5 ms·
It's me who reverse engineer the Instagram app, demo the unreleased features, and then tweet about it, in which is then picked up by Constine as per usual: htt
by wongmjane 7y ago
It's me who reverse engineer the Instagram app, demo the unreleased features, and then tweet about it, in which is then picked up by Constine as per usual:
https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1118970853654290432 https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1118970853654290432
No employees told me anything about it before and after the tweet
Though it's unsure if Instagram purposely planted this to get me tweet about it (because that description sounds like a prepared statement) ;)
- filleokus 7y agoDo you have any write ups on how you find unreleased features like this? Are you looking at the binary or the network traffic? Cool findings anyways!
- ai_ia 7y agoYeah. I follow you on twitter. Can you write a blog post about your workflow? That would be an interesting read.
- danesparza 7y ago"Though it's unsure if Instagram purposely planted this to get me tweet about it" I suppose it's game-over if Instagram is that good at inception. :-)
- dibujaron 7y agoOoh, I don't know. If they regularly see people dig through their code and then tweet about what they find, planting things in the code sounds like a great way to "soft announce" features to gauge reaction. That way if they decide not to go forward, they don't lose face, it was just some unannounced feature that they were considering.
- r00fus 7y agoIt’s not like this sort of thing hasn’t been done in the Apple rumors ecosystem for a long time...
- geuszb 7y agoBig companies know that every one of their binaries gets torn apart by people eager for a scoop and have exploited this in the past. See for example https://www.androidpolice.com/2014/08/06/google-just-rickrolled-me-via-an-apk-teardown-and-im-not-even-mad/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2014/08/06/google-just-rickrol... (though this one was for a laugh)
- reshie 7y agohappens more than you may think. as for instagram doing it here i don't know either.
- hart_russell 7y agoNice job Jane!
- mindgam3 7y agoInteresting! I have no reason to doubt your intentions or that you are working independently. That said, if you have a history of finding these and getting picked up by news, it's certainly possible that Facebook could be using your reverse engineering skills as a way to leak things. I know how cynical that sounds, but I've seen too much from disinformation from Facebook execs to take anything from them remotely at face value, no pun intended. Anyway, there's no way to prove it, just speculation based on a feeling I had.
- wongmjane 7y agoI actually ignore unreleased features about ads because it's not something I personally find exciting
- mindgam3 7y agoI can't argue with that. Plus it might make people question your "Not Facebook Employee" twitter tagline. Speaking of which, I saw a tweet that you're interviewing at Facebook this week. Is that true? Not that I would ever begrudge someone from trying to make it big in tech, but dang, I would hope someone with your skills would find an opportunity working for the resistance rather than the occupiers :-)
- wongmjane 7y agoI included "Not Facebook Employee" because too many people told me to not roll out this and that feature, ask me to give them verified badges and tech support Yes, I am interviewing with Facebook. It's true. It'd be my first time actually stepping into the tech industry