that you can do it.[0] It's not just "you need to be better than you are." It's "and I know you can."

[0] Incidentally, I posted on this exact subject this morning!

https://nekolucifer.substack.com/p/you-can-do-anything-if-yo...

wat100002• 4 months ago

Imagine having $999 million and deciding it’s not enough. There’s no way a mentally healthy person could reach that conclusion.

cl0ckt0wer• 4 months ago

They've pivoted to good news. It's more absurd.

https://theonion.com/breaking-all-of-world-s-problems-solved...

fhdkweig7• 4 months ago

It is still bad news. The last sentence refers to things working out for everyone except the reader:

"Sources went on to report that, due a minor oversight that also occurred as you slumbered, your student loans must still be repaid in full and are now subject to a highly predatory ballooning interest rate."

hn_throwaway_992• 4 months ago

I remember when I was young seeing videos of North Korea, of audiences always giving rapt standing ovations and many people fake fainting, and I always thought "How dumb and stupid does everyone have to be to carry on this absurd, ridiculous charade."

I don't wonder anymore.

dwd• 4 months ago

Not that dumb and stupid. You don't want to be the guy NOT frantically scribbling the Dear Leader's every word into your notebook.

The fake fainting might be an easy get out of having to cheer and bounce for ages.

e402• 4 months ago

At least there you might be asked to stand in front of a canon if you don’t kiss ass hard enough.

ghurtado4• 4 months ago

I have no doubt in my mind that, more than once, Kim Jong Un has found himself watching TV going "come on, this guy is fucking ridiculous"

iririririr2• 4 months ago

trump saw the meme "north korea is best korea" and said Hold my strawberry mcMilkshake!

HumblyTossed• 4 months ago

How can people see the propaganda that happens in, say, North Korea, but fail to see what is happening in their own country?

It boggles. It truly does.

SequoiaHope2• 4 months ago

It looks very different from the outside than it does from the inside. We are all subject to this.

gzread3• 4 months ago

A Russian and an American get on a plane in Moscow and get to talking.

The Russian says he works for the Kremlin and he's on his way to go learn American propaganda techniques.

"What American propaganda techniques?" asks the American.

"Exactly," the Russian replies.

hamstergene• 4 months ago

A simple answer is that they see neither.

What they think they see is actually a short snapshot of North Korean life with a red circle, a red arrow and a red caption text that says "North Korean propaganda here!!! -->", carefully drawn by their local propaganda.

Sanity check: I present you a country X, whose language you don't speak, and whose news you don't read day to day. I show you their politician saying something. Can you tell if that was propaganda? Substitute X from "North Korea" to a country you know nothing about and see how the answer changes.

gzread3• 4 months ago

The Onion is actually making great money on its print edition. Having a real newspaper is a novelty these days, almost like it's part of the joke, and you should subscribe.

userbinator2• 4 months ago

I'm pretty sure if you text anyone, they get your number (and name, via a reverse lookup.)

DoingFedTime5• 4 months ago

A number showing up in someone's SMS inbox and a government form explicitly pairing your name to your number with no retention policy are different data collection events.

joshstrange• 4 months ago

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 to wade through distracting animations that seem "off" which makes me questions all of it.

fhdkweig7• 4 months ago

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.

beejiu• 4 months ago

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.

EA-3167• 4 months ago

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.

tolerance2• 4 months ago

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.

hn_throwaway_992• 4 months ago

That may be true in some cases, but I disagree about that in this case. TFA links to numerous sources for it's data (e.g. https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/723186/ for the White House app, and AFAICT exodus privacy is a legit service), and discussions around government applications that are loaded with surveillance tech (and in many cases it seems like the apps' primary, and sometimes only, purpose is data harvesting) seem very on-topic for HN.

Also, FWIW, while I found the layout of the top section of the article to be weird, the actual text body and linked sources were easy to read for me.

raincole• 4 months ago

It's upvoted because the message is "the administration bad." Which, heuristically, is the correct take most of the time.

GaryBluto• 4 months ago

I can only presume it's designed for people who's attention will not be kept by sparse but fitting graphics and a well written article.

zymhan• 4 months ago

Yeah, this site has been posted a few times recently, and there is something just very odd about the site design and the writing.

For example, this post seems unhinged at best: https://www.sambent.com/the-engineer-who-tried-to-put-age-ve...

nickvec2• 4 months ago

These posts get upvoted because the content itself is big news (government apps having insane amounts of spyware is, imo, something worth discussing.) I think if the frontend was just plain HTML/CSS, it would still get a comparable number of upvotes.

DoingFedTime5• 4 months ago

Brave has a feature (free) that lets you hit a button and literally remove every animation if you want.

The White House app tracker list comes directly from Exodus Privacy's independent audit, verifiable by anyone. What the cards look like on mobile has nothing to do with it.

drnick13• 4 months ago

You 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 accessed. No app gets access to location, sensors, the camera, or the microphone.

graemep3• 4 months ago

Apps can gather data, and there are lots of things that requires apps now.

Edit: I meant apps can gather data.

drnick13• 4 months ago

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.

nickburns3• 4 months ago

Can you offer some examples?

saadn92• 4 months ago

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.

alephnerd2• 4 months ago

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/

nickburns3• 4 months ago

Fingerprint? Yeah. Deanonymize? No.

There's a considerable difference. And doing whatever one can to mitigate the former shouldn't be discouraged by falsely equivocating the latter.

graemep3• 4 months ago

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?

themafia• 4 months ago

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.

shit_game• 4 months ago

The APIs in question are client-side iOS and Android APIs. Most of these apps are just WebViews wrapped in spyware, which is the point. It doesn't matter that most of the content is static or already uses browser-native APIs for functionality like forms, gating access to this information behind a surveilance device is the point.

zdragnar2• 4 months ago

And from a product standpoint, there's really only one reason to ship a native app

I have worked on several applications where the product managers wanted to make our web app something that could be installed through the app store, because that's how users expect to get apps.

I know people who don't even type search queries or URLs into a browser, they just tell the phone what they want to find and open whatever shows up in a search result.

I've tried pushing back against the native app argument and won once because customers actually reported liking that we had a website instead of an app, and other times because deploying an app through the stores was more work than anyone had time to take on. Otherwise, we would've been deploying through app stores for sure.

Marketing gets plenty of data from google analytics or whatever platform they're using anyway, so neither they nor product managers actually care about the data from native APIs.

forgotaccount3• 4 months ago

I know people who don't even type search queries or URLs into a browser, they just tell the phone what they want to find and open whatever shows up in a search result.

I don't know exactly what you are talking about here, but if I wanted to find a restaurant that is local I definitely just type 'Miguels' into the browser and then it searches google for 'Miguels' automatically and it know's my location so the first result is going to be their website and phone number and I can load the website for the menu or just call if I know what my family wants.

However even then, I'd rather have an app for them where I can enter in the items I want to order. I've noticed apps tend to be more responsive. Maybe it's just the coding paradigm that the applications tend to load all of the content already and the actions I take in the app are just changing what is displayed, but on a website they make every 'action' trigger an API call that requires a response before it moves on to the next page? This makes a big difference when my connection isn't great.

I also find it easier to swap between active apps instead of between tabs of a browser. If I want to check on the status of the order or whatnot, it's easier to swap to the app and have that refresh then it is to click the 'tab' button of the browser and find the correct tab the order was placed in.

JumpCrisscross8• 4 months ago

there's really only one reason to ship a native app when your content is just press releases and weather alerts

The flip side is there are (presumably) real people downloading these apps. Maybe it’s a kid interested in a career in the FBI, or the family of someone who works there. Idk. (I thought it would contain a secure tip line or something, but the app seems to be a social-media front end first.)

I am willing to entertain that there is a legitimate reason for an app to exist without conceding that it should be a pile of trash.

p4coder• 4 months ago

Today morning, I was checking TSA wait times. Guess what, they want you to install their app to get the wait time. [1]

[1](https://www.dhs.gov/check-wait-times)

maartin0• 4 months ago

In their defence, there is a fairly nice website too, not sure why it needs to have its own logo though

https://bwt.cbp.gov/

kmeisthax2• 4 months ago

Quoth the Doctorow: "An app is just a website wrapped up in enough IP to make it a felony to modify it."

varispeed• 4 months ago

Not sure if this is still a thing, but some apps used to embed libraries very much tracking everything you do on the phone, including your live location and that was then sold to third parties.

Cider9986• 4 months ago

Can't trust the government to make a usable webpage [0].

[0] https://realfood.gov/

Voultapher• 4 months ago

I've been thinking about this for a bit and there are a variety of reasons why it can be appealing for PMs to push for apps over webpages:

- No search competition, when you search on duckduckgo or google for the page a competitor can bid to show up, won't happen with an app.

- Notifications, this is a big one. We live in the attention economy and apps are more likely to slide into push notifications - with ads - than webpages.

- Some users have a mental model that more easily maps to "this app is my go to for this task" and struggle with webpages. That's a psychological and incentive issue. Apple support PWAs but just barely and don't like them because they don't partake in the 100 billion dollar revenue 30% payment processing extortion.

- More intrusive access and "better" targeted advertisement.

- Once an icon is on the home screen somewhere, chances are some users are going to use it because they notice the icon and would not have done so if it were just a tab inside the browser. The attention economy strikes again.

- Companies _love_ to build a relationship with customers. It's usually a very one sided and jealous relationship where getting the user to install an app is perceived as a step in that direction.

- Users are more willing to create accounts for apps than webpages (citation needed, this is just a gut feeling)

- On mainstream iOS and Android it's much harder to block ads in apps than it is in the browser.

I'm sure there are other reasons, but those alone explain why we see them so often.

bluepeter• 4 months ago

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.)

morpheuskafka• 4 months ago

It requires SSN or EIN -- almost all situations where you pay the government or they pay you require that as part of a law about enforcing federal debt collection.

shevy-java• 4 months ago

There 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.

kmeisthax2• 4 months ago

The recent spate of state-level age verification laws, while stupid, are primarily designed to insulate Facebook from lawsuits and not actually crack down on people. You can comply with them by just having a date field and an API to get bucketed age ranges out of them. The reason why they seem like a concerted crackdown is that Facebook can pay people to go to literally every legislature and bug them up and down[0] until they pass a law to make OS vendors provide age buckets.

The real shit is happening parallel to the actual legislation. Companies that need to comply with, say, the extremely onerous UK Online Services Act, are forcing everyone to use data-heavy verification paths like facial recognition age estimation or ID scanning. Newgrounds just used your account age or a credit card.

A core property of fascism is that, unlike other forms of tyranny, it is specifically a public-private joint venture. The government uses corporations to bypass its own constitutional restrictions, and those corporations then agree to follow rules that don't actually exist, specifically so that those corporations can shut down all their competition and form para-governments that supercede the democratically responsive bits. This has actually been going on for a while, but it's only now that the people are actually noticing it.

[0] Inspired by Louis Rossmann's efforts to get R2R bills passed, I've started doing amateur lobbying for the Rio Grande Plan. It's surprisingly easy, but you will almost certainly have to take off from work or sacrifice many a lunch hour to be able to actually get to talk to people.

maest• 4 months ago

FYI, regardless of election outcome, the next government is highly unlikely to roll this back

JumpCrisscross8• 4 months ago

regardless of election outcome, the next government is highly unlikely to roll this back

Well yes, it’s not a high priority. I’m not going to bring it up with my electeds. Are you? If everyone who thinks this is a huge deal is too lazy and nihilistic to do anything about it, it won’t be prioritized.

fhdkweig7• 4 months ago

As long as it isn't mandatory like the Russian Max app, I wouldn't worry. The only reason to dislike it (other than privacy issues) is the money spent to develop it (which has already been spent).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_(app)

CobrastanJorji• 4 months ago

Most of this is bad, but I think it's reasonable for the FEMA app, whose purpose is to help you get to the nearest shelters, to have access to your location.

baggachipz• 4 months ago

Browsers can get access to your location too.

fhdkweig7• 4 months ago

The best solution is to have a text box that asks for a ZIP code, and every important site has one. It covers all the above cases but also includes the ability to help others in a disaster zone.

Several years ago a hurricane passed through my elderly parent's hometown. There wasn't enough available cell availability to get internet access, but they could make SMS text messages. I was their lifeline getting them info on where the power outages were, which gas stations had gas, when restaurants and grocery stores reopened. If all that information was location-locked to where I was (thousands of miles away), it would have useless.

luxuryballs• 4 months ago

These devices don’t actually give access to biometric fingerprint data do they??

david_allison• 4 months ago

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.per...

Fear-mongering. Not even dangerous permissions. Granted on install

cdrnsf• 4 months ago

Don't install these apps unless you absolutely have to. If you absolutely have to install them, uninstall them as soon as you're done using them.

aitchnyu• 4 months ago

I put most of my apps into freezer (Realme phone) so they run only in foreground. Apparently my mobile operator uses their app to prevent sharing my mobile into a Wifi hotspot, my food delivery app pretended to be Amazon having an issue with a package etc.

Daunk• 4 months ago

Heh. American funny

mmethodz• 4 months ago

Which government?

thomastjeffery• 4 months ago

Title is missing the number 13, which makes it much harder to parse. Should be "Fedware: 13 Government Apps That Spy Harder Than the Apps They Ban"

h4kunamata• 4 months ago

Ahhhh the USA, we can do anything, but others cannot!

The duality of the Statunitians politician.

Folks kept saying Apple protect your data and what not, now folks have their entire phone scanned by Apple unless they prove they are adults by sending personal documents which are being breached left and right.

Deserved!!!!

nickvec2• 4 months ago

Sheesh... I should not have downloaded the White House app yesterday just to see how ludicrous it was. I just deleted it, though I'm sure a lot of my data has already been exfiltrated. Doesn't excessive tracking like this violate the App Store + Google Play's ToS?

allthetime• 4 months ago

Apple and Google’s App Stores? The companies whose CEOs were both standing at attention, present during Trump’s inauguration?

Rules for thee…

jrmg3• 4 months ago

I’m surprised to see no comments on this yet:

[The White House app] ships with 3 embedded trackers including Huawei Mobile Services Core (yes, the Chinese company the US government sanctioned, shipping tracking infrastructure inside the sitting president's official app)

The executive branch has decided this company is so dangerous I can’t buy a monitor made by them - but it’s embedding its SDK in its official app?!

I realize the decision makers probably don’t even know it’s there - it was just added by whatever contractor built the app, but that’s arguably even worse.

And I have absolutely no doubt that if it was discovered in a political opponent’s app, and the administration wanted to harm them, there would be no compunction about using that fact against them.

e402• 4 months ago

Incompetence is the forte of this administration.

N_Lens• 4 months ago

Followed closely by malice

dandanua2• 4 months ago

The current administration has created a narrative that everything they do is good, while anything their opponents do is bad. Facts or meaning do not matter any more. I honestly don't understand how the USA has become this. This won't end well.

andreygrehov7• 4 months ago

The apps have nothing to do with the current administration. All these permissions were already in place before the current administration. It’s easy to verify this by looking at previous versions of the apps. HN has created a narrative that everything the current administration does is bad.

yard2010• 4 months ago

Tbf living throughout the past 20 years never have I ever get this feeling that the US is gonna "end well"

LoganDark2• 4 months ago

The USA became this through Trump being elected.

xnx• 4 months ago

everything they do is good, while anything their opponents do is bad.

Even when it's the same thing! (e.g. "canceling" someone)

kdheiwns2• 4 months ago

I realize the decision makers probably don’t even know it’s there

Assuming incompetence gives the administration a cover to get away with anything. I'm not quite sure they're as stupid as they all act. Someone is surely using the facade of incompetence to rot things from the inside out.

justonceokay• 4 months ago

I read a comment on Reddit that changed my perspective on 90% of recent political commentary:

“Y'all are mad about the dog whistle but you forgot about the dog”

inopinatus• 4 months ago

The term for this is weaponised incompetence.

TiredOfLife• 4 months ago

The executive branch has decided this company is so dangerous I can’t buy a monitor made by them

Huawei was sanctioned because they did business with a sanctioned country

jrmg3• 4 months ago

That’s true - this was the reason for the original action in 2019 - but is not the whole story. The current rationale depends mostly on national security concerns: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47012

…but it also doesn’t really matter here. Either they were sanctioned for a good reason and the Executive Branch is doing business with them anyway, or they were sanctioned for a bad reason and I’m not allowed to do business with them even though the Executive Branch does.

It’s the hypocrisy I’m pointing out.

rsync• 4 months ago

The article mentions “exodus privacy” as a source for android app permissions auditing, etc.

What is the ios equivalent?

cuuupid• 4 months ago

I can usually defend what appears to be federal incompetence with nuance and vice versa but even I can't say anything about this.

Whoever fulfilled this contract gets a stop work order for gross incompetence and the CORs/COs should be terminated immediately

aboardRat42• 4 months ago

I don't really understand. Do you have anything to hide from you government?

chromehearts2• 4 months ago

It's 2026 & we still have people saying this ..

MarchApril• 4 months ago

Poe's Law is in effect when the thread is a hair away from getting political. I thought it was obvious that the commenter is joking based on the oblivious tone, and because this is HN.

herbst2• 4 months ago

I have a lot to hide from your government if that was the question

aboardRat42• 4 months ago

You don't have to install my government's software.

HackerThemAll• 4 months ago

So no, thank you USA. I'm not going to visit you. I have all I need in this our European "socialism" as many Americans like to call it. I'm not assumed to be a criminal, and governments aren't building databases of all my steps and activities, and I have a great healthcare.

anilakar• 4 months ago

Complaining about Smartlink is a bit hypocritical as it's the smartphone equivalent of an ankle tracker. The opportunity cost for the user is incarceration.

iririririr2• 4 months ago

they hire one day shell companies that give them a huge chunk of the money back illegally, then turn around and hire a cheap ad agency specialized in churning hotsites and conference apps.

it's literary the same playbook of any developing country when some obviously corrupt group is elected promising to cut government spending

nektro• 4 months ago

from this admin? obviously

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

Related Stories