While I think an update to the Apache version is a good idea, this is a very low quality report. There are tons of people scanning the web looking for out-of-date software and sending low effort reports about known CVEs. This is the kind of report even large companies ignore.
Critically, it's not even clear that this is a vulnerability report. Yes the version is out dated, and yes there are known CVEs, but is the server actually vulnerable?
The CVE referenced has the key phrase: "... whose response headers are malicious or exploitable". This does not appear to be a CVE that would impact every installation. You need to find a way to control the response headers, meaning you need to chain another vulnerability.
Without verifying that the server is vulnerable this isn't a vulnerability report. It's a suggestion to install updates. Paired with the poor delivery, it seems reasonable for the author to get blocked and ignored.
drclegg · 3h ago
It's pretty likely the guy blocked the author after seeing them link a blog post insulting his work, no?
Sure he should take the vulnerability report seriously, but it's pretty clear that bundling a report above the words "activism theater" isn't going to make someone want to read it.
Instead, just "hey man, you're on a vulnerable version of httpd" is likely going to be more effective.
thefreeman · 2h ago
It also barely meets the definition of "a vulnerability report". He basically just nmap scanned the server and googled the apache version. The "critical" vulnerability he linked requires controlling a backend server being reverse proxied through apache... so completely irrelevant. I didn't read every CVE for the apache version but I am doubtful there is anything that actually allows taking over the server there.
roywashere · 2h ago
Also, Apache 2.4.57 is exactly the version of Apache you get when you'd run RHEL 9 / AlmaLinux / Rocky 9. In that case, the OS would provide backports of the CVE fixes for you and the banner still reads Apache 2.4.57!
hughw · 2h ago
I need to see ICE Block's SOC 2 Type 1 audit of their processes for patching vulnerabilities along with their latest SOC 2 Type 2 audit.
JumpCrisscross · 2h ago
> pretty likely the guy blocked the author after seeing them link a blog post insulting his work, no?
No.
“Joshua runs two Bluesky accounts: @iceblock.app, the account of the ICEBlock app, and @joshua.stealingheather.com, Joshua's personal account. His personal account had DMs closed, but the ICEBlock account had DMs open, so [the author] sent him DMs there” about the upcoming blog post.
Joshua reacted to the blog post by blocking the author on the ICEBlock account.
When, “a few days later…[ICEBlock’s] server was still running Apache 2.4.5,” the author “decided to give [Joshua] a deadline to patch his server before [the author] publicly disclosed the vulnerability.” The author sent this deadline to Joshua’s “@joshua.stealingheather.com” account.
“An hour and a half” after the deadline was communicated, Joshua blocked the author from his personal account, too.
frenchtoast8 · 2h ago
It's pretty clear the developer blocked him from the @iceblock.app account because of the blog post criticizing him, and then blocked him from the other account after he said to not respond but got a page of text back instead. It had nothing to do with the vulnerability report.
Now, the blog post seems to be reasonable criticism to me so I don't think the developer should have blocked him for it. But I don't know, no one has ever written a blog post about me, and I'm not receiving death threats and being threatened by the federal government.
At the end of the day, the author is trying to frame this interaction along the lines of, "Sensitive user data is at risk, and I was blocked for no reason other than for letting the developer know" -- the first part has not been proven to be true, and the second is obviously not true.
JumpCrisscross · 2h ago
> then blocked him from the other account after he said to not respond but got a page of text back
The point is the developer didn’t block “the author after seeing them link a blog post.” They received the disclosure and then blocked the author (on that account).
hughw · 2h ago
Also, maybe activism theater isn't so bad. I mean not everyone has the temperament or motivation that the severe activists do, and maybe just "doing something" (as long as it's harmless) raises general awareness and critical mass and eventually creates more activism.
Kapura · 2h ago
It's a nice theory, but that hasn't been borne out in reality. Activision theater allows people to convince themselves that they don't need to do the actual work to protect their communities or disassemble abhorrent systems. It raises the profile of the app developer at the expense of the community.
tibbon · 2h ago
I disagree. It's akin to security theatre. People who engage in it can think they've done the right things, when in reality, they might have created more vulnerabilities or now have a false sense of security.
