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- [00:02]
A
Meet the computer you can talk to with Copilot on Windows. Working, creating and collaborating is as easy as talking. Got writer's block? Share your screen with Copilot Vision to help spark inspiration and use Copilot voice to have a conversation and brainstorm ideas. Or maybe you need some tech help with Copilot Vision. Copilot sees what you see. Let Copilot talk you through step by step guidance so you can master new apps, games and skills faster. Try now@windows.com copilot.
- [00:34]
B
Hello and welcome to the 404 Media podcast where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. 404 Media is a journalist founded company and needs your support. Do subscribe, go to 404 Media Co as well as bonus content every single week. Subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments and they get early access to our interview series too. Gain access to that content at 404me co. Speaking of the interview series this week, we are joined by Joshua Aaron, the developer behind iceblock. You've probably heard of iceblock. It's an app that allows people to report sightings of ICE officials in their local area proximity. It then alerts nearby users that ICE is nearby. The app catapulted to the top of the App Store earlier this year. It became very popular. Then in October, Apple removed it at the direct request of the US Department of Justice. Since then, there's been this wider crackdown on similar ICE spotting apps from both Apple and Google that we've covered a bunch. I spoke to Joshua about the app, its development, and the US Government moves against it. All right. Hey Joshua, welcome to the show. Thank you for coming.
- [02:06]
C
Thanks for having me.
- [02:08]
B
Absolutely. So as listeners will know, iceblock is a pretty prominent app at this point. You know, lets people report sightings of ICE officials. A Over the last few months, it's really catapulted to national attention. We've had the Attorney General Pam Bondi claim in front of Congress that the app is criminal. We've had the DOJ pressure Apple to remove it, which Apple has done. Apple and Google have removed multiple other similar apps as well. But in Apple's case, that even includes one app that was just archiving videos of ICE abuses. We reported that recently. We'll get into all of that context, what you think of it, what you think of the government's moves against your app and others like it. But let's step way, way back. Can you just explain so people can hear it from you what iceblock is exactly, and how does it work? Just on a very basic level, you know?
- [03:06]
C
Sure. So iceblock, on its most basic principle, is a crowdsourced app that serves as an early warning system for people to know where public sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been seen. So how it works is it's quite simple, actually. A user has the app, they see ice somewhere and they tap on the map, they say, hey, I see ice here. It brings up a sheet, it verifies that that's a real address. They tap, continue, boom. They've selected or they've submitted a sighting, and all users within a five mile radius of that sighting get a notification so that they can, you know, know that ice is there and maybe not have that confrontation.
- [03:54]
B
Yeah. And how did the idea for the app first come about? Because, as I said, there's. There's a few similar apps. Yours is definitely the most prominent. Some have launched very recently, even in September, and that sort of thing. How did you first get this idea to make a. Make an app for this specifically?
- [04:15]
C
So I watched Trump's first administration pretty closely, listening to what was going on, and then, of course, his campaign for a second term, where the rhetoric was ramped up 100 times over, and then reading Project 2025 and where they literally lay out, this is what we're going to do. I mean, I guess you could say, you know, I was informed, or I saw the forest through the trees, or however you want to say it, but the night he was reelected, my brain started going a mile a minute. I thought of a bunch of different ideas, honestly, that, you know, what can I do to help people? Ice Block was just that one idea that I think meant the most to me and I thought would affect the most change and help the most people. And so that's the one that I ran with.
- [05:03]
B
What were some of the other ideas that you thought of?
- [05:08]
C
It's a great question. And we're going back a year now, and I can honestly tell you I have no idea what the other ideas were.
- [05:17]
B
Sure, that makes sense. So what did development look like very early on? Was it, as you say, you see Project 2025, you crystallize this idea for ice block, what do you do then? Do you just very quickly make the app like, what. What were your next steps back then?
