There are downsides with downloading their app just to input bad data, but it’s a fun thought.
edit: While we’re at it we might as well offer an alternative app to people.
I posted in !opensource@programming.dev to collect recommendations for better apps
The post: https://lemmy.ca/post/32877620
Leading Recommendation from the comments
The leading recommendation seems to be Drip (bloodyhealth.gitlab.io)
Summarizing what people shared:
- accessible: it is on F-droid, Google Play, & iOS App Store
- does not allow any third-party tracking
- the project got support from “PrototypeFund & Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Superrr Lab and Mozilla”
- Listed features:
- “Your data, your choice: Everything you enter stays on your device”
- “Not another cute, pink app: drip is designed with gender inclusivity in mind.”
- “Your body is not a black box: drip is transparent in its calculations and encourages you to think for yourself.”
- “Track what you like: Just your period, or detect your fertility using the symptothermal method.”
Their Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@dripapp
I don’t want to victim blame but if using an app is optional and it could get you in trouble with the law (regardless of how bad the law is), you should not use it.
Having said that, as a dev, please pollute data as much as possible.
Management needs to learn how valuable good data is and good data comes with proper consent (most people wouldn’t share their data if they could opt out).
These apps are very helpful for people who have irregular cycles or who are family planning. I relied heavily on a similar app in high school, because my monthlies weren’t monthly. I was able to share that data with my doctors to help better understand my body.
This really indicates a need for self-hosted solutions.
Absolute worst case you could always keep track of it as a raw text/markdown/excel/Libre calc/whatever your preference is. You’re not going to get any predictions or useful data out.
But it would at least provide a record for your doctor if need be. And as long as you encrypt the device you store it on, or the directory its stored in, it’s relatively safe to do so.
How does this work with non technical people?
Non technical people are not raccoons, they can use a text file.
The number of people I deal with at work that have no idea what a file is…
And forget about folders.
I CAN’T FIND MY DOCUMENT!!!
Okay, where did you save it?
I DON’T KNOW, I JUST CLICK SAVE LIKE ALWAYS!!!
*remotes into workstation and clicks save only to find the file was saved in their temp directory*
I had that conversation hundreds of times when I was doing desktop support…
Sometimes I feel like they are, or maybe I’m the raccoon but yes
They don’t know what a text file is.
They don’t know what a file is, but they can use an app store, to download an app, create an account, log in, and interface with the UI to load data.
Got it
Yes, actually. Downloading apps, making an account, logging in, and using an app are all things they have done before. Opening up Notepad on their computer (if they have one) and saving a text file then navigating back to it later and opening that file is something they probably have never done before.
This is a legitimate concern.
A teenage girl who is looking to track her cycle is likely not educated on data security - as someone who works with teens, Gen Alpha is shockingly tech illiterate. They are going to go into the App Store, type “period tracker” and download the first thing that pops up.
Write it down on paper or put it in a word document or excel spreadsheet (or FOSS equivalent if you don’t have Office 365).
From a medical perspective, a handwritten journal with dates and notes about the amount/consistency of the flow as well as associated symptoms would be the most useful. Having irregular periods that last for 3 days with very heavy bleeding would have a very different diagnostic approach than irregular periods that last 3 to 5 days with normal bleeding and horrible cramps.
A potentially good option if you’re on Android is putting it in your secure folder. It’s basically just a sub directory for all your files, notes, and pictures, but it an encrypted form.
So if you’re technical enough to understand jow to enter a password (most people), then you have an easy to use option. Just don’t forget your password, and don’t set it to something easy to crack. It’s the same rules for any other password.
I’m sure there are similar options for windows/mac/ios
But if you’re a more technical user, by all means it is in your interest to encrypt the whole thing.
Period tracking is a very good tool for understanding your health. Issues may be spotted very early in some cases.
If it’s required for preventative healthcare, the blame is solely on the exploitative app operators for any data safety concerns.
That’s not great advice for people who weren’t afraid of law enforcement in the past and are now feeling exposed due to data they already gave away.
it’s quite silly imo. unlikely to accomplish much or anything at all. teaching people about free software like drip is way more likely to actually help people. it’s free, open source, and completely local.
edit: they even have a mastodon!
Not to mention that downloading that flow app will help them boost thier numbers, I doubt they’d care if men are using it as long as they can sell the data…
Would a bunch of users entering garbage data, with not all of them being totally obvious, make it harder to sell that data? Possibly.