Finding effective, actionable and safe methods is difficult - but that's the work we have to do.
xantronix · 2h ago
Security practices aside, ICEBlock is worse than activism theater; it allows bad actors to intimidate communities with false reports, as it lacks any methods to validate reports and verify users, and was developed without collaboration with the communities it was intended to serve.
cognician · 2h ago
I'd argue making promises of privacy and security that one cannot keep, in enabling civic resistance to unaccountable paramilitary forces, is not harmless.
zhouzhao · 2h ago
If you had read the actual article, you'd know that the headline is fitting.
He got warned, that it is an unflattering article, he got the hint with the insecure web server, he had the chance to explain himself and set things right.
It appear this app was vibe coded, has no security, now serves a lot of people, and the author is somehow thinking how to make money out of it, hence the reluctance to make the code open source
drclegg · 2h ago
I've read the article. The point I'm getting at is that a vuln report will be taken more seriously if you present yourself in a pleasant manner.
It's pretty clear that the app has its issues (especially wrt to false reports), that I'm not disputing.
toss1 · 2h ago
THIS.
Conflating a software vulnerability with a criticism of the overall concept is a good way to become non-credible and get both ignored
The article repeatedly claims the entire concept is mere "activism theater" yet with zero evidence or even discussion to back up the claims. In fact, this sort of app may be very effective in both helping people evade authoritarian raids and helping generate flash-mob-type protests that impede the authoritarians. Every bit of friction added to authoritarian rule improves the likelihood of successfully defeating it.
And, buried in the vague overall accusations of not liking the app, the author is stating he's using the wrong version of Apache. I missed anything about the actual good version if it was in there. And, he openly admits he has no idea if the server in question even houses any significant data.
The whole article comes off as the author being an asshat, and even more sore that he's being ignored. TBF, I'd probably ignore him too.
But yeah, it probably is a good idea to run the update sooner rather than later.
DoctorOW · 2h ago
> run something like sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
I assume this means that the author of this post has seen the Debian version in their nmap. The latest version of which would be 2.4.65-1~deb12u1[1]. You'll notice that there is a Debian version number attached to the Apache version number which means that the version number NMAP found doesn't necessarily mean software is unpatched. I've never used Iceblock or talked to this developer but I have no doubts he's dealing with beg bounties[2], harassment, and bad faith critique of his software which the screenshotted messages look like.
EDIT: For the sake of clarity, I think I should have phrased it the other way around. Bad faith messages look like the ones the author sent. I'm not discussing the actual intention of the messages but the pattern seeking brain's reception to them.
Checking version numbers usually isn’t a good way of determining whether software on Linux is vulnerable to CVEs. Big distros (especially Red Hat derivatives) lock software versions but back port security patches. Reporting “vulnerabilities” solely based on reported version number is pure noise.
cpburns2009 · 2h ago
This reminding me of pointless PCI scans that flag you for using a vulnerable version of Nginx or a VPN software because that version has a CVE on record. This ignores the fact that the distro version is patched for the non-exploitable CVE.
sschueller · 3h ago
To be fair, even if he did update apache. It's running at linode. One phone call from the feds and they have what want.
Either don't collect anything useful or at least host the server somewhere where a US warrent doesn't as easily work as cutting butter with a hot knife...
NanoCoaster · 3h ago
The feds, absolutely. Still, there's a lot of other parties that should not have an easy way of accessing the data (if there is any - the joys of closed source implementations).
ashleyn · 3h ago
To have something that is genuinely private and would qualify for listing in the app store, options are pretty limited. I don't think they allow developers to use onion services or anything like that. You could host the server in other countries, but even in hostile countries, it's not a leap of logic to assume the NSA would have an easy time getting in there all without the worry of that pesky "legal" thing.
gruez · 2h ago
Is there a reason why it can't be a PWA?
tempodox · 2h ago
They can’t do push notifications on iOS.
gruez · 2h ago
PWAs could since ios 16.4, released more than 2 years ago
Disclaimer: UK citizen. I don’t know anything about ICE or whose side I’m “supposed to be on” politically here. I’m just responding to the details in the article. The app might as well be TodoApp.
