As the developer, I'm proud to introduce PowHER, a safety app I built. With PowHER, users can report and view safety ratings of areas, stay informed about potential safety concerns, and contribute to creating a safer environment.

I'm passionate about using technology to solve real-world problems, and I believe PowHER can make a difference. I'd love to hear your thoughts, feedback, and suggestions on how to improve the app.

Link to download: https://apps.apple.com/ng/app/powher/id6504852721

How do you handle location "poisoning"? I mean a possible coordinated attempt to get people to download the app and mark a specific area as unsafe just to demarket that location?

IAmHim1:
Damn!
Smart


Prolly there would be a comment section or there would be a picture section that highlights the 'danger' around the place

If the danger can't be captured as a photo and be posted, a comment section would be advisable so people can communicate and know what's up around the area

Still doesn't mitigate against an attack to demarket (even possible "spin" a location.

At work we use a tool that enables us track "bad" actors based on their IP addresses. Anyone can submit an IP address as a bad actor. But the tool owner still double and possibly triple checks such reports before marking them as bad actors. A lot of work for a free app though. (I'm sure they are monetizing all of that data one way or the other)

IAmHim1:
Just to clear the air...I'm not the creator of this thread...just a 'commenter'

So you track bad actors based on ip address?

By bad actors you mean people spinning a false narrative...and by ip address you mean "their location must be around the location they're reporting on"

Am I correct

If so you suggest the idea of a moderator (s) who crosschecks this information constantly and that'd be a lot of work if the app works in all states in Nigeria

Yes I know you aren't the creator. And I like that you are contributing. So I work in telecoms. Business Telephony. You know all those contact centre where you call in and you hear "To speak with sales, press 1; To speak with support, press 2". That space. For non-Nigerian business. Loads of bad actors (script kiddies or even more intentional, more malicious actors) are scanning the Internet looking for weaknesses in phone systems. So one of our major defence mechanisms is to setup our systems to ignore any requests from IP addresses that are known to be scanning the Internet for phon systems they can compromise. Two key tools used in the space is APIBAN and VOIPBL, the former is a bit restrictive on how they mark bad actors, the latter (which is more established and more widely used) allows anyone submit an IP address as a bad actor. So there's a risk a bad actor can submit my legitimate customer's IP as a bad actor which means my customer could get blocked from my system. Imagine some bad actor submitted all my customers IP addresses as bad actors, they would kill my business as I would block all of my customers. So what VOIPBL does on the backend is to vet all submitted IP addresses, and only after that vetting, before they go ahead to mark the IPs as bad guys that need to be blocked. And most times, their list of bad IPs are correct as we have set honey pots and 90% of those who get to the honey pots have their IPs already on VOIPBL.

So while anyone can submit an IP as "bad", or mark a location as "unsafe" in the case of this app, there has to be way to verify that report before making it available to the public.

airsaylongcome:


Still doesn't mitigate against an attack to demarket (even possible "spin" a location.

At work we use a tool that enables us track "bad" actors based on their IP addresses. Anyone can submit an IP address as a bad actor. But the tool owner still double and possibly triple checks such reports before marking them as bad actors. A lot of work for a free app though. (I'm sure they are monetizing all of that data one way or the other)

This clown 🤡 who can't install common Laravel still here dishing out unsolicited opinions....


Stop commenting on this section this clown 🤡

IAmHim1:
If 90% of people who fall trap to your honey pot already have their ip on VOIPBL, then it means the 10% don't ...it means VOIPBL is lagging behind your honeypot trap mechanism...the 10% is just a waiting time bomb and the VoIPBL makes sure before acting

Would love to know what it is though...the honeypot..how it works

Concerning powHER, Imma bout to type something that's untested'and unheard of IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD:

For every 5 ip that marks a place as a dangerous one, all it would take is for 1 ip who tags 'safe' to make it safe. And while it's 'safe' now, it would now take 1 IP to make it 'unsafe'.

If 5 people marks it 'unsafe' in a row, without one person tagging it 'safe', the cycle then repeats when 1 person tags 'safe'



And for every 5 ip that marks a place "safe", all it would take is for 1 ip that tags it 'unsafe' to make it unsafe. Until 1 person tags 'safe' to make the location safe. If nobody tags unsafe and 5 people tags it 'safe', all it would take to disrupt that 'safety' is for one person to tag it unsafe




I know there could be a fault in this logic (maybe the 5 and 1 is too much and should be balanced out with another number or changing ratio)...and I stand to be humbly corrected

Yes VOIPBL lags a bit. But defense is in layers. Of the 10%, 6-7% of them exhibit a typical behaviour of attempting to initiate hundreds of calls instantly and get caught by the second layer of defense, are blacklisted and get reported to VOIPBL and APIBAN .