It might take a while for thier customers to notice that the data is garbage, or they might develop a way to figure out what data is garbage and still sell other data gathered from the OS/sensors etc from users trying to poison the data.
Because moving people off Facebook messenger and over to Signal or WIRE instead has been so very effective.
You are right. We here know it. But we are a teeny tiny percentage compared to 340million.
Remember, inertia is a major driving force of humanity.
eh, I’d argue this is very different than signal. for signal to work everyone needs to use it. if you want to use drip you don’t need to make your friends use it too. it’s as simple as installing it from the play store and using it like any other app.
Really hard to help people who refuse to help themselves.
Drip seems to be the leading recommendation. I’ve edited the post with it so people seeing the meme also get the recommendation :)
awesome, thanks!
Calling an app that tracks menstrual cycle “Drip” is peak comedy
You would think it wouldn’t be this easy, but given the incredible disconnect from reality on reporting late term abortion statistics, this could scramble data.
For those who don’t know, the raw statistic of late term abortions comes down to late term terminations via a procedure used in pre 20week months to end a pregnancy. There’s little difference in logging the data. Babies can die inside, even as you’re trying to attend your own baby shower, like with that young girl who recently tried to get help from 3 Texas emergency rooms, but instead died due to the late term corpse rotting in her uterus.
The procedure used to expel a stillbirth in the late term is an abortion. That is what pregnancy termination by procedure is: abortion. But the context of corpse removal is lost on political alarmists who don’t bother to do their own research on how/when the procedure is used in late term pregnancy, in favor of uneducated hysteria and the demonizing of women.
My point is, given how resolutely people have not delved into the context of this data regarding stillbirths, messing with menstrual trackers can and probably will work, provided you don’t limit yourself to Flo.
I don’t think this is likely to work tbh. I’m sure the app has enough device data to link the user with a broader data profile that would easily eliminate data from people that don’t actually have periods.
The data profiles people build on citizens aren’t limited to one data source, and emails/phone numbers/browser fingerprints/device details are all things that can be keyed between data sets to relate identities.
Fascist law enforcement can and would do this kind of thing to chase individuals. This kind of noise seems easy to filter out.
So I just installed this right now after seeing this, and man this app has a lengthy initial startup process with dark patterns and everything. Now apparently I’m ovulating in two days. 🤭
I’m going to learn how to orgasm!
I’m “abnormal” 🫨
So it’s not normal to have a 55 day cycle? Oh snap!
Is it FOSS? Or does it collect tons of data?
Oop, read the post better. Nevermind hahaha
So I fucking hate that this is where my brain went, but my kneejerk reaction to this was: “If I do this, could it be used as evidence to charge my wife with the death of a nonexistent fetus?”
I live in the cousin-fuckingly-deep south where women are incubators and a long list of stereotypes. I could definitely see it argued in court - successfully - that an app like that was only used on my phone to try to conceal my wife’s data, and the data points to one of the ways we’ve criminalized pregnancy.
…and that’s thinking about what could happen here and now. Once Trump has had his way with our country, we’d probably just get deported to one of daddy Putin’s gulags or some shit.
I really fucking hate it here.
not to mention the reason why you’re only supposed to say the word “lawyer” to cops is they literally tell you: “ANYTHING you say CAN and WILL be used AGAINST YOU in a court of law.” That doesn’t mean “might or maybe” or “to help you.”
Track your nightly flatulence on a piece of paper too, and keep the same data on it that you put in the app. If it makes it to court claim the app was just a convient way to track other things, and let the courts discuss your farts.
Yeah, I would only do this if I lived alone or only with other males and had no SO/post-puberty daughters/close female friends.
I have a reminder app that randomizes reminders for a medical issue I’m dealing with.
Sounds like I’ll be dealing with two medical issues that app will require now.
Just curious, why randomize?
Why randomize Flo or why am I doing it for other reasons?
The latter, for other reasons
I am dealing with a mystery illness which has made it so that I cannot eat solid food. I’ve had it for well over a year now. The current theory is that it is ARFID, an eating disorder that has nothing to do with body image like most eating disorders.
Because I never feel hunger or thirst, I have had reminders on my phone to have nutrition (Ensure and soup mostly) and drink water.
