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It's sad that nowadays people do whatever they can to get attention and one of the best ways is to capitalize on other people's misfortunes. I just read throug
by cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
It's sad that nowadays people do whatever they can to get attention and one of the best ways is to capitalize on other people's misfortunes.
I just read through the original Medium post, and I can't really sympathize with any of you guys in this thread saying WeWork is the evil.
This guy hacked into their private API (legal or not doesn't matter), and used that information to write a blog post, and at the bottom writes:
"About Thinknum Thinknum indexes alternative web data for thousands of companies, capturing relevant information for financial analysts to use in their investment process. Thinknum has hundreds of institutional clients across hedge funds, investment banks and corporations."
Basically here's how I see it: this guy wanted attention, so betrayed their business partner (WeWork) and used the private information to get traffic to his product. I can't imagine myself ever doing something like this. What did WeWork do to this guy that harmed him? Every company has difficult times. I'm sure WeWork guys wanted nothing more than to build an organization that helps these little guys, but if I were in their position I would feel extremely sad. They don't deserve to be thrown under the bus by someone they're in partnership with, whom they did nothing bad to.
- angryasian 10y ago> hacked into their private API an unpublished api is not the same thing. I think there needs to be more clarification on this, but if its just an unpublished api they've done nothing wrong.
- minimaxir 10y ago> its just an unpublished api they've done nothing wrong. Not correct. A published, documented API comes with instructions on how the API can use used, and how the data can be used. Do not assume that an unpublished/undocumented API is the same, especially when republishing the data.
- angryasian 10y ago>A published, documented API comes with instructions on how the API Agree and since it was undocumented there more than likely were no terms as to how it should be used.
- cocktailpeanuts 10y agoJust because there's no law, doesn't mean it's "nothing wrong", this is what annoys me about many people's sentiment here. Do you think if your friend who pretends to be all friendly with you in front of you went behind your back and talked behind your back for his own profit, you will still say "oh he did nothing wrong, there's nothing in the law that says you can't talk behind friend's back."?
- angryasian 10y agoYour friends example makes 0 sense in this context. Weworks had an api. They didn't document and obviously didn't do enough to protect it nor monitor it for unauthorized usage. So someone used it for whatever they wanted to.
- cocktailpeanuts 10y agoI don't know if you understand my point but just want to argue for the sake of winning over a conversation, or if you don't even agree with my point to begin with. My point is, doing whatever you can just because you can is not always the right thing regardless of its legality. It is an asshole behavior on my book to betray someone's trust regardless of whether it's legally ok to do so or not. An asshole is an asshole. Feel free to defend that asshole if you want. I'm just not on that boat. I have tons of other analogy I would like to use but you'll probably try to make counter arguments about those little expressions instead of the real point so I will stop here.
- angryasian 10y agoI think the better analogy for this is like having a secret document on your desk and hoping no one walks in and reads it. Is it in good taste to share it with people, obviously no. Did they do anything wrong, no.
- cocktailpeanuts 10y agoIn my book, doing something of bad taste counts as wrong. I have no idea what kind of definition you're trying to use for "wrong". If you really think walking into someone's room and taking a secret document on their desk without their permission and publicizing it to fuck them up so you can gain profit from it is NOT wrong, I have nothing more to say.
- gaius 10y agoThis guy hacked into their private API This is called "growth hacking".
- cocktailpeanuts 10y agoyuck!
- ugwigr 10y agoI am a cofounder of @Thinknum. Based on what evidence did you come to the conclusion that we hacked into an API? We did not hack into any private API. We had access to the API.
- minimaxir 10y agoHaving access to the API does not mean that it is public, and that you have permission to do whatever you want with it.
- ugwigr 10y agoHaving permission to use the API means we did not hack into the API - that is what I claimed. I never claimed that meant we had permission to do 'whatever' we want with it.