Electronic Disturbance Theater’s Transborder Immigrant Tool hacks cheap GPS mobile-phones to install a device for helping Mexican immigrants cross the U.S.-Mexico border, providing them navigation, poetry, the location of highways, border patrols and water left by Border Angels in the Southern California desert.
(via EDT)
The GoodGuide mobile app makes it fast and easy to find safe, healthy, green, and ethical products, instantly delivering the information you need, when you need it most — in a store and on the go.
CNET (May 10) - “Apple deluged by police demands to decrypt iPhones”
(via Apple deluged by police demands to decrypt iPhones | Politics and Law - CNET News)
Mobile device users should take this as a warning that Google and Apple can provide access to data stored on an encrypted device at least in some circumstances, says Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.
“That is something that I don’t think most people realize,” Soghoian says. “Even if you turn on disk encryption with a password, these firms can and will provide the government with a way to get your data.”
Apple has once again removed a mobile game from its iOS App Store on the grounds that its portrayal of an “uncomfortable” theme violates its review guidelines.
The iPhone and iPad company previously removed mobile game Phone Story from its App Store back in 2011, on the grounds that it depicted child abuse and “crude content.”
Stop and Frisk Watch is a mobile application designed to help citizens document police abuse stemming from the New York Police Department’s controversial criminal prevention program commonly referred to as “stop and frisk.” Users can record video, audio and geolocation data whenever they witness a police stop and the information is automatically sent to the NYCLU. The app also has a “listen” function which, when enabled, and using GPS data, alerts the user whenever somebody else is using Stop and Frisk Watch in the vicinity.
Seven months after its release, the Android version of the app has been downloaded more than 20,000 times. The organization has received more than 5,000 videos, as well as 1,000 written reports, “including documentation of police officers being verbally abusive during street stops, of officers drawing weapons during street stops, and one incident in which an officer used the floodlights of his car to prevent a bystander from recording video of a stop-and-frisk,” according to a press release.
(via planetsedge)
Occupy Apps Call #2 :: Dec 11, 2011
The Occupation is an ongoing art project happening in your city right NOW!
== Apps for the Occupation, News & Resources ==
Recent Occupy App Announcements:
The first App for the Occupation has been made!
Wired broke the news on the In-human Microphone App for iPhone
used to circumvent the Megaphone Ban at OccupyNYC.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/12/inhuman-microphone/
Secret Monitor software found on most Android Phones
If you installed Google Android OS directly from Google, then you are safe. If you received your Android or Blackberry phone directly from your phone carrier (HTC, Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, etc) then every keystroke has been recorded by a third-party company on behalf of your phone carrier.
Lifehacker has instructions on how to remove the software:
http://lifehacker.com/5863895/carrier-iq-how-the-widespread-rootkit-can-track-everything-on-your-phone-and-how-to-remove-it
== What we have done ==
+ New OccupyApps Development Wiki: http://OccupyApps.pbworks.com
+ Regular weekly Meetings organized on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/267948993247633/
+ 3 Mass Code-a-thons planned for Jan, March (SXSW) and April: http://code-a-thon.org
== What we need from Supporters ==
+ Have an App Party !!
Get together with some friends, download these apps and try to do Occupy-related things with them. Have a flash mob, or get on your soapbox, whatever, just have fun with it & let us know how it went.
We are looking for a short text description of:
1. The app you installed and what device you installed it on.
2. How you used it in some way in conjunction with the Occupation.
3. A general rating of the experience, what could be better, what worked best?
The list of Apps we need people to experiment with are:
on Any Phone:
on iPhone:
+ Inhuman Microphone
+ Vibe - location-based messaging
+ MessageParty = Chat Room + Geolocation + iPhone
+ http://citizenlogistics.com/cadre.html
on Android:
+ Shouty - p2p audio broadcasting
+ “I’m Getting Arrest” app - quick emergency mass text
+ GroupMe - group text messaging and chat
on Tablet (iPad and Android):
+ http://www.ustream.tv/everywhere
Send all stories, reviews, ideas, hacks and love to:
Call@OccupyApps.org
(via nextui)
Austin company creates app that helped Obama campaign | www.statesman.com
“We said, if we are going to build an app, lets make tools that make people effective. Lets give volunteers tools that they can use,” said Ryan Hovenweep, the firm’s creative director.
