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People are only now concerned because they see the control that was always there, Now being exerted over their government work issued phones.
People are concerned because they know that Donald Trump is an aspiring dictator. He doesn't want to install this app because he thinks it will serve some useful purpose, he wants to install it because he thinks the country and everyone in it is his property.

If he's allowed to get away with this, at some point before he's overthrown, he's going to force you, personally, to install this app. When you object that this is crazy, his remaining true believers will make up some nonsense reason why we shouldn't be worried.

"Google app auto-downloads to Google phones, can't be uninstalled" has been the norm since day 1 and before.

What is newsworthy here? The fact that yet one more third-party (the White House) does it too?

Feds use profile management? Is that news?

The weirdness of the WH app is notable enough but standard organization practices aren't.

another data heist brewing.

The usual long period between elections and inauguration is going to create a massive window for data exfiltration and the only people empowered to police it and any evidence that it occurrred are the people most likely to be stealing the data.

This just feels like the weirdest part to me:

> A button within the app allows users to “text President Trump,” which autofills a text bubble reading “Greatest President Ever.”

It feels like something you might see from the government in a banana republic/authoritarian dictatorship.

Titillating, and cringey, and par for the course. But the concerns run more like this:

> An investigation by NOTUS found that the app incorporated widgets created by a Russia-based company called Elfsight, which exposed the personal information of White House officials. Elfsight did not respond to a request for comment. At the time of this reporting, the White House said Elfsight had been made aware of this vulnerability.

any android now can get pseudo-root via Shizuku

and I am betting Shizuku can disable that

however I am sure that will trigger firing so probably not worth it

1000 days, hang in there, this is nothing, imagine what's going down winter holidays 2028