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this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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Would it be possible to create a webapp version of this? With ICE and CBP freely able to search phones now, I am worried about retaliation if they find this app on the phone.
Yes, it’s not hard for a full stack developer to make. Probably a thousand people already in the fediverse can, including me.
But it cannot be hosted on USA controlled servers, and the developers need to find a way to be anonymous to USA offices
Edit: also some other issues. Cannot put it as an onion service because most people in the USA do not use tor. This means regular domain.
many people can build it, but most of us have no clue to the obstacles
This is actually a spot where I think a public blockchain could work and it's censorship resistant properties will be crucial one day.
The server is the blockchain, so it's not hosted anywhere specific and can't be taken down. It's also a smart contract which ended up working in favor of the devs of TornadoCash (A coin mixing service that provides privacy) where a judge overturned the sanctions on it since it was just immutable public code, not owned by anyone.
Now that Tornado Cash isn't sanctioned, you could mix your coins through it to then pay the sub cent fee to post the sighting on one of the layer 2s like Arbitrium (the fee which will also help combat spam)
The app could then be open source (web/android/iphone) and monitor the blockchain for the sightings in your area.
The problem still becomes push notifications if it's all being done locally... It would need to be your device itself monitoring. Apple is also bad about background processing, but it's a better on Android, and especially easier if you don't deploy to the store and can bypass some of the requirements.
This way incurs no hosting costs for the developer, no load balancing, nothing to be seized etc.
It's also harder to set up than what you listed, so even fewer people could do it.
It does require adoption of something like Ethereum though.
Edit: Some clarity, but also to post that transactions fees for example on Arbitrium today are $0.00087 for a 15 second confirmation. Add on a very tiny similar cost to post some GPS coordinates and a small description.
It definitely solves many issues!
Will lookup tornado cash
It's a cool tech. Just to help others out, a very brief TLDR on it
You can only submit certain denominations like 0.01 Ethereum, which then gets shuffled amongst everyone else submitting the same 0.01 Ethereum.
Then you can't trace back who's 0.01 is who's.
You can leave the money in the smart contract as long as you want to increase anonymity before withdrawing it.
Why would you need the block chain here again? At that point it needs to be an app because your browser can't consume any of that shit and you are creating an immutable record of who reported who in such a way to ensure punishment.
Because the government can't take it down, and the government will want to take it down, and the government would even try to issue arrest warrants for people who made it outside the US to try and punish them. This dude who wrote this is in danger now.
~~Web browsers are capable of self checking a smart contract for new transactions, it is totally possible.~~
Who reported it would be anonymous if they used something like Tornado Cash, or if a service was able to be built ontop of a privacy coin like Monero.
Edit: Sorry I'm wrong about the web browser, you'd have to run your own node outside the browser or trust someone else's node, and then the browser would hit the node. On phones you'd need to use a mobile app which can be a light client, or connect to your desktop's node.
Once you need a normal server you might as well just have the server you already need serve the info preferably simply by grabbing a diff from previously so you reveal no info and without downloading a substantial portion of a chain. I swear people want to shove a blockchain into shit when it almost never adds any value whatsoever. You didn't address the fact about making an indelible link between you and your report and indeed prior reports if you are ever nabbed.
You wanna go to jail hosting that server? You want to be extradited from another partnering country to the USA for inciting violence? For accessory to murder if something went wrong?
How is the link indelible when it's anonymous? This isn't money that can be traced back to you once it goes through Tornado Cash, or if it was done on something like Monero.
Edit:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/attorney-general-pam-bondi-warns-092112825.html
This dudes life might be fucked now.
But sure, no reason, just trying to shove blockchain into everything.
A block chain is a distributed permanent ledger of transactions where any intermediary who claims to provide anonymity is in danger of being compromised and turning instantly into a Honey pot
Tornado Cash is a smart contract. It's not anything that can be compromised. It's code. It's cryptography. Its immutable and can never be altered.
It's unstoppable short of making using it against the law, and the US government tried that, and lost their court case.
Edit: Just further clarity - Once you deposit money into it, you get cryptographically signed response that says you have the right to withdraw that much money, but the response has no link to you. The money you get back is mixed with millions of other peoples money, and you withdraw someone elses money.
Maybe with something like this? With veilid in the backend. No servers used for communication.
https://github.com/LGro/coagulate