Honey-pot mechanism is not what I want to discuss in a public space here. I'm sure you can understand why.

I see your logic of how 1 bad (or good) actor can change the safety "mark" of a location. This is something the Dev has to factor into their product. Overall, I like the dev's concept of providing a very valuable resource, especially for females (given the HER in the product's name). Hopefully they can refine the product

Revealpanda:


This clown 🤡 who can't install common Laravel still here dishing out unsolicited opinions....


Stop commenting on this section this clown 🤡

Have you finished building your scam website yet? Shouldn't you be more focused on that rather than shadowing me and my inability to install common Laravel? You would be more "productive" building your "BTC" product fam

]

What if terrorist kidnap like 20 people and force them to be entering safe. . .safe while they are busy grabbing people eh?

africoders18:
What if terrorist kidnap like 20 people and force them to be entering safe. . .safe while they are busy grabbing people eh?

Just like saying what if a kidnapapper gets a car and start fulfilling rides kidnapping people.

No app is 100% safety proof

Revealpanda:


Just like saying what if a kidnapapper gets a car and start fulfilling rides kidnapping people.

No app is 100% safety proof

Yeah, when building apps like this, do they need to be registered under any security act? I don't know, I am asking.

I once built something once that nearly landed me in court when some government lawyers started pursuing me. Them say I breached some laws.

IAmHim1:
PowHer is girl/humanity power and it's cool

men, the whole humanity and Girls themselves especially, have to look out for themselves since most of the guys that do sometimes have ulterior motives

So the fault or error of bad actors is attempting to make 100s of calls instantly...that's why they're caught. Imagine they had given 2 gap paced randomly...like after 2s, after 7s, after 10s and so on

What if they make it 10s instantly of calls as opposed to 100s instantly??

I'm sure that's what the 'honey pot' mechanism deals with...the 3% that are smart enough to not initiate 100s of calls instantly

I'm still interested in learning that

Lol. So yes, like a thief who suddenly found that they have managed to break in, they make a dash to steal everything. And get caught. I mentioned 100s as an example. Some folks have it limited to 1 call per second for new customers and scale that up as customer gains credibility. So you roll with the punches really. For the exponential back of you described (2s then 5s then 10s....) that also can pose a problem and it's handling is above my pay grade. Our networking guys do their magic to minimise that. In fact more attacks happen from hackers compromising the physical or soft phone of an end user(basically a user account) than compromising the actual phone systems.

The three percent that don't initiate immediately, often try to initiate their thousands of calls over the weekend. Tools monitor the system over the weekend and those on weekend calls jump on any alerts and anomalies.

Thank you for all your feedback and suggestions. I will go back to the drawing board and try to implement features to avoid the problems you stated.

1. I'll implement user reputation points. By doing this, only users who have built up reputation points by posting verified locations on the home feed will be verified and allowed to access the "add location" feature.

2. If there's an increase in a specific rating too many times in a short time, moderators will be alerted and the responsible accounts will be flagged and under restriction.

3. New users will have a 'new user' tag on their posts, indicating that their contributions should be taken with caution until they've built up enough reputation points to establish their credibility.

4. ⁠All locations will be reviewed and verified by admins/moderators before they show up on the map.

ARMYSHOOTER:
Thank you for all your feedback and suggestions. I will go back to the drawing board and try to implement features to avoid the problems you stated.

1. I'll implement user reputation points. By doing this, only users who have built up reputation points by posting verified locations on the home feed will be verified and allowed to access the "add location" feature.

2. If there's an increase in a specific rating too many times in a short time, moderators will be alerted and the responsible accounts will be flagged and under restriction.

3. New users will have a 'new user' tag on their posts, indicating that their contributions should be taken with caution until they've built up enough reputation points to establish their credibility.

4. ⁠All locations will be reviewed and verified by admins/moderators before they show up on the map.

Now you are talking

africoders18:

Yeah, when building apps like this, do they need to be registered under any security act? I don't know, I am asking.

I once built something once that nearly landed me in court when some government lawyers started pursuing me. Them say I breached some laws.

I don't know too

I believe they're lawyers in your areas you can ask

airsaylongcome:
How do you handle location "poisoning"? I mean a possible coordinated attempt to get people to download the app and mark a specific area as unsafe just to demarket that location?

🤔