- [05:36]
C
Okay, so definitely not very quickly. I'm not the person who does anything very quickly. I'm very methodical in what I do. I mean, any project I take on, I try to be extremely thorough and look at all the angles, look at all the what if statements, you know, that I can possibly think of. Draw pros and cons list. So it was, it was quite a bit throughout, you know, the rest of November and December of what idea am I going to settle on? I settle on Ice Block. Okay, what does that mean? Like, what's it going to do? How is it going to work? One of my, I guess, let me say this, the two core tenants that I really ran with at first, number one, was absolutely security, right? I mean the anonymity factor was paramount to everything I was doing. How was I going to do this with no user accounts, no moderation, no anything and keep people safe? That was number one and that took a lot of thought. The other one was from a design aspect. I wanted to make it usable and I guess everybody can understand it, from a 70 year old grandmother to a 15 year old techie, you know, it should be the same kind of experience. And that's why the interface for Ice Block, I guess the best word is like parochial. I mean it's very, very simplistic. There's no bells and whistles, there's no lights going off, there's no cool looking buttons or any of that kind of stuff. That was not the point. The point was to do what it did in the fastest, most secure, most stable way possible and not have all the extras in there. And so that's kind of where I drew up what it would look like, how it would work. And then it really came down to me going, okay, but what if a user does this, but what if a user does that, but what if they think this? And like, how do I combat every.
- [07:35]
B
Single one of those and what were some of those? And we will move on to when the apps actually deployed. I'm just very interested in sort of this development process. What were you thinking about what users may do? I mean, the immediate one that comes to mind for me is like, well, there could be false reports, you know, you could get spammed, something like that. Is that what you're thinking?
- [07:59]
C
That was one of them. That was a big one, right? Because there is no moderation, because there are no boots on the ground to verify these sightings. How do we combat that? And so it wasn't just one thing either, right? Like, okay, fine, you can only report one sighting every five minutes, which I thought was really kind of brilliant to say so myself like that. You really have to want to report false sightings if you're going to sit there and wait five minutes and then report One more. But then I went step further and said, wait a second, you should only be able to report something that we kind of know that you've actually seen. So that's why you can only report within your own five mile radius. And then on top of that, I said, okay, wait a second, you can't just enter any address because we have no way to verify if that's even a real address. And you could be spamming the database just because you enter a zip code. Right. And so then it was, okay, we're going to build an autocomplete system so that if you tap on the map, it's going to reverse geocode that and make sure that's a valid address and you can't change it, by the way. Like if you tap on the map and that sheet opens up, you literally cannot tap on the address field and change that. That is the location. And it's already been reverse geocoded and verified. But if you were to enter it manually, for some reason you wanted to do that, right? Then there was an autocomplete system that was built where you have to tap on one of those results so that we know it's a real address. And then I went beyond that and said, okay, but we can't just have things in perpetuity on this, right? We have to have some kind of an expiration somehow. So what makes the most sense? And it was, well, it can't be an hour because that might be not enough time. Right. Two hours maybe not enough time. In a really heightened circumstance, three hours is pushing it. But still, let's, let's just give the benefit of the doubt and say let's do four hours to delete all sightings, because in four hours they've probably moved on to somewhere else. And we don't want people avoiding locations that, you know, whether or not ICE was there. We don't want them to avoid that location unnecessarily. Right? And so those are the kinds of things that I was thinking about. And believe me, every single one of those that I just mentioned seems so, you know, obvious now, Right? It seems obvious to anybody listening to me saying that. But when it doesn't exist, first you have to figure that out. You have to come up with that and you have to figure out if is that a good idea and what are the ramifications of doing that, right? So there, there are caveats to everything that I just said. And so all of that was built into the back end of the app.
- [10:34]
B
Yeah, that makes sense.
- [10:48]
C
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- [11:22]
B
Why Centre on an app rather than, say, a website? And I'm going to ask that question again later when we talk about the takedown, because I think it almost takes on a different context there. But was it like a usability thing here? Like you said, you want anybody to be able to use it. Is that the reason it's an app rather than a website?
- [11:41]
C
Or one you don't carry a computer with you on your phone? Right. I mean, that's a stupid thing to say. Your phone is a computer, obviously. Right. But while we may use Safari on an iPhone or Firefox on an Android, leaving a website open all the time is not something that a 70 year old would do versus a 15 year old. So you have to look at the user market for that. Like, how are we appealing to the broadest user base to keep the most people safe? And a website is definitely not that. But then beyond that, there's so much more. And I know we're going to talk about this in more detail later, so I don't want to kind of give away the goat here, but there are many technological issues with doing a PWA or doing a website on this kind of scale, and we can certainly go into at least some of them later on in this podcast.
