5 ms·

This sort of "unintended consequence of over precision" has happened a few times... I remember a while back a dating app (I think?) was returning the distance b

This sort of "unintended consequence of over precision" has happened a few times... I remember a while back a dating app (I think?) was returning the distance between the two people with a ridiculous amount of precision, which allowed people to triangulate where someone was with three phones

Terr_ 6y ago
Aye, with Tinder, but no extra-devices or actual travel was needed: https://blog.includesecurity.com/2014/02/how-i-was-able-to-track-location-of-any.html https://blog.includesecurity.com/2014/02/how-i-was-able-to-t...
- cortesoft 6y ago
  Oh right, they just used the API.
cyral 6y ago
Here’s an article about how Tinder fixed it: https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/09/how-tinder-keeps-your-location-a-bit-private/ https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/09/how-tinder-keeps-your-lo...
- cortesoft 6y ago
  Oh man, I forgot they originally sent the actual location. I still can’t believe how many developers think you can trust the client.
pishpash 6y ago
Is "cutting the queue" (what this is) an unintended consequence of having a queue? It's perfectly normal behavior. Maybe it gets resolved socially, or the solution could involve tracking whether the follow-up movement happened as assumed (the real hidden assumption). Making a buffer and reducing precision doesn't solve anything actually, it makes it socially more difficult, but it's really a hack, as was choosing the closest physical phone whether a warm body was attached or not.
- cortesoft 6y ago
  I think if they randomly select someone with a range, it would make it not as important to try to be physically closer. It wouldn't stop all gaming of the system, but it would be a start.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    You'd want to tweak it so you were picking the person in range who went the longest without a gig rather than a naive random pick. Lot more encouraging for the workers vs watching the guy who just got a gig receive yet another before them.
badwolf 6y ago
Someone even made a triangulation app to pinpoint other users of Grindr.

Terr_ 6y ago

Aye, with Tinder, but no extra-devices or actual travel was needed: https://blog.includesecurity.com/2014/02/how-i-was-able-to-track-location-of-any.html https://blog.includesecurity.com/2014/02/how-i-was-able-to-t...

cortesoft 6y ago
Oh right, they just used the API.

cyral 6y ago

Here’s an article about how Tinder fixed it: https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/09/how-tinder-keeps-your-location-a-bit-private/ https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/09/how-tinder-keeps-your-lo...

cortesoft 6y ago
Oh man, I forgot they originally sent the actual location. I still can’t believe how many developers think you can trust the client.

pishpash 6y ago

Is "cutting the queue" (what this is) an unintended consequence of having a queue? It's perfectly normal behavior. Maybe it gets resolved socially, or the solution could involve tracking whether the follow-up movement happened as assumed (the real hidden assumption). Making a buffer and reducing precision doesn't solve anything actually, it makes it socially more difficult, but it's really a hack, as was choosing the closest physical phone whether a warm body was attached or not.

cortesoft 6y ago
I think if they randomly select someone with a range, it would make it not as important to try to be physically closer. It wouldn't stop all gaming of the system, but it would be a start.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  You'd want to tweak it so you were picking the person in range who went the longest without a gig rather than a naive random pick. Lot more encouraging for the workers vs watching the guy who just got a gig receive yet another before them.

badwolf 6y ago

Someone even made a triangulation app to pinpoint other users of Grindr.