The doctor that I am working with thinks that randomizing my feeding routines rather than having them at the same time every day, which I was doing, will be therapeutic. I’m also supposed to do a sort of wellness check and log when I feel hungry three times a day. The answer is always either ‘not hungry at all’ or, if I’m really stressed, ‘the concept of hunger is repulsive to me.’ I don’t want to say this isn’t working yet though. It’s only been a few weeks.
That sounds super interesting. Good luck.
Thanks!
I’ve been using it to track my poops.
Eat more fiber for extra data
Don’t worry. I give them literal shit loads of data. Even more after fajita night.
I’m doing my part!
These symptoms might actually be related to the 12k mountain trail run I did yesterday after work, and I’m pretty sure the bleeding is because I got scratched by a spiky bush, but you cannot be too careful fellas
Day 1065: still feeling fatigue. Poor sleep habits or longest period ever?
I ask my body this every morning.
As with anything involving the complex bundles of systems in the human body, other issues can overlap and mask symptoms of a menstrual cycle, impending or otherwise.
Yes
people will do anything but search for an alternative
…how do you mean?
Obviously we’re not going to get everyone to download a FOSS period tracker, as nice as that would be – they’re already invested in the ones they’re using, and no doubt it will have features and usability improvements the FOSS one doesn’t, usually thanks to some network service that is fundamentally incompatible with the FOSS philosophy. That’s almost always how these things go.
We should definitely be telling more people about F-Droid, but let’s not get our hopes up. Socialism is about protecting everyone, even people who don’t share your views, even if those views are objectively correct.
We should definitely be telling more people about F-Droid, but let’s not get our hopes up
Accessibility (not being on FDroid only) was one of the things I was looking for when looking for recommendations. Thankfully the leading recommendation is on Google Play & iOS App Store :) I have edited the post above with more details
“Socialism is about leading horses to water whether they fucking drink or not.”
I mean… yes. More horses will drink if they know there is water, and even if they don’t, they’re still safer than they otherwise would have been.
I mean, they dont like the APP because it collects data, but refuse to do one web search for an app that doesn’t, then complain on fucking twitter about privacy concerns??? seriously??
Why are such apps popular? Do these offer something more than what a combination of reminders and notes (digital or analog) providr?
Perhaps, these apps offer some insights based on the data. But would one take the risk of listening to an app for medical advice?
Post text:
Dear men I need you to go download an app called “Flo” and start using it chaotically. Don’t ask anyone how to use it. Just use it. The more, the better. Let’s Christmas tree that data.
As a software developer who loves to screw the data and a person who will do ANYTHING can to protect women for the next 4 years, I am so excited to begin tracking my manstrual cycle
Good bot
Why in the world do we even need apps for this stuff? There is no reason to give your data to these companies at all.
Here’s a crazy thought: get a journal. And write in it.
The absolute madlad
Based
There was an IT Crowd episode on the Manstrual Cycle
Oh that’s what I was remembering! Aunt Irma
What’s the point of spamming one specific menstrual tracker / women’s health app? Lack of better hobbies? Or is there some controversy around the company behind it? Or just general state of freedom and surveillance in the USA?
The idea is that they’ll be used to track pregnancy and hurt people in certain states. Chaos will help the situation.
Computer databases are kind of purpose-built to organize a lot of (arbitrary) information. I seriously doubt this kind of chaos is going to make even the slightest difference. It’s probably just giving people some false sense of security while any information that’s stored in any cloud can still be retrieved. And effortlessly be matched to whomever they like to oppress. At least if it’s associated with some account, email or specific phone.
“A bunch of new accounts posting obviously worthless data joined about the same time. Disregard them.”
So you’re saying if a woman made an account during this time, and threw garbage data in, they’d disregard it and then a month later she could use it for real?
(Also you guys are hilarious about how quickly you can just ‘do that’ because I’ve never worked at any software company where the devs who made the initial code are even still at the company a year or two later.)
This is data analysis, not development. Yes you can just exclude the problem month, average the previous and next months, and her real data starts to contribute again. And yes you can do that regardless of who is writing code. Or even that the code was written by your company and not some other company you bought or seized data from.
probably won’t be hard to spot all the accounts that sign up en masse, send 3 data points then stop forever because they got bored or forgot.