- [12:38]
B
Yeah, well, that does bring me to the next question, which is slightly more of the technical stuff, which is, as you said, Iceblock aims to be very privacy centric and you said that when the app was released and it got a bunch of coverage. And then a security researcher, Cooper from the Electronic Frontier foundation, they did an analysis of the app. They intercepted the traffic through Burp suite, I believe, stuff that security researchers do all the time. And, you know, they pretty much corroborated that there was nothing sketchy going on with this app. It didn't look like it was sending location data off to some weird place or whatever. So how does iceblock aim to maintain that privacy? Is it just locking down the location data? Like, what are you doing exactly under the hood?
- [13:25]
C
That is a fantastic question and not one I'm going to answer, which is why the code is not open source, right? We don't want everybody to know what's going on because as you mentioned in your intro, what has happened, People are copycatting this app. Like, yeah, Ice Block was kind of the first one, right. To do this. Grew in popularity. It is a no name. I mean, I don't mean to seem egotistical by saying this, and I hope you don't take it that way or your listeners take it that way, but I mean, it really has become part of the worldwide vernacular. Right? I mean, people literally say, oh, you better Ice Block that if you're blah, blah, blah. Right. I mean, I was shocked when I heard it as a verb the first time. But what we've seen is one copycat after another after another. But they don't really know how I did what I did. And so they're sort of doing it their own way. And I cannot speak to the anonymity or the protection or the privacy of any of these other apps, but I can tell you one in particular tried to monetize it that I know and that is abhorrent to me. To put a price on keeping people safe is disgusting. So that was one of, one of the other things that I went out with and I said, look, I am able to privately fund this myself, and I will. And I will continue to privately fund this for as long as it is necessary, and I will continue to do that. And believe me, my brain's going a mile a minute, as is my legal teams, on how we're going to bring this back if it's at all possible to do so.
- [14:58]
B
Right? Yeah. And you bring up funding it yourself. And this has come up a little bit in sort of other articles and I presume podcasts or TV appearances as well. But your background is in music, right? And then what, what else is in your back? Like have. Do you have a technology and an activism background as well that brought you to this? Like, I'm just curious all of the context that led you to this point as well.
- [15:26]
C
No, it's a great, It's a great question. What I'm happy to talk about. Yes, my notoriety became a thing in the music industry and being part. I was the bass player for the Rosenbergs, we were the Napster tour band in the US With Echo and the Bunnyman in modern English. In Europe. We were on tv, we were in movies, all kinds of cool stuff. And then I was the front man for Stealing Heather. Another. Another, you know, pop rock band along the lines of like a, you know, a snow patrol, you know, those kinds of Types of bands. And I loved it. I loved every minute of it. But prior to that, I embraced it. Man, I was a tech nerd. At 13. I was programming on Apple IIG ass. I wrote a blackjack program, went to computer camp. Technology just always made sense to me. And even when I was in the music industry, I learned everything about audio engineering. I wanted to know why turning that knob made the kick drum sound greater, made the guitar sound better. So, yeah, I learned all about designing studios, designing gear. I actually designed a couple of pieces of pro audio gear myself, and some of them did great. You know, one in particular was a patch bay that sold like. It doesn't sound like a lot grand scheme when you talk about Ice Block with millions of users, but it sold like over 600 across the world. And a patch bay, that's a lot for a patch bay. So it was very cool. And it was a very expensive patch bay too. So, yeah, I kind of took like the tech as a kid. I mean, I'll tell you a great story. So I was in high school, and this is like when the Internet was in its infancy. And here's the partnership of technology and music. So there was a guitar magazine, and I was reading it, and Pink Floyd, very up on tech, right? And they said if you go to, like, this address on the Internet, right? Which. What was the Internet? It was like a command prompt, right? This was going back to the days of before web browsers, right? If you did this, like, we have a special secret message for you, right? And. And this teacher was. Was kind of a tech nerd too. And he and I sat together in study hall. Like, you know, he took me out of study hall and we sat at a computer one day and. And we did this. And it was just a marketing message, of course, from Pink Floyd about buying the new album and the release date and stuff. But it's so exciting to me. Like, new technologies, new things, you know, how do we connect humanity? How do we help humanity? How do we further humanity? And I think technology is the answer to all of that.