The vulnerability couldn’t have been reported in a worse way. OP gave unreasonably short deadlines, allowed moral opinions about the software to interfere with responsible disclosure, and interspersed details about the potential vulnerability with inflamatory remarks about the mission of the product. I don't think OP's goal was actually to secure the app.
OP was going to publish a scathing blog post about ICEBlock either way, and essentially engineered a situation where the ICEBlock author had to act within unreasonable timelines. He published the original blog post an hour and a half after reporting the vulnerability. Then gave a week’s deadline before another one.
Sure, potentially the ICEBlock author also allowed feelings to interfere with upgrading the vulnerable version too.
But ICEBlock has millions of users, according to the blog post. I’m cautious about upgrading dependency versions for apps I manage with <100 internal users. In my experience, upgrades are 99% trivial, and 1% cause disastrous headaches and downtime. If I were the ICEBlock author, I would put this on a list of things to look into, and ensure that it was tested thoroughly if I did decide to upgrade. It’s not as simple as running “sudo apt upgrade”.
And I imagine that given the scale of the product, the author has incredible demands on his time, and can’t just drop everything because somebody (who has already shown themselves to be communicating rather negatively) imposes an arbitrary short deadline.
Now maybe it turns out that I’m unaware that ICEBlock is a huge net negative for the world, which is why this post has so many upvotes. But just interpreting the facts as they’re presented in the article, and substituting ICEBlock for TodoApp… I don’t see how the developer has acted unreasonably.
This was my immediate reaction as well. 1.5 hours is unreasonably short even for an acknowledgement message!
My employer rarely has that level of urgency, let alone a side project that is probably revenue negative!
This feels like a hit piece...
danielvf · 3h ago
In the software development / security world, someone reporting a vulnerability to you is one of the greatest things one human can do for another.
I've been burned in the long past when trying to be helpful to an activist. The accuracy of information provided was never a consideration.
gwbas1c · 2h ago
> In the software development / security world, someone reporting a vulnerability to you is one of the greatest things one human can do for another.
Depends on context. When it's a knowledgeable user reporting the issue, you're right.
What I mostly encounter are for profit "security researchers" who try to profit on fear and/or misunderstanding.
pseudo0 · 1h ago
Unfortunately something like 90% of "vulnerability reports" are some guy in India running an automated scanner reporting something that isn't actually a vulnerability and demanding $1,000+. This creates a ton of noise in the system both for legitimate security researchers and the people stuck managing vulnerability disclosure programs.
nwroot · 2h ago
Wait. So Apache is outdated and that’s all you found? And it’s escalated to this? Wow. I would ignore this guy also. Using nmap is an elite skill now?
scubakid · 2h ago
> outdated software with known vulnerabilities
Maybe I missed it, but was it ever established that these general vulnerabilities are actually relevant to this specific system/implementation?
frenchtoast8 · 2h ago
The author says "it might be trivial for anyone to hack your server." "Might" is doing way too much heavy lifting here. Actually, the author has no idea if there is any actual exploitable vulnerability on the server. They just Googled a version number and fired off a "vulnerability report," which "might" be worth as much as the dozens of emails I get a month about "huge vulnerabilities" related to my SPF record, or those CVEs that boil down to "if someone has root on the machine they could do something bad on the machine."
I can't help but feel that the author's motivation was to get some sort of reaction, and now they've gotten it. If this vulnerability was so vital to be patched, why would it be bundled into a "by the way" DM on Twitter along with a post heavily criticizing the app developer? Both people involved can be idiots here.
The title is kinda rude. The content seems pretty fair for the most part.
World’s biggest clickbait title backfire?
SOLAR_FIELDS · 2h ago
Title is pretty inflammatory, I agree, but the article itself is also a pretty savage takedown. It just so happens that it was a pretty reasonable savage takedown backed up by evidence and it’s mostly just excerpts of the ICEBlock app author putting his own foot in his mouth and exposing his rather large lack of knowledge and competence in what he is doing.
