, 14 tweets, 3 min read
My Authors
Read all threads
When the Snowden spying scandal broke, I came up with a joke app idea: Patriot Chat would be a secure chat app that would encrypt all communications using peer to peer protocols, with a twist 1/
The twist was that it would also encrypt the messages with a set of trusted keys, from the NSA so the government could easily spy on you. 2/
The idea was to pitch this parody on Colbertian terms and pretending there was nothing wrong with it and it was your patriotic duty to use it. 3/
The joke evolved: I would franchise this and sell access not only to the NSA but to every agency interested, MI6, FSB, KGB, whoever hasn’t money could buy it - after all, we are keeping citizens safe. 4/
To succeed on the marketplace I figured a collaboration with the US government was worth it: use the app, earn points, exchange for goods like less groping at airports, license renewal, TSA pre and so on. 5/
Of course to earn more points you could allow Patriot Chat to upload all your pictures, address book, consent to location tracking and so on. More points, more services. 6/
Everyone knows that there is nothing more patriotic in America than using your hard earned dollars to buy stuff. And nothing more patriotic than purchasing Patriot Points - as in-app purchases of course. A classic win-win 7/
I kept telling this joke to people and enjoyed it. Until one day I had a chance to actually perform my joke on stage: I could build the app as an excuse to show our technology at the Microsoft Build Conference (in 2015)
So we went and built this app. Until Nat got cold feet: would it be appropriate to make a political statement with Patriot Chat at our partner conference? Sounded like a bad idea. N/
We had already started and I loved the flow of the talk. Didn’t want to give it up. So we settled on rebranding the app. It was called “Kinder Chat” - parents played the role of the NSA and kids were the citizens. 10/
We showcased assorted Xamarin capabilities, and I did the neutered joke with @JamesMontemagno on stage at Build. If you squinted just right you could see references to PatriotChat in the code 11/
We open sourced the code, and left a few hints about its origin in the docs and app: github.com/xamarin/Kinder… 12/
You can watch the session, some surveillance jokes survived channel9.msdn.com/events/Build/2… 13/
Sadly, after the talk, this surreal idea became real in China- track citizens behavior via points, and give or take benefits based on it. What started as a rumor became the norm. 14/
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh.

Enjoying this thread?

Keep Current with Miguel de Icaza

Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just three indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!