- [18:10]
B
Yeah, it's funny you bring up the Pink Floyd one. I remember a few years ago when Apex Twin came back after not making a bunch of music for a while and released a Tor hidden service, as in a dot onion you could go to. And it was like an Aphex Twin website on the Dark Web. And I was covering the Dark web a lot at the time. I was very much into Tor, into the anonymity network, all of that. And it was just very interesting to see that, oh, there's this cross section between this very important technology that I'm covering journalistically. Oh, and one of my favorite musicians is. Now, there's always been obviously this massive intersection between technology, music, and even surveillance and counter surveillance as well. So you make the app, obviously, much later, as you say, lots of people are downloading it. How's it start? How do you get the word out? And is it a few people? How's it actually launched? How's it start?
- [19:07]
C
So I launched it and I kind of said to myself, is anybody going to even want this thing? I don't know. I worked for about three and a half months on it. I put it out and. And it had like 50 downloads and then 100 downloads. And then my friend knew a reporter and he contacted me and he got it right away and he did an article on it. And we thought, wow, this is going to be amazing. Right? This is what's going to do it. And it didn't. We got to like 2,500 users or 3,000 users or something, and it just go anywhere. But then, because. And again, this goes back to the music career. Because I had such an amazing music career. I knew people who knew people in the big PR world. And one guy in particular said, I get it. I don't have time to take you on as a client, but I want to get you over to my friend at CNN and see if there's any interest. And there was. And that was Claire Duffy. And Claire said, hey, I want to get on the phone with this guy. And we talked for probably a half an hour and just like immediately became friends. And she got it and said, I totally want to do this interview with you. I want to tell the world about what you're doing. I said, great, you know, thinking, like, who am I, right? And she says, let's do it. And a week goes by and I don't hear from her. And I said, you know, are we going to do this? She says, yeah, yeah, let's do this next week. And I'm thinking, okay, this is going to be like some little nothing throwaway. It's going to go on. CNN's great, but it's like CNN.com right? It's just going to be like on a website somewhere. It's going to get lost and not go anywhere. We do the interview. She's amazing. We have this great conversation, and she says, okay, we're going to edit it. My producer is going to look at it, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And then it'll Come out. And another week goes by and I hear nothing. And we're towards the end of this following week. And I reached out to her and I said, hey, any update? Like, when's this going to come out? Whatever? And she gets back to me and she says, this is too important to just be a website article. I want to be on national tv. I want to be on CNN the entire day talking about this. And I thought to myself, holy shit, right? Are you kidding? Like, CNN all day long, you're going to be on there talking about Ice Block and me. That's crazy, but thank you so much. Right? And so she says, not only that, but I want to do this first thing Monday morning, because that's when all the stories get the most traction for the week. I thought, wow, okay, let's see what happens with this. So she does it. And by noon that day, a reporter at the White House press briefing asked Caroline Levitt about it. And she responds, having no idea what she's talking about, as per usual, but responds anyways with some idiotic comment about how they're going to look into it. It sounds criminal to her and whatever. And that everybody goes nuts over. Right? I mean, it's a White House, you know, that starts talking about this app, and then it starts talking about CNN and demonizing cnn and that goes viral. And, you know, it's the app going viral and CNN story going viral about the app, and then every major media publication wants to pick it up, and then it starts going worldwide. And I see it in Poland and I see it in Germany, and, you know, it is literally everywhere. And we go from 3,000 users to 25,000 users to 70,000 users to 150,000 users. And when it was taken down a couple of weeks ago or whenever that was on that Thursday, we had 1.14 million users across the country. And it was unbelievable to me that it had grown like that. Obviously, I had hoped that I could help that many people, and I did, and I want to continue doing so if I possibly can. But to say, did I think it was going to do that? Did I know it was going to do that? Which I've been asked a bunch of times, the answer is absolutely not. I had no idea this was going to go anywhere. As if anybody would care what I did. But they did. And, you know, I'm really, really thankful to everyone who used it and continues to use it, by the way, it is still running on these devices. Just because it's not available for download on the App Store. If you have it on your iPhone, do not delete it, do not reset your phone. It still works just fine. And that's super important for everybody to know.
- [23:47]
B
Yeah, you just can't redownload it or download it for the first time from the Apple App Store. But yes, I've verified myself that, you know, it does still work from iOS devices. So yeah, we'll get to the, the removal of it in one second. But just on the CNN stuff, obviously, as you described, that is a transformative moment for the app, obviously. How did that change things for you and Iceblock and I mean, beyond downloads, obviously it got downloaded a bunch of times. But what, what changed after that moment for you and for Iceblock?
