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I hate that all of these apps (Grindr and similar) appear to take security and privacy secondary... which is just insane given the market they are serving. Sex

I hate that all of these apps (Grindr and similar) appear to take security and privacy secondary... which is just insane given the market they are serving. Sex is still considered taboo in many parts of the world and some parts of the US. Now this, we have them using the Facebook API and them knowing every time I open the app (or did). I have made every choice I can to reduce the privacy invasion that these companies