8 ms·

This reminds me of how I hacked twitter 10+ years ago to get free SMS delivery for a web app I built. Before Twilio, custom SMS notification delivery was hard a

This reminds me of how I hacked twitter 10+ years ago to get free SMS delivery for a web app I built. Before Twilio, custom SMS notification delivery was hard and expensive. At the time, twitter allowed you to receive SMS notifications of tweets posted to a followed account. I created a private account and used twitter's API to post tweets to with the notification content I wanted to send. I then had "dummy" accounts follow the "notification" account. These dummy accounts had recipient phone numbers with SMS notifications turned on. The flow was: Web App -> Twitter API -> Tweet from "notification" account -> followers received SMS notifications. Free SMS delivery! It was clunky and SMS notifications looked like they came from twitter (they did) but it solved my use case perfectly.

zamfi 6y ago
Hah! I did something quite similar back in the day for text message notifications of server downtime. The problem was that sometimes Twitter's messages were delayed by hours...
- bnt 6y ago
  Does anyone remember the drama of failwhale and their Rails issues? Those were the times!
  - ChrisArchitect 6y ago
    was thinking about the failwhale a few weeks back when github went down and was throwing angry pink unicorns. Different, pre-coronavirus times.
  - rhizome 6y ago
    You mean when Michael Arrington used his popular meda outlet to assassinate Blaine Cook's job and reputation? https://techcrunch.com/2008/04/23/amateur-hour-over-at-twitter/ https://techcrunch.com/2008/04/23/amateur-hour-over-at-twitt...
    - rhizome 6y ago
      Heck, if you use Twitter a lot you've probably seen the return of the failwhale over the past several months: https://imgur.com/a/p6mYfIw https://imgur.com/a/p6mYfIw
eigen-vector 6y ago
If the phone numbers were of your users you were presumably unauthorized to sign up for a different service using those. That is sketchy.
- seancoleman 6y ago
  This was an internal app so all users were known and gave authorization, but I hear your concern.
ilikehurdles 6y ago
Twitter used to be a wonderful platform to hack on. I feel like the early days of developer and poweruser friendliness helped keep the platform from dying in some niche microblogging category.
- djsumdog 6y ago
  It was originally a base for which people made all kinds of neat things like TwitPic. But then Twitter started integrating everything and competing with all the people who made them great; sometimes even suing them. I started using Twitter via SMS and before the age of modern smart phones (I was on my Palm Treo. The girl in the cube behind me just got an EDGE eyePhone) and for all my university friends, we used it as a big SMS-based group chat room. It was kinda fun, the total opposite of what Twitter is today. If you want to hack on platforms and build tooling around them, I suggest people look at ActivityPub implementations: Pleroma, Mastodon, Misskey, Pixelfed and others. ActiviyPub is really where a lot of the neat federated social networking stuff is happening, and having more devs hacking on it and making more implementations can help keep it diverse and falling into the state where modern E-mail is.
  - schnevets 6y ago
    I have similar memories from college. It's weird to think that API Craze was an apex for hacking culture, but things haven't felt as exciting since. Or maybe I'm just reflecting on a younger period with nostalgia and have lost touch. Maybe those Instagram stickers and TikToks are equally as hackworthy as the things we spun up in the ol' days.
    - wolco 6y ago
      They seem like our older geocities pages or myspace profiles or tublr blogs but used by more and offering less but expecting less effort to create.
    - arkh 6y ago
      The experience of people getting their business fucked by platforms when they get traction mean that less people will try it again with those new ones.
scandox 6y ago
I used Clickatell for years before Twilio and it really wasn't hard or mad expensive.
w1 6y ago
Lol I may or may not currently be using a Twitter account and cron to broadcast any changes to my (non-static) home ip address, encrypted, so I can ssh into my workstation when I'm on vacation.
- thirtyseven 6y ago
  Are dynamic DNS services no longer a thing?
  - w1 6y ago
    It looks like they are, thanks! This is just what I could hack together before I went on Christmas break a couple years back lol.
    - ThePowerOfFuet 6y ago
      They've been around for well over a decade.
    - pkaye 6y ago
      Some home routers even have a feature to keep your IP address updated with the DDNS service.
  - amatecha 6y ago
    Yep, free dynamic DNS still exists, for example NoIP https://www.noip.com/ https://www.noip.com/ However, you have to refresh it each month by filling out a "I'm still using it" web form they email you. So, you can't just set it & forget it.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - traden210 6y ago
      I use Namecheap, but other providers offer it as well: free dyndns service with a domain - no monthly checkin required.
peterburkimsher 6y ago
I did a similar thing with Google Calendar! Sadly they shut down their SMS notifications in November 2018.
- rrdharan 6y ago
  “Sadly” https://usa.kaspersky.com/blog/spam-through-google-services/17799/ https://usa.kaspersky.com/blog/spam-through-google-services/...
davchana 6y ago
I too did almost similar. A filter in GMail labeled some important incoming mails based on my criteria. My Google App Script checked for this lable every 4 hours, & if found, extracts some info, & post it as a tweet to a private account. The followed account gets a SMS notification
redis_mlc 6y ago
Since Twilio was mentioned for commercial SMS, lets give a shout-out to Plivo too: https://www.plivo.com/ https://www.plivo.com/
Lendal 6y ago
I originally created a Twitter account back in 2007 for this same reason. To this day it's still my only account. Having great insight and vision, I could foresee no usefulness or future for "social media", except as a way to send free SMS messages, and only Twitter had that.
harikb 6y ago
Was this your own personal setup or part of some product? Because you would have had problem if end user really had a real Twitter account with the same number. right?
cluoma 6y ago
Back then most Canadian cell providers used to (maybe still do) forward SMS from emails sent to a special address that was basically just <phone number>@telus/bell/whatever.ca. They would do the opposite to, as SMS replies would get send back as an email. I used to SMS friends from my email client and later my iPod touch using email.