- [24:24]
C
Well, I mean, I was doxxed on X. I started getting death threats and hate mail. I had cars driving around the block of my home. My home was posted online. My address, my phone number. The anti Semitism that came out because of my last name. It was, I mean, it was unbelievable. It was like, you know, you had half the country that's on the right side of history in full support of everything and telling me what a hero I am, which I, I'm just a guy, right. You know, I don't need to be made into anything more than that. I'm just trying to do my part to fight back. But then you had the other half of the country where I was this radical domestic terrorist, you know, ultra leftist, you know, wanting to just tear down everything and burn down the country, and they were going to come after me with everything they got. So how did my life change? Not that much. It's about par for the course.
- [25:30]
B
Right. So that happens, it becomes this massive app. And as you say, and I've seen other similar apps popped up and then ones which were, I think, inspired, but doing something different, like the Eyes up app, which was more about archiving abuses rather than reporting sightings. And there's like an ecosystem of these apps now, basically, but to shift to the removal. So to give people a little bit of context in September, and I'm just going to do it chronologically. In September, a man shoots an ICE facility. He kills a detainee. The authorities have posted alleged images of the shooter's bullet casings with anti ICE messages. Authorities have also claimed that the shooter searched for his phone for various tracking apps, including Ice Block. That's what they say. Then at the start of October, Apple removes Ice Block from the App Store. And this comes after direct pressure from DOJ officials acting on behalf of Attorney General Pam Bondi. And when I reached out to the DOJ about this, they gave me this statement that I think that they gave everybody, which just says, and this is from Bondi. We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the iceblock app from their app store, and Apple did so. Iceblock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs. And violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed. The Department of Justice will continue making every effort to protect our brave federal law enforcement officers who risk their lives every day to keep Americans safe. So can you walk us through that day it was removed. Like, where did that day start for you?
- [27:25]
A
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- [28:03]
C
Oh, the day started coding, to be honest with you, you know, as I had done every single day, I mean, I was working on improving the app, I was, you know, ideas to make it better, all that kind of stuff, right? And in the afternoon, I received a message from Apple saying, you have a message from App review. And when I viewed that message, it said that they had received information from law enforcement alleging that ICE Block was targeting law enforcement officers. I mean, obviously that's not true. I think you and all your listeners know that's patently false. But Apple decided that they were going to reevaluate their approval of the app and reverse course and remove it from the App Store, citing objectionable content. Now, I had no idea who, you know, who, who sent the information to Apple. Right? They just said we received information from law enforcement. Well, what law enforcement? Right. I don't have anything. They have no evidence to back any of this up, of course, because there can't be any evidence because it's not true. But then I later learned that Pam Bondi talked to CBS's Scott McFarland, talked to Fox News, and basically took credit for calling Apple and demanding it be taken down.
- [29:21]
B
So you sent me the emails that Apple gave you where they spelled out their reason for removing this, and I'll just quote them. They say, as you said, objectional content. And that can include defamatory, discriminatory, mean spirited content, references or commentary about religion. Race, sexual orientation, gender, national, ethnic origin, or other targeted groups, particularly if the app is likely to humiliate, intimidate or harm a targeted individual or group. That's their reasoning. How do you think that squares with iceblog? Obviously, you don't think it squares, but can you even attempt to square that circle? Can you try to apply Apple's reasoning to your app?