I do agree with other people’s sentiment here: author is not wrong, but did not really do the most effective thing if their goal was actually to get the ICEBlock author to secure the app. If someone is going to act like a petulant child when confronted with evidence they need to fix something, they need to be treated like a child. And starting off the conversation as combative is going to make the child respond in kind.
Larrikin · 3h ago
His arguments against creating an Android version made it seem like he didn't really know what he was doing, when the app first got publicity.
jmuguy · 3h ago
Unless I've got the timeline wrong did the author contact ICEBlock's creator about the outdated Apache version and then a few hours later post publicly about it? If that's the case I can understand why he blocked the author.
qwertytyyuu · 3h ago
he made the first post about it a few hours after, only gesturing at the potentional. Gave it one week, then posted another spelling it out explicitly
jmuguy · 2h ago
Got it, I had to re-read the post a few times before it made sense. I think ICEBlock's creator is definitely a doofus but Micah isn't doing themselves any favors with the way they reported this - more like a "gotcha" than an actual vulnerability disclosure.
zhouzhao · 3h ago
you are mistaken, read the article
netsharc · 3h ago
Aḷl the information is in the article...
b8 · 2h ago
Am hour and a half isn't enough time to read a DM. Also, the vulnerability would be difficult to exploit.
qwertytyyuu · 3h ago
Me having no idea what ICEBlock was thinking that they sent laywers after the author and ignored the warnings. This isn't that but its almost. He seems to genuinely want to help people but doesn't seem to know what he is doing, especially in relation to security.
Hopefully it doesn't end up doing more harm than good
mangoman · 2h ago
I’ve never built something like ICEBlock that puts me personally in the crosshairs of not just normal hacking attempts, but also the political will of the federal government. I can’t imagine the cess pool that is Joshua’s DMs. I think OP makes all the right assessments when examining how seriously ICEBlock is taking the risks here. The Android push notifications assertion is proof enough to make me raise a pretty big question, let alone the other issues raised.
Were I building something that I would want to assert the level of privacy claims that ICEBlock asserts, I would absolutely be taking any/all reports about security extremely seriously.
No comments yet
its-summertime · 2h ago
Assuming Debian because why not, (and because I don't want to look at RHEL):
2.4.57 never made it into Debian stable, only went as far as testing and unstable.
2023-10-19 was when 2.4.57 was superseded by 2.4.58 in unstable.
So assuming they are not using RHEL or similar, they have either pinned Apache httpd, used a custom build, or haven't updated their server since the start of 2024.
- - -
Since then, there have been 11 moderate, 8 important security fixes according to Apache.
oulipo2 · 3h ago
The author comes off a bit as a prick there... why didn't he just say "hey man I think you have an issue, it's there, now here's how to fix it (he didn't tell him, he just says in his blog post "it's easy"), and BTW I'm here for a video call if you want me to get through it together"
kavouras · 2h ago
The title of the original article calling the app "activism theater" is also extremely rude. The author prefered being a prick than doing the best to fix the app.
JumpCrisscross · 2h ago
> title of the original article calling the app "activism theater" is also extremely rude
It’s also not wrong.
The app doesn’t seem designed to do what it claims to do. And the developer doesn’t seem interested in remedying that.
Worse, by hosting this on linode, they may be doing our corrupt DoJ and ICE’s work for them in identifying community organizers who could interfere with them down the road.
bakugo · 2h ago
> now here's how to fix it (he didn't tell him, he just says in his blog post "it's easy")
If you're running a service that handles sensitive user data and need a third party to tell you how to update your web server, you shouldn't be handling such data at all.
Personal data leaks from apps like this are only going to become more common (especially considering the rising popularity of "vibe coding") unless the people behind them are forced to take responsibility for their lack of security.
oulipo2 · 1h ago
Perhaps, but there's no need to act like a prick about that
Havoc · 2h ago
Honestly this seems overly dramatic from both sides
henry700 · 2h ago
No PoC exploit, no real exploitability. I propose we use the term "CVE Kiddie" until this bullshit stops. It could even be a fake-advertised version header.
k4rnaj1k · 2h ago
I tend to agree with the comment on the blog that this version might be patched, and there's no proof of the server being actually vulnerable.
