Bonum Certa Men Certa

Illinois State Government Targets Children With iPhone and Android Malware to “Report” on Friends, Family, and Neighbors



Reprinted with permission from Ryan

Phone spyware

Phone spyware

The State government of Illinois has recently launched State-sanctioned malware, available in the Google Play and Apple App Store called “Safe2Help Illinois”.



I first noticed the malware when ads started appearing on the radio and TV for it.



The app encourages children to download it to their phones without telling their parents and use it to “report” people to the State government, including the Department of “Human Services”, which administers the State mental hygiene laws, and of course, the police.



The app conveniently provides children with the ability to send pictures and video files with their report, but the Google Play description says the app can also just scan the phone and see who your contacts are, read your text messages, and upload the files on your phone all by itself without telling you.



According to Google Play (Apple doesn’t give statistics), the app has only been downloaded 100 times in the entire State.



Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell how many children are using this app to inform on each other and the family and neighbors (like something out of the East German Stasi), but in addition to the malware, the state allows reports over their Web site and through text messaging.



The State agency maintaining the malware is the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, which is basically the State version of FEMA, and they probably use federal grant money.



Last year, the Biden Regime’s “Disinformation Board” got “paused” due to public and Congressional backlash, but planned to lean on Big Tech to silence people at the government’s request, otherwise there would be consequences of course.



But this is another way the government can keep eyes on people.



It has “deputized” brainwashed children and turned them into informants (on themselves even, due to the wide-ranging permissions the app has when it runs on the phone).



There’s obviously nothing benign about this app, but the fact that there’s only 100 people in the state with Android phones dumb enough to install it going into its third year, despite what I’m sure is millions of my tax dollars at work “marketing” it, is a good sign that even children usually aren’t stupid enough to believe the government.



Phone spyware

Recent Techrights' Posts

How the SLAPPs From Microsoft Staff Are Connected to the Corrupt OSI, Whose Majority of Money Comes From Microsoft for Openwashing, LLM Hype, and Whitewashing GPL Violations During Class Action Trial
Let's explain how some of these things are connected
You Need Not Be a Big Company to Defeat Microsoft If You Can Successfully Challenge Its Core "Ideas"
Maybe that's just a sign that the ideas of RMS have become too effective and thus "dangerous"
 
Links 11/05/2025: Pyotr Wrangel and Kubernetes With FreeBSD
Links for the day
What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: A Moment of Silence and Revisionism Amid US Government Investigation and Community Uproar
Not a word this month
Microsoft Florian Becomes Patent Troll, Arranges to Sue Companies (Extorting Money Out of Them)
From campaigner against software patents to paid Microsoft shill to "FOSS patents" (actually attacking FOSS) to revisionism as "books" (for Microsoft)... and now this
Links 11/05/2025: China's Fentanylware (TikTok) Tells Kids to Vandalise Schools' Chromebooks and Increased Censorship in India
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/05/2025: Yeeting Oligarch Tech, Offline Browsing
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 10, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 10, 2025
One is Simply Doomed to Fail When Working for Violent Men From Microsoft and Attacking Women as Well as People Who Merely Expose Crimes or Report Real Crimes
Imagine saying to people that you "practice law" or "exercise law"
The Tariffs Are Accelerating Microsoft's Decline in China
Judging by the way things are going, there will be considerable adoption of GNU/Linux in years to come, China being one major contributing factor.
Control Your Systems, Control All Your Data
what does it take for us to control our own systems and data?
Misplacing Blame for Security Problems, Sometimes With LLM Slop That Blames "Linux" for Microsoft's Failures
Broken telephones and stochastic parrots beget plenty of Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
Links 10/05/2025: WW2 Revisionism, Further Tit-for-tat in India-Pakistan Conflict
Links for the day
Links 10/05/2025: Germany Considers Smartphone Ban in Schools, Right to Repair Bills
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/05/2025: Git Server and Great LLM DDoS of 2025
Links for the day
Blizzard/Microsoft Unions Grow Ahead of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Apparently Starting Next Week (as Many as 30,000 Workers Laid Off by Year's End)
Microsoft already fired about 5,000-6,000 workers this year by our estimates; that's not counting resignations compelled through pressure (i.e. pushed, did not jump) and contractors
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 09, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 09, 2025
"Victory Day" - Part II: Abject Defeat to Hypocrites and Objectionable People Who Strangle Women Whilst on Microsoft's Payroll
Someone is going to have to pay for this; it won't be us
Rust Propaganda Now Amplified by Slopfarms Powered by Microsoft LLMs, Encouraging the Outsourcing of GNU/Linux Distros to Microsoft/GitHub/NSA (and a Shift Away From GPL/Copyleft)
Moving to Microsoft GitHub and adopting unfinished, untested code for highly critical bits
Links 09/05/2025: Inflation Rising and Rights to Protest Curtailed Some More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/05/2025: Good and Evil, LLMs Made the Web Worse Yet Again
Links for the day
IBM is Rotting With "Zero Internal Jobs" and Many PIPs (Performance Improvement Plans) on the Way, Typically a Fast Track Towards Layoffs Without Severance
At risk of giving air(time) to tribal sentiments, the internal joke at IBM is that to IBM "AI" stands for "All Indian"
European Patent Office (EPO) Faked "Revenue Expansion" by Granting Loads of Invalid, Illegal Patents; Staff Still Wants to Know Where That Money Went
Only about 30% of the EPO's patents are for EU entities/people
The Gerstnerisation of Microsoft: Seventh Wave of Microsoft Layoffs (Over 20,000 to be Cut) Allegedly Going to Start Shortly, Probably Start of Next Week, Microsoft Spreads Chaff and Noise Before the Big Axes Fall
we might be looking at about 50,000 people that Microsoft gets rid of this year
Links 09/05/2025: TeleMessage Blunder, More Distractions From Impending Mass Layoffs at Microsoft
Links for the day
GNU (and the FSF) Still Changing the World
Today, in 2025, GNU powers almost everything
Military-Grade Anti-Linux Microsoft Propaganda Using Microsoft LLMs in Fake 'News' Sites (Slopfarms)
This is part of a pattern
Links 09/05/2025: Analog Computer and First time at FOSDEM
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 08, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 08, 2025