- [30:09]
C
You really can't because they're basically just doing double talk, right? They're citing a guideline of which a developer has no recourse to appeal. This, has no recourse to fight back against Apple. They, I mean, sure, you can respond to app review, but. And I did, of course, and I think I even sent you their response to that, which is the exact same language that they said the first time. So they don't care, right? They're too big and they don't care. But what is so interesting about their supposed, I'm going to keep the App Store or make the App Store safer by removing Icebox, which was Apple's official statement things, right, is that their own Maps app literally does exactly the same thing. And anybody with a phone, this is the crazy part. So you don't even have to download Apple's Maps app, right? It's a default app that's installed on every single device that they sell. And you can report a speed trap, which is a public sighting of law enforcement, okay? And if we go back many, many years to when Waze first came out and they had this reported speed trap feature, the federal government, the local governments, the police forces, they freaked out and used the rhetoric. If somebody can report where our officers are, violence will be perpetrated upon them, right? Well, we all know that's bullshit. And there's First Amendment cases, you know, I think there's like six or nine of them or something like that that have been fought over the years on this very issue. And it has been ruled that it is completely constitutional. Because if you as a human being can see something with your own two eyes and you tell your neighbor that you saw something with your own two eyes and they too can see it in public, how is that illegal? How is that hurting anybody? Right? It's not targeting anybody. It's not hurting anybody. In fact, I would turn that around because while this government. Oh, my God, I. I shudder to use that word at this point, right? But these people claim that this app was hurting their dear law enforcement agents who are acting with it, you know, with impunity. They are turning cities into war zones. They are zip Tying children in the middle of the night. This is not just the violent criminals, right, that they claim that they're rounding up. They, in fact, they're too scared to even go into those neighborhoods where the gang members are because they know they're going to be attacked if they do so. So they're going after the innocent people. The numbers came out and it was like, 91% of people who were arrested or detained have no violent criminal history whatsoever. And 72% of the people that were detained have no criminal history at all. Okay? So these are not the people they're telling you they are. These are innocent men, women and children. These are hardworking immigrants and some that are not even immigrants, by the way. Journalists have been detained and deported. US Citizens, mayors have been arrested. A congressional candidate in Chicago was body slammed to the ground twice, okay? That's what's actually occurring. So it is so absurd to me that anybody believes the rhetoric of this administration when they're dear ICE officers who break the law and who are, like, the worst people in the world, okay? They're the ones that are being hurt. That's like saying the SS in Nazi Germany, oh, we should give a shit about them. And let me tell you, I don't. I don't give a shit about them. If you hurt people, that's your job, is to hurt and terrorize people. We don't need you. We don't. We just don't need you. And that's where Abolish ICE comes from. And by the way, just so like, we're clear on this whole timeline with the Dallas shooter, first of all, it was two detainees that were killed, not just one. And so I.
- [34:19]
B
One later died, right? Yeah, Correct.
- [34:21]
C
So I just want to make sure, like, you know, that's really important, right? And my heart, my family's heart, and I'm quite sure I can speak for Joseph on this to all the listeners out there, that his heart goes out to everyone affected by that terrible tragedy, right? Including the injured, the family and friends of those who lost their lives. But it is this government's hate rhetoric that is designed to rile up their base, scare the public, and get ICE Block taken down. It's all gods, right? They wanted ICE Block taken down to say that. I mean, use your brain for two seconds, logically, right? How would they know that he searched for ICE tracking apps. And let's say somehow they figured that out, okay? And they're not too adept at that because they said he acted completely alone, yet somehow crowdsourced the information first it was he searched for them, then it was he used them for the attack. And then it was specifically ICE Block was on his phone and that's how he knew where they were. I'm sorry, but do you need an app to tell you a police officer is at a police station? I don't. And I sure as hell don't need an app to tell me an ICE agent is at a well marked ICE facility. Okay, so it's ridiculous.
- [35:44]
B
Yeah. And even putting aside whether or how they found this person was searching for apps, you even put that aside. The incredibly unfortunate event happened at an ICE facility. So again, I'm not sure how you need an ICE spotting app to reveal that the ICE officials are going to be there. Pulling that aside, there's one other comment from the DOJ that I want to bring up, which is that in the days after the app was removed, Pam Bondi, again, the Attorney General, went in front of Congress and they spoke about, you know, a bunch of different things, but ICE Block did come up for listeners. I'll play a little bit of the video now.
- [36:25]
C
Well, we spoke with Apple and Google to get the ICE Block app taken down. That was reckless and criminal in that people were posting where ICE officers lived. We worked with both Apple and Google to take that down. It's stunning. I would add here that it took as much work as it did by you to get them to take that down.
- [36:52]
B
In that clip, she brings up that she believes that ICE Block was being used to post ICE officials addresses as in their home addresses. Have you seen any evidence of that on your app or any evidence of your users posting the addresses of ICE officials?
- [37:14]
C
Absolutely not. There is no evidence of it because I can't speak for every address that is posted, of course. But my guess is probably not, because why would you do that? It's for public sightings of ICE to warn others. Right. It has nothing to do with what she's talking about, but she actually retracted that like three or four minutes after she said it. She kind of walked it back. And if you listen really closely, she started to say that I'm a criminal for developing the app, or it's criminal that the app exists. But then she changed it when she looked down at her notes, apparently to say that any users reporting sightings of ICE are now criminals. Right. And this. This right here is my point in why I spent so long with the security of this app and thought about everything. Right. I did not want anyone who uses this app to become a target of this administration. And there's no identification about you, so you have nothing to worry about if you are an ice Block user. Yeah.