Critically, it's not even clear that this is a vulnerability report. Yes the version is out dated, and yes there are known CVEs, but is the server actually vulnerable?
The CVE referenced has the key phrase: "... whose response headers are malicious or exploitable". This does not appear to be a CVE that would impact every installation. You need to find a way to control the response headers, meaning you need to chain another vulnerability.
Without verifying that the server is vulnerable this isn't a vulnerability report. It's a suggestion to install updates. Paired with the poor delivery, it seems reasonable for the author to get blocked and ignored.
Sure he should take the vulnerability report seriously, but it's pretty clear that bundling a report above the words "activism theater" isn't going to make someone want to read it.
Instead, just "hey man, you're on a vulnerable version of httpd" is likely going to be more effective.
No.
“Joshua runs two Bluesky accounts: @iceblock.app, the account of the ICEBlock app, and @joshua.stealingheather.com, Joshua's personal account. His personal account had DMs closed, but the ICEBlock account had DMs open, so [the author] sent him DMs there” about the upcoming blog post.
Joshua reacted to the blog post by blocking the author on the ICEBlock account.
When, “a few days later…[ICEBlock’s] server was still running Apache 2.4.5,” the author “decided to give [Joshua] a deadline to patch his server before [the author] publicly disclosed the vulnerability.” The author sent this deadline to Joshua’s “@joshua.stealingheather.com” account.
“An hour and a half” after the deadline was communicated, Joshua blocked the author from his personal account, too.
Now, the blog post seems to be reasonable criticism to me so I don't think the developer should have blocked him for it. But I don't know, no one has ever written a blog post about me, and I'm not receiving death threats and being threatened by the federal government.
At the end of the day, the author is trying to frame this interaction along the lines of, "Sensitive user data is at risk, and I was blocked for no reason other than for letting the developer know" -- the first part has not been proven to be true, and the second is obviously not true.
The point is the developer didn’t block “the author after seeing them link a blog post.” They received the disclosure and then blocked the author (on that account).
Finding effective, actionable and safe methods is difficult - but that's the work we have to do.
It appear this app was vibe coded, has no security, now serves a lot of people, and the author is somehow thinking how to make money out of it, hence the reluctance to make the code open source
It's pretty clear that the app has its issues (especially wrt to false reports), that I'm not disputing.
Conflating a software vulnerability with a criticism of the overall concept is a good way to become non-credible and get both ignored
The article repeatedly claims the entire concept is mere "activism theater" yet with zero evidence or even discussion to back up the claims. In fact, this sort of app may be very effective in both helping people evade authoritarian raids and helping generate flash-mob-type protests that impede the authoritarians. Every bit of friction added to authoritarian rule improves the likelihood of successfully defeating it.
And, buried in the vague overall accusations of not liking the app, the author is stating he's using the wrong version of Apache. I missed anything about the actual good version if it was in there. And, he openly admits he has no idea if the server in question even houses any significant data.
The whole article comes off as the author being an asshat, and even more sore that he's being ignored. TBF, I'd probably ignore him too.
But yeah, it probably is a good idea to run the update sooner rather than later.
I assume this means that the author of this post has seen the Debian version in their nmap. The latest version of which would be 2.4.65-1~deb12u1[1]. You'll notice that there is a Debian version number attached to the Apache version number which means that the version number NMAP found doesn't necessarily mean software is unpatched. I've never used Iceblock or talked to this developer but I have no doubts he's dealing with beg bounties[2], harassment, and bad faith critique of his software which the screenshotted messages look like.
EDIT: For the sake of clarity, I think I should have phrased it the other way around. Bad faith messages look like the ones the author sent. I'm not discussing the actual intention of the messages but the pattern seeking brain's reception to them.
[1]: https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/source-package/a...
