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New website lets anyone spy on Tinder users
- danso 11y agoWait, Tinder has a public API? Damn it, whenever I have to teach students what a public API is, I use Tinder as an example of a service that does not provide an API and the resulting hoops a programmer has to jump through in order to programmatically use the service: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgnxb-O-CBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgnxb-O-CBQ
- yolesaber 11y agoI know that's a joke but it fails when you match someone. It's much easier to run it on an Android and just use adb shell to simulate taps on an area. iOS devices take a bit more effort but still doable.
- nemothekid 11y agoI tried googling, but AFAIK, Tinder doesn't have an official API. Everything I've seen is undocumented calls to their private API.
- Others 11y agoFrom the article: > But [the app] doesn’t do so by hacking into Tinder, or even by “scraping” the app manually. Instead, it searches the database using Tinder’s official API, which is intended for use by third-party developers who want to write software that plugs in with the site. All the information that it can reveal is considered public by the company, and revealed through the API with few safeguards.
- archgoon 11y agoYes; that is the line that danso noticed. However, nemothekid tried to verify it and was unsuccessful in finding any documentation for this presumbably publically available API. A github gist is the top google result for 'Tinder API documentation' https://gist.github.com/rtt/10403467 https://gist.github.com/rtt/10403467 which suggests that Tinder does not provide a public official API, people have simply reverse engineered the network requests of the application. In short, the article is wrong.
- danso 11y agoThanks for doing the Googling for me...should have assumed that the reported article and/or the people behind the app would be unreliable sources...any company of Tinder's size that puts the effort into making a public API would make relatively decent documentation that would show up in a cursory Google search result. Also part of the lesson on "What is an API?": the concept that some companies do not have an incentive to make an API...and Tinder, for many good reasons, is one of those.
- roywiggins 11y agoAnd worse, it is just regurgitating the Vanity Fair article, which has the same claim about a public API and is just as wrong. Great "journalism" there!
- barsonme 11y agoI'm curious if anybody else has links to documentation for other non-public APIs. It's interesting to see how companies structure their APIs, and public APIs usually seem to be much different from private.
- MasterScrat 11y ago> But it doesn’t do so by hacking into Tinder, or even by “scraping” the app manually. So it does scrapes everything manually. I am familiar with their non-public API, and there isn't any other way to find someone specific. You just have to swipe non-stop until you find them.
- kevindeasis 11y agowireshark
- personjerry 11y agoWith Wireshark, anything has an API! Except subject to change and breaking your code.
- saurik 11y agoDoing so also breaks the actual app, though. In my experience, the private network API for a service with a client application is often more stable than the public one.
- joshfraser 11y agoEspecially if they don't want to break outdated versions of their app for users who haven't upgraded in a while.
- mschuster91 11y ago> With Wireshark, anything has an API! Except if the app is using HTTPS with strict certificate pinning to connect to the API, which anyone should do. Android apps still can be modified to ignore invalid certs, but with iOS it's harder.
- tibbon 11y agoCert pinning is not foolproof and can absolutely be broken past.
- joshkpeterson 11y agoGreat reason to use a throwaway fb account with tinder.
- ldom22 11y agothe cheating / jealousy market is a huge one. People with money that are insecure or suspicious may spend billions each year in private investigators, spy apps, etc. This page may be already making a killng, specially with all the free publicity from the medias that featured it
- leesalminen 11y agoSurely though "we" have nothing to hide!
- roywiggins 11y agoPublishing your name and photo on Tinder isn't exactly hiding in the first place. You are putting it out there for any stranger at all to see.
- UweSchmidt 11y agoOf course, the expectation would not be "for any stranger at all to do systematic and statistical analysis". Similarly how most people don't mind stepping out of the house and being seen by strangers, yet reserving various notions of privacy.
- bechampion 11y agoWasn't there a way to get this querying facebook not so long ago? https://inteltechniques.com/intel/osint/facebook.html https://inteltechniques.com/intel/osint/facebook.html , i remember there was an option here..
- jamstruth 11y ago"I wanted to make a statement about privacy" - Charges $5 to search a "public" database. No. You wanted to make money. Get off your high horse.
- cthor 11y agoBusinesses can be simultaneously profit seeking and for the public good. In fact, that is the ideal. It's concerning that many feel this is not the case.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoBecause there's a conflict of interest there - making money can, and often leads to business ending up harming the public to maintain/increase its profits. Personally, I'm fine with businesses doing work for the good of the public. They should be transparent about it though.
- jamstruth 11y agoIn this case though the statement about "privacy" is seriously marred by the marketing of the product as "Hey, find out if your partner is cheating" rather than going "Hey, see how much we could find out from some vague details?"
- wodenokoto 11y agothe article says tinder has an api for 3rd party apps and services. I completely fail to see the purpose of this. what makes tinder tinder is it restricted usability. there's no search and no rewind.