zamfi 6y ago

Hah! I did something quite similar back in the day for text message notifications of server downtime. The problem was that sometimes Twitter's messages were delayed by hours...

bnt 6y ago
Does anyone remember the drama of failwhale and their Rails issues? Those were the times!
- ChrisArchitect 6y ago
  was thinking about the failwhale a few weeks back when github went down and was throwing angry pink unicorns. Different, pre-coronavirus times.
- rhizome 6y ago
  You mean when Michael Arrington used his popular meda outlet to assassinate Blaine Cook's job and reputation? https://techcrunch.com/2008/04/23/amateur-hour-over-at-twitter/ https://techcrunch.com/2008/04/23/amateur-hour-over-at-twitt...
  - rhizome 6y ago
    Heck, if you use Twitter a lot you've probably seen the return of the failwhale over the past several months: https://imgur.com/a/p6mYfIw https://imgur.com/a/p6mYfIw

eigen-vector 6y ago

If the phone numbers were of your users you were presumably unauthorized to sign up for a different service using those. That is sketchy.

seancoleman 6y ago
This was an internal app so all users were known and gave authorization, but I hear your concern.

ilikehurdles 6y ago

Twitter used to be a wonderful platform to hack on. I feel like the early days of developer and poweruser friendliness helped keep the platform from dying in some niche microblogging category.

djsumdog 6y ago
It was originally a base for which people made all kinds of neat things like TwitPic. But then Twitter started integrating everything and competing with all the people who made them great; sometimes even suing them. I started using Twitter via SMS and before the age of modern smart phones (I was on my Palm Treo. The girl in the cube behind me just got an EDGE eyePhone) and for all my university friends, we used it as a big SMS-based group chat room. It was kinda fun, the total opposite of what Twitter is today. If you want to hack on platforms and build tooling around them, I suggest people look at ActivityPub implementations: Pleroma, Mastodon, Misskey, Pixelfed and others. ActiviyPub is really where a lot of the neat federated social networking stuff is happening, and having more devs hacking on it and making more implementations can help keep it diverse and falling into the state where modern E-mail is.
- schnevets 6y ago
  I have similar memories from college. It's weird to think that API Craze was an apex for hacking culture, but things haven't felt as exciting since. Or maybe I'm just reflecting on a younger period with nostalgia and have lost touch. Maybe those Instagram stickers and TikToks are equally as hackworthy as the things we spun up in the ol' days.
  - wolco 6y ago
    They seem like our older geocities pages or myspace profiles or tublr blogs but used by more and offering less but expecting less effort to create.
  - arkh 6y ago
    The experience of people getting their business fucked by platforms when they get traction mean that less people will try it again with those new ones.

scandox 6y ago

I used Clickatell for years before Twilio and it really wasn't hard or mad expensive.

w1 6y ago

Lol I may or may not currently be using a Twitter account and cron to broadcast any changes to my (non-static) home ip address, encrypted, so I can ssh into my workstation when I'm on vacation.

thirtyseven 6y ago
Are dynamic DNS services no longer a thing?
- w1 6y ago
  It looks like they are, thanks! This is just what I could hack together before I went on Christmas break a couple years back lol.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 6y ago
    They've been around for well over a decade.
  - pkaye 6y ago
    Some home routers even have a feature to keep your IP address updated with the DDNS service.
- amatecha 6y ago
  Yep, free dynamic DNS still exists, for example NoIP https://www.noip.com/ https://www.noip.com/ However, you have to refresh it each month by filling out a "I'm still using it" web form they email you. So, you can't just set it & forget it.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - traden210 6y ago
    I use Namecheap, but other providers offer it as well: free dyndns service with a domain - no monthly checkin required.

peterburkimsher 6y ago

I did a similar thing with Google Calendar! Sadly they shut down their SMS notifications in November 2018.

rrdharan 6y ago
“Sadly” https://usa.kaspersky.com/blog/spam-through-google-services/17799/ https://usa.kaspersky.com/blog/spam-through-google-services/...

davchana 6y ago

I too did almost similar. A filter in GMail labeled some important incoming mails based on my criteria. My Google App Script checked for this lable every 4 hours, & if found, extracts some info, & post it as a tweet to a private account. The followed account gets a SMS notification

redis_mlc 6y ago

Since Twilio was mentioned for commercial SMS, lets give a shout-out to Plivo too: https://www.plivo.com/ https://www.plivo.com/

Lendal 6y ago

I originally created a Twitter account back in 2007 for this same reason. To this day it's still my only account. Having great insight and vision, I could foresee no usefulness or future for "social media", except as a way to send free SMS messages, and only Twitter had that.

harikb 6y ago

Was this your own personal setup or part of some product? Because you would have had problem if end user really had a real Twitter account with the same number. right?

cluoma 6y ago

Back then most Canadian cell providers used to (maybe still do) forward SMS from emails sent to a special address that was basically just <phone number>@telus/bell/whatever.ca. They would do the opposite to, as SMS replies would get send back as an email. I used to SMS friends from my email client and later my iPod touch using email.