Alright, sure. The company will rigorously dig through the data to exactly remove exactly the specific accounts that aren’t real and deftly deal with it, and it won’t be some intern with a weeks training in paper docs from three years ago. No, it’ll be people who will know to do exactly those things. And the data you’re scraping to sell, well, no-one will mind you splicing out data you claim isn’t real and was fake, no they’ll be fine with that. Then when that intern is gone–and they didn’t log anything because they were never taught to–and the new intern arrives, they’ll know to continue exactly where they should, and at no point will anyone fuck up the dates, times, or additions from previous months. At each and every stage exactly what has to happen will happen, and no code changes, updates, or manager-directives will change any of these parts in any way. The addition of anywhere from dozens to hundreds to even tens of thousands of new accounts will be easy to deal with, because this has all been prepared ahead of time, and will immediately be dealt with. It won’t take weeks of meetings on how to tackle it, by whom, and what to push back - because they use waterfall/agile, and it’s a foolproof system where you don’t just punt things forward, you deliberately and delicately lay out each and every change that will now take place mixed with the 2 years that have already been planned out.
Absolutely everything will be covered and not a single thing will get through, and they’ll carefully and easily parse through the data with zero issues on the demand of a very competent government that doesn’t show any signs of issue whatsoever.
Nah they’ll just say “weird. Guys, exclude November, it’s an outlier”.
I’m willing to bet it uses something resembling an SQL database on the back end, so ignoring or deleting data or entire user accounts that signed up in November 2024 should be a matter of a query or two.
I would also like to point out that, much like the Republicans, you’re painting your enemy as both dangerously competent and hilariously inept, whichever is most convenient at the moment. “They have a database of menstrual data, they can use data science and pattern analysis to detect changes in a woman’s reproductive cycle and use that information to make decisions to harm her!” minutes later App developers are rock chewing morons, there’s no way they could detect a pattern of strange data entering their database all at once, figure out what it is possibly by googling the name of their app and finding a Tumblr post about polluting the app, and then cancel those suspicious accounts."
I agree with the first half… It’s very easy to ingest and sift through insane amounts of data
What isn’t easy is doing so usefully. Yes, if you can link the account to a person, it’s trivial to pull up their records. Linking is easier said than done - it’s doable, but to make it scale you have to get the full records of device IDs, link them back to a number, then link them to a person. Minimum, you’d need the telco’s data
That’s a staggering amount of work - it’s much easier to do it if the app also has phone numbers, but even then where do you link it? The telco’s have an account holder (which often will be a family member), 50 separate dmvs might have more accurate links, but they’re largely legacy systems that will be a nightmare to work with. It’s doable, but it’s hard
Then you get to distribute this super extensive database of personal information - at this point it’s prism, and probably already has most of this data - they’d just have to ingest period data too
But we don’t give that kind of access to local police, because then every government would end up with it. And that’s a big and genuine security threat… But also a very unwieldy thing to work with. More data means more man hours to work with
The other direction is far more practical - if you start by looking at the data, you can tie it back to a person if they match a pattern. Then you can look at just the records you do have, and pay Amazon or the credit agencies for more. A human can easily investigate another human, because we are great with unstructured data, and computers aren’t
A chaotic data source means more bad leads to manually chase down. Man hours are limited, and people have morale - if a cop wastes an hour on a lead that ends with a spare phone or a single man, they’re going to complain and drag their feet. If productivity and morale are in the garbage, that’s going to lead to pushback. If it happens enough, the message at the top will be “this program doesn’t work”
It would be far better to find the patterns and target them methodically, but even chaotic garbage is effective - data analysis isn’t easy to automate, it’s very expensive to do when accuracy matters and they’re poisoning the data source
The tiny percentage of users of these apps doing this will have their outlier data completely ignored. Colossal waste of time and energy.
A government hunting illegal abortions would only care about data that shows signs of pregnancy followed by early termination, random data will never match those criteria and as such is utterly useless.
Like not having a period for 4 months, then having a period again. You’re expecting legislature and law enforcement to actually know science things.
Also, Google/Apple metrics already know if you’re a boy or girl based on soooo much other data and trackers, that it’s completely trivial for this company or any other company to just filter out any data being reported by a male.
Clearly gotta start listening to truecrime podcasts and let some young kids muck up your YouTube algorithm and they won’t know anymore what your gender is
Fuck it, download all of them.