The app would provide localized information about campaign events to supporters. But it also gave volunteer workers the tools to canvass potential voters house to house and to report back their findings to the campaign’s computers.
“With a smartphone in hand, you can go talk to people and get information,” Hovenweep said. “With the app, they are immediately taking the information from the ground and putting it back into the campaign database.”
Apple has for the third—and what looks like the final—time rejected an app that would send alerts every time a U.S. military drone made a kill. The first two times Apple said no to Drones+, it said it was “not useful” (we beg to differ), then told the makers there was a problem with the…
pcrousillat asked: Hi, I'm writing from the School of Visual Arts in NYC, where we're putting together a small panel event titled Apps, Activism and the Latino Community. Was wondering if anyone in the occupy apps group knew of any app developers/designers who were dealing specifically with immigration, racial profiling or any other civil issues, as well as campaign or election outreach to minority groups. We're looking for speakers to take part in the event which will be held on September 6th. Thanks! Paloma
Nothing comes to mind, but you have some great ideas there. There is obviously lots of room for innovation there. Best luck!
Hi occupy apps,
My name’s George from London and have been working on an app for help empower freedom of speech online, anywhere and everywhere. The app will allow occupiers to comment anywhere on any web page and put there opinion on things like text, pictures and videos which everyone else can see with the app enabled, like a high tech sticky note.
It’s currently in beta but excited to form it based upon feedback from occupiers.
Link: http://beta.zoppose.org
Example of zoppose in action, http://beta.zoppose.org/about/ and hover over the zoppose underlined text.
Hope you like it, it’s still in early stages but we’re hoping to develop it into something great.
Regards,
George Johnston
georgejohnston@zoppose.com
It doesn’t take much to imagine the consequences of a successful cyber attack. In a future conflict, an adversary unable to match our military supremacy on the battlefield might seek to exploit our computer vulnerabilities here at home. Taking down vital banking systems could trigger a financial crisis. The lack of clean water or functioning hospitals could spark a public health emergency. And as we’ve seen in past blackouts, the loss of electricity can bring businesses, cities and entire regions to a standstill.
This is the future we have to avoid. That’s why my administration has made cybersecurity a priority, including proposing legislation to strengthen our nation’s digital defenses. It’s why Congress must pass comprehensive cybersecurity legislation.
"—
President Barack Obama speaking about cybersecurity in an op-ed and declaring his support for the Cybersecurity Act of 2012.
The bill would provide legal immunity and a structured system for private companies and U.S. intelligence agencies to share information about national cyber threats.
But a range of cybersecurity experts agree that it in its current form, the bill won’t do much to protect the U.S. from the doomsday scenarios described as potential risks by the president in his op-ed and previously by top defense and intelligence officials.
The EFF highlights a portion of the bill that the group says “specifically authorizes companies to use cybersecurity as an excuse for engaging in nearly unlimited monioring of user data,” as well as the ability for Internet service providers (ISPs) to “block privacy-protective technologies like Tor.”
The Senate is expected to hold a vote on the bill in the coming days. The House has already passed alternate cybersecurity legislation, known as CISPA, which was criticized by advocacy groups for having the potential to infringe on Web users’ privacy and civil liberties. Both the Senate and the House have to pass the same bill and the president must sign it in order for it to become law.
(via anarcho-queer)
(via anarcho-queer)
Privacy-conscious iPhone users, the app of your dreams is no more. Clueful, an app that policed your iPhone’s other apps for privacy violations, was pulled from the App Store this week, and both the company that made it and Apple are keeping their mouth shut about why. (via Clueful Pulled From Apple’s App Store)
The Occupy Apps group is concerned with developing, cataloging and promoting applications and software of use to occupations, protests, and civil manifestations. This includes a focus on secure peer-to-peer mesh networking technologies using ad hoc infrastructure and integrated with a range of mobile devices.
Purpose
Secure, decentralized communication media are essential for maintaining resilience in the context of political movements and events. Without autonomous systems, communication channels can be easily monitored or shut down, or fall prey to conventional connectivity disruptions at crucial moments. With autonomous systems, occupiers and protestors can maintain their own networks using hardware in the vicinity and integrate it with their own computers and mobile devices.
