Dallas’ Free Mobile App for Phone Security is Very LOL
The free app is not limited to Dallas residents.
The City of Dallas is promoting an app bearing the City’s logo which the City says provides mobile phone protection by monitoring your Wi-Fi connection, and alerting you of potential threats. They are offering this app for FREE to anyone in the world.
If this sounds like a scam, welcome to Current Revolt.
Shortly before Christmas, the City of Dallas posted about an app called Dallas Secure.
I downloaded and used the app, which is made by a company called Zimperium, and I will discuss what I saw shortly.
After seeing this post, and wondering why Dallas was entering the cellphone apps space, I found a story about the rollout of this program from last year. Dave Lieber, who fancies himself a “watchdog” for taxpayers, did a glowing story about the app.
The story says the city paid $61,000 for the first year. Subsequent contracts can be found online for $94k, and, most recently, a beauty of a contract — $99,995. This smoothly puts the contract $5 away from the $100k limit referenced on the form. Presumably $100k and above would be another category of purchase.
The taxpayer watchdog just glances over the fact that Dallas taxpayers are footing the bill for anyone to use the app.
Dallas is the first Texas city to offer its residents, businesses and tourists a new smartphone app that promises it blocks criminal threats. It’s free.
Dallas Secure is the name, but in The Watchdog’s reporting on this, I can spill this tidbit I learned: This app will work from any smartphone anywhere in Texas and even across the U.S. You don’t have to live or work in Dallas to get it for free.
Free for the whole world. Amazin’.
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is a lead investor. Mnuchin is also chairman of the company’s board of directors.
Very cool! Mnuchin looks like a nice guy. (trustworthy and honest)
A hundred staffers work at [Zimperium’s] Dallas headquarters. Offices around the world have another 200 staffers, Mittal said.
Ah, so we have some offshore technical support I see.
What does Dallas Secure do?
According to Mittal, it seeks to block users from falling for an email or a text from crooks.
As far as I’m aware, the only person promising to cook the crooks is Valentina Gomez.
Mittal brags that his app even blocks the notorious Pegasus software developed by an Israeli cyber-arms company. Pegasus can steal data from mobile phones running most versions of iOS and Android.
LOL
The DMN story then drops this.
The only problem
Although I’ve downloaded the app, I haven’t yet watched the tutorials or seen how it handles criminal come-ons.
The only problem I’ve had so far came when I read through the company’s privacy statement. It gives the app permission to collect more types of personal data than I was told. When I brought this up to Mittal, he realized that his privacy statement for business and government users was what I found, instead of the city version’s policy, which collects less data.
“We need to fix that,” Mittal said.
At this point I was full LOL.
The watchdog never followed up on this story, so I went straight to the App Store and downloaded it. Again, it’s made by Zimperium, yet it appears to be something run by the city of Dallas.
Another LOL.
I looked at what their data privacy information says, and it appears to contradict itself. If you look closely, there are some red flags right away. Disclosing that you collect “Other Data” is yet another LOL. How is “other” a category?
I continued to look at their privacy statements.
Ok…
I am starting to get skeptical so I click the link for the “full privacy policy.” Instantly, I see contradictions.
They say they “don’t collect” the “apps installed” but the full policy seems to say otherwise.
Again, LOL.
Point after point, they say they “don’t collect” this data, but you click one button to the full policy and it changes to “well, in some cases” and into “including but not limited to.”
At this point, I let out the proverbial “what even is this?”
I go to the “about” page inside the app. You see the Dallas logo.
You click the privacy policy, and you are taken to the Zimperium End User License Agreement & Privacy Policy.
A “city policy” version does not exist. Instead you see this:
If you acquired the Software directly from Zimperium, then Zimperium will determine which information is collected and is available upon request from Zimperium.
Their policy is they decide the policy. Another LOL
The CEO saying “we need to fix that” is, in hindsight, also an LOL. Clearly, they fixed it for themselves.
Scroll to “data collection terms” and their data privacy policy is laid out, detailing the data they collect. However, it includes one cute caveat.
It’s actually “not limited” which is another way to say unlimited.
At this point, I’m ROTFL.
Then, I notice the app shows this message while running in the background.
Not even Uber asks you to keep the app running in the background. LOL
I then go check out some of the security features. I clicked “web” and I am shown a message that my “web is protected” with an icon showing the entire earth locked down.
LOL — “yeah, my web is protected.”
I notice some extra features there at the bottom. “Enable Safari Protection” and “SMS Filtering”
As review, let’s look at their data privacy summary.
They say they don’t collect browsing history. Ok well, what does the Safari Protect Extension do?
“May include but is not limited to” your entire browsing history. LOL
Same with SMS Filtering. They want you to grant this thing access to read your messages on the back end.
The app is ridiculous top to bottom. Just like the rest of the “free” social media sites, they are data mining your information for unknown purposes.
I’ve had the app for a week, and it claims it has “scanned” my iPhone 256 times. Including 3 times in the last few seconds. LOL
If you want your iPhone or Android device to get scanned, and scanned, and scanned, over, and over, and over—this app is a great solution for you, and it’s free—paid for by Dallas taxpayers.
People in Dallas may want to start protesting the fact that their tax dollars are being used to scan my iPhone several times a minute. I’d love to join them. Unfortunately, all I can do is LOL.
City of Dallas wants to know what kind of weird porn you’re into so they can make sure your represented at their next pride festival.
Obvious spyware is obvious