[2]: https://www.troyhunt.com/beg-bounties/
Either don't collect anything useful or at least host the server somewhere where a US warrent doesn't as easily work as cutting butter with a hot knife...
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...
The vulnerability couldn’t have been reported in a worse way. OP gave unreasonably short deadlines, allowed moral opinions about the software to interfere with responsible disclosure, and interspersed details about the potential vulnerability with inflamatory remarks about the mission of the product. I don't think OP's goal was actually to secure the app.
OP was going to publish a scathing blog post about ICEBlock either way, and essentially engineered a situation where the ICEBlock author had to act within unreasonable timelines. He published the original blog post an hour and a half after reporting the vulnerability. Then gave a week’s deadline before another one.
Sure, potentially the ICEBlock author also allowed feelings to interfere with upgrading the vulnerable version too.
But ICEBlock has millions of users, according to the blog post. I’m cautious about upgrading dependency versions for apps I manage with <100 internal users. In my experience, upgrades are 99% trivial, and 1% cause disastrous headaches and downtime. If I were the ICEBlock author, I would put this on a list of things to look into, and ensure that it was tested thoroughly if I did decide to upgrade. It’s not as simple as running “sudo apt upgrade”.
And I imagine that given the scale of the product, the author has incredible demands on his time, and can’t just drop everything because somebody (who has already shown themselves to be communicating rather negatively) imposes an arbitrary short deadline.
Now maybe it turns out that I’m unaware that ICEBlock is a huge net negative for the world, which is why this post has so many upvotes. But just interpreting the facts as they’re presented in the article, and substituting ICEBlock for TodoApp… I don’t see how the developer has acted unreasonably.
Post script: I followed up and read the original blog post (https://micahflee.com/unfortunately-the-iceblock-app-is-acti...), which I largely agree with. I still think Micah has mishandled communicating the vulnerability.
My employer rarely has that level of urgency, let alone a side project that is probably revenue negative!
This feels like a hit piece...
I've been burned in the long past when trying to be helpful to an activist. The accuracy of information provided was never a consideration.
Depends on context. When it's a knowledgeable user reporting the issue, you're right.
What I mostly encounter are for profit "security researchers" who try to profit on fear and/or misunderstanding.
Maybe I missed it, but was it ever established that these general vulnerabilities are actually relevant to this specific system/implementation?
I can't help but feel that the author's motivation was to get some sort of reaction, and now they've gotten it. If this vulnerability was so vital to be patched, why would it be bundled into a "by the way" DM on Twitter along with a post heavily criticizing the app developer? Both people involved can be idiots here.
https://micahflee.com/unfortunately-the-iceblock-app-is-acti...
World’s biggest clickbait title backfire?
I do agree with other people’s sentiment here: author is not wrong, but did not really do the most effective thing if their goal was actually to get the ICEBlock author to secure the app. If someone is going to act like a petulant child when confronted with evidence they need to fix something, they need to be treated like a child. And starting off the conversation as combative is going to make the child respond in kind.
Hopefully it doesn't end up doing more harm than good
Were I building something that I would want to assert the level of privacy claims that ICEBlock asserts, I would absolutely be taking any/all reports about security extremely seriously.
No comments yet
2.4.57 never made it into Debian stable, only went as far as testing and unstable.
2023-10-19 was when 2.4.57 was superseded by 2.4.58 in unstable.
So assuming they are not using RHEL or similar, they have either pinned Apache httpd, used a custom build, or haven't updated their server since the start of 2024.
- - -
Since then, there have been 11 moderate, 8 important security fixes according to Apache.
It’s also not wrong.
The app doesn’t seem designed to do what it claims to do. And the developer doesn’t seem interested in remedying that.
Worse, by hosting this on linode, they may be doing our corrupt DoJ and ICE’s work for them in identifying community organizers who could interfere with them down the road.
If you're running a service that handles sensitive user data and need a third party to tell you how to update your web server, you shouldn't be handling such data at all.
Personal data leaks from apps like this are only going to become more common (especially considering the rising popularity of "vibe coding") unless the people behind them are forced to take responsibility for their lack of security.