
Notifica – an app for if you're at risk of being detained by ICE agents - dluan
https://notifica.us/
======
paxys
Is there anything stopping ICE from requesting the details and locations of
everyone who has signed up for the app? I'm sure there's one judge in the
country willing to sign off on the order.

~~~
morpheuskafka
One issue is that not everyone who signs up may in fact be removable. Someone
might sign up who has legal status but is still worried about being detained,
for example.

~~~
anonymousab
False positives probably aren't a blocking issue. American citizens are
already picked up in some sweeps, and even mistakenly deported on some
occasions.

That said, they could just seed their system with a ton of fake users to make
it more useless for ICE purposes.

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mLuby
This sounds like a noble tool, unless it's not.

In the most cynical case, sharing your contacts and location via this app
could make ICE's job _much_ easier.

How can people tell which it is?

~~~
geofft
The app is from United We Dream, which is well-known to not be on ICE's side.

Of course, that doesn't account for possibilities like United We Dream being
an elaborate ICE front (a la _1984_ 's Brotherhood), the app developers being
compromised by / secretly working for ICE, the app or its servers being
compromised by ICE, etc.

~~~
kortilla
Does United we dream have the security chops to understand all of the risks of
using hosting/cloud services from companies that have to comply with US
government secret court warrants?

If this thing used anything like GCE or AWS that would be pretty negligent.

~~~
morpheuskafka
ICE can't apply for a FISA warrant or issue a National Security Letter and I'm
pretty sure the intelligence agencies are not going to waste their time
tracking down removable immigrants.

~~~
jfnixon
The IC has no problem supplying data to LE who then come up with parallel
construction to justify the fruits.

[https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-
illega...](https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illegal-
searches-secret-evidence/)

------
nerdponx
The app is closed source? Hard pass. Unless you know the data is being
securely encrypted client-side, there is no way someone in a sensitive
targeted group should make it known that they have this app, let alone upload
personal contact information to a server somewhere.

The organization behind it looks legit enough, but that doesn't stop one guy
with a USB stick from exfiltrating the whole database.

~~~
cyphar
Even if the app encrypts everything client-side and does everything over Tor,
just having the app installed on your phone (which both Google Play and the
Apple App Store track) is sufficient to make you look suspicious from that
point of view.

Really, what you'd need is a very popular app to add a feature like this so
that the percentage of users of the app that are potentially undocumented
immigrants is the same as their proportion of the population. Then you do all
the other crypto and hopefully don't store whether individual users have the
feature enabled.

~~~
nerdponx
I also feel like "contact these 5 people in case I get detained" is a more
general use case that could dilute the "target pool" more. Journalists, sex
workers, hackers, etc.

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duxup
The app seems to imply it ... helps.

Does this really stop the inevitable deportation? and other than informing
others.... what else is the outcome that the app helps with?

While I see the value of having an attorney the site isn't clear what else it
can do or help with.

~~~
saagarjha
It helps other people know you’ve been detained, so they can try to help you
or make sure that things you care about are taken care of.

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conductr
Think I’d just assume this app was a honeypot wanting to track/report my
location

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the_pwner224
The scrollwheel does not work on this webpage in Firefox. It's quite rare to
see a site with issues in FF, but having the scrollwheel completely broken is
a first.

I can still drag the scrollbar to scroll, but on many systems there has been a
move to having the scrollbars hidden by default.

~~~
pdkl95
> but on many systems there has been a move to having the scrollbars hidden by
> default

Which is terrible for those of us without scroll wheels. The user agent can
implement scrollbars in unpredictable ways to accommodate local needs.
Reimplementing scrolling will always have compatibility and accessibility
issues.