- [38:24]
B
And in my eyes, the worry would be that if an app hadn't taken those privacy protections, the administration would get annoyed or pissed off. It would then send a subpoena or a court order or search warrant to you or to the technology providers you use in some fashion, and then that would be used potentially to reveal users. Is that the threat model you were thinking about? That. Oh, there's like a legal risk here that I have to account for when I'm making this app. Basically for the users, not just yourself. Right.
- [38:56]
C
It actually had very little or nothing to do with myself. It had to do specifically with the users. You know, I have an incredible legal team behind me. Right. I have the ability to self fund this app. Right. The people who are most vulnerable to what's going on in this country right now often do not have those kinds of resources. And so my thought process had little to nothing to do with me. It was 99.99% focus on the users of this app and how do I protect the people?
- [39:29]
B
Yeah. So now it's off. It is off the App Store, as you said, it still does work on phones where it's been downloaded. Are you still seeing people use it? I don't know what sort of visibility you have into that exactly. But like, to your understanding, are people still using it after the App Store removal?
- [39:52]
C
To my understanding, the answer is yes to that. Do I have direct knowledge? I have never had direct knowledge of who uses it or where, because again, with 100% anonymity, it wasn't just stemming from the app itself that we don't store or even capture any of this data that could hurt anybody in the first place. But on the back end, there are no metrics. Right. I don't care how many users are in Wyoming or California or New York. I don't care how many sightings per hour. I'm not trying to monetize this and sell people's data so I can deliver more personalized ads to you. I'm trying to keep people safe. Right. And so metrics meant nothing to me. And so they just don't exist. So I don't really have a good answer for that one.
- [40:38]
B
Yeah. What have people told you more anecdotally then about how they're using the app? Like, have you spoken to immigrants rights groups who using it? And then of course, I mean, individual users may have said they're using it as well. What have you learned from people that you have spoken to about how they're using the app and that sort of thing.
- [41:00]
C
Again, great question, but again, I go back to that 100% anonymity thing where I have publicly discouraged people from saying I'm using Ice Block or I reported a sighting or this helped me, blah, blah, blah. Right. Because what's the point of 100% anonymous if you're posting on social media that you use the app and you did this? So I've actively discouraged that and I don't really have any of those stories to share because I don't want those stories. Right. I don't want to know about it. I don't want anybody else to know about it. I. I just want people to be kept safe.
- [41:33]
B
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, for what it's worth, I did speak to one immigrants rights organisation in Chicago and they were definitely using another similar app called Red Dot. I'm not entirely sure if they were using Iceblock, but community groups are using these sorts of apps in some fashion as part of their work in trying to protect vulnerable groups. And obviously an app being removed from the App Store hinders that somewhat. But what happens now then? So the app has been removed. As you say, you have lawyers working for you on this. Like, what happens now? Do you try to get the app back on? Do you file a lawsuit? Like, what are you thinking about at the moment?
- [42:20]
C
The answer is I've had multiple meetings with my legal team and their minds are going a mile a minute and they are thinking of a number of different strategies on how to move forward. But I can't announce anything or speak to any specifics at this time.
- [42:36]
B
Yeah, all right. I think that's a good place to leave it. Joshua, thank you so much for joining us and telling us all about Iceblock. I really appreciate it.
- [42:45]
C
It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
- [42:51]
B
As a reminder, 404 Media is journalist founded and and supported by subscribers. If you do wish to subscribe to 404 Media and directly support our work, please go to 404 Media co. You'll get unlimited access to our articles and an ad free version of this podcast. You'll also get to listen to the subscribers only section where we talk about a bonus story each week. This podcast is made in partnership with Kaleidoscope. Another way to support us is by leaving a five star rating and review for the podcast. That stuff really, really does help us out. This has been 404 Media. We'll see you again next time.
- [43:32]
C
And Doug. Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by by his natural ally, Doug.
- [43:48]
B
Limu.
- [43:48]
C
Is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@liberty mutual.com. liberty, Liberty. Liberty. Liberty Savings Fairy Unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.