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Showing posts from December, 2020

SnakeOil.apk, aka the N8 State app and why Google needs to screen their apps more.

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UPDATE: As of April 13, 2021, the app has now been delisted by Google from the Play Store. We believe this may be due to their crackdowns on COVID-19-related misinformation as well as those related to conspiracist/right-winger nonsense as the N8 State website is still up. Whether this blog post may have convinced them or not is anyone's guess. Even in this day and age, charlatans and devious snake oil salesmen, stereotypical examples of which were popularly depicted in Westerns and similar media, still run rampant. From homeopaths to conspiracy theorists profiteering from the fears and paranoia people have developed over the past few decades no thanks to 24-hour news networks and pervasive social media, these scoundrels have plundered and exploited the gullible and less-knowledgeable amongst us either for a quick buck or to incite misinformation and discord, sadly enough. Smartphone application marketplaces, or popularly known as app stores, are unfortunately not safe from such tra