(scrollwheels were a major source of my RSI issues, so I have to disable the
scrollwheel. I sometimes have it mapped to thumb buttons 8 & 9, but that isn't
practical for scrolling long pages)

~~~
aasasd
> _scrollwheels were a major source of my RSI issues_

You might be interested in trying a touch-scroll mouse—it's somewhat like
touchpad scroll, only needs a gentle sweep of the finger and a bit easier to
scroll continuously a desired distance.

Personally, I'd particularly like to try Logitech Zone Touch T400
([https://i.imgur.com/cjmP0tc.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/cjmP0tc.jpg)), but it
disappeared from the local market so I'm using a meh Genius mouse instead,
which is still better than a scrollwheel.

------
amingilani
Off-topic, but this reminds me of a crazy idea I had and never worked on (like
a lot of ideas): Time-locked device encryption for when you're traveling
through borders that are known to search your electronic devices and/or
install malware.

Basically, ransomware, but the good kind that encrypts all the data on your
device and holds the key until:

A. You've passed the border (or checkpoint)

B. You've securely authenticated yourself

C. Are sure your device wasn't tampered with

~~~
pizza
Interestingly enough, Julian Assange (among others) conducted research into
encrypted filesystems that relied upon deniable encryption [0]. Depending upon
which key you fed it, it would reveal different files.

If you had a robust solution to time-locked encryption, that in itself would
be worth a lot! (Anybody keeping up to tabs on that stuff know about whether
or not its achievable / what the SOTA is?)

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose_(file_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose_\(file_system\))

~~~
amingilani
I'm sorry, when I said time-locked, I meant an app running in a server
releases the key to you after a certain amount of time :)

~~~
saagarjha
Why can’t they just detain you until you get the key?

~~~
amingilani
They can, it'd be a waiting game at that point. But as I mentioned elsewhere,
you could also add more safeguards like a friend vouching that you're safe, as
well.

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CharlesMerriam2
Comments are likely to stray far from actual information for this story. It is
an app. It is only an app.

~~~
nerdponx
An app that could put you and your family members at risk of being put in a
concentration camp and/or deported.

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devoply
What if ICE or a company funded by them released such an app? Not like covert
fronts for various government orgs don't exist.

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weiming
"If you are 18 or older, you do have to carry your green card with you.
Section 264(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (I.N.A.) requires all
lawful permanent residents (LPRs) to have “at all times” official evidence of
LPR status."

[1] [https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/do-i-really-need-
car...](https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/do-i-really-need-carry-green-
card-me.html)

So, I'd just show my green card instead of pulling out an app.

~~~
siphon22
Unless I'm misunderstanding, the app appears to be for helping illegal
immigrants evade being captured.

~~~
gruez
How's this any different than apps like waze that helps drivers (of the
speeding, or running a red light variety) from being caught?

~~~
siphon22
It's essentially no different, but some would argue the weight of the 'crime'
is different. I haven't given my personal opinion on this btw, I was just
saying who the likely target audience is, as legal residents aren't likely
living worried about being deported any day now (I'm one).

Hell, I don't even know if actual illegals living on the low over here would
even be able to find this and know what to do with it lol. Are there illegals
browsing HN? Genuinely curious.

~~~
learnstats2
You have 100% given your opinion: it's dehumanising to call people "illegals".

People who are in this situation speak to other people and share good
resources - if this app is useful and trustworthy (which is unclear), then it
will get used.

~~~
siphon22
That's you projecting what I mean by "illegals", while I'm just using official
terminology. I do not have an opinion one way or the other regarding the app's
existence and motives.

~~~
geofft
Official terminology is "illegal aliens" or "illegal immigrants." As people,
they are not illegal: their alien status / immigration status is.

(The law, I think, just uses the terms "illegal entry" / "unauthorized
presence" / "inadmissible" / etc. and "illegal immigration" to describe the
act in general. But USCIS, ICE, etc. do use the term "illegal alien.")

~~~
siphon22
Sorry for not making sure to use the full term. My point was though, "illegal"
is not a bad word and it's used officially.

~~~
Thorrez
It's not bad as an adjective. It's bad as a noun.

~~~
geofft
There is definitely a trend among US progressives to use "undocumented"
instead of "illegal," even as an adjective, to avoid the connotation of
illegal people. I tend to follow that personally (even though in many cases
it's not technically accurate—"undocumented" folks often have regular checkins
with ICE if there's no deportation order yet, while proceedings are in
progress, and that process certainly generates a lot of documentation, and
there's also programs like DACA) but I won't fault someone for using the
official terminology in good faith.

