this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 32 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (3 children)

they mentioned that its because push notifications require device id and that would make it easy to be tracked if aubpoenaed.

https://bsky.app/profile/iceblock.app/post/3lmzykc7rb42d

edit: for the record i don't agree; i'm just saying what they said on bsky

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 45 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm not sure if this guy is just dumb or it's a honeypot.

  1. As mentioned elsewhere, they don't use device ID

  2. Android is the only platform that supports alternative push methods

  3. Apple knows everyone who downloads this app, which is subject to subpoena

  4. The gov has been collecting push notification data from both Apple and Google for a long time. It would be as simple as knowing when notifications went out and then comparing timestamps to figure out who is using the app.

  5. The app is closed-source

It would take significantly more mental energy on the part of the user but it would be far safer (which is extremely important in this specific case, as the dev agrees) to distribute through F-Droid and then use some other UnifiedPush implementation, as many Android apps already do. Anyone using this app is painting a huge target on their backs for the current authoritarian state.

[–] Reygle@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago

Interesting, especially with GrapheneOS people shooting it down immediately to call them out on their baloney.

[–] poopkins@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Push notifications though GMS don't use the device ID; they use a generated GCM registration ID that occasionally rotates. Who knows what Google uses internally to associate GCM reg IDs to users, but to overly state that it uses device IDs is simply not correct.

I'm not suggesting push notifications are inherently secure because it's impossible to make that determination from the outside. But their assessment is incorrect and the same privacy concerns apply to Apple.

[–] forrgott@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 1 day ago

I'm pretty certain push notifications have been shown to be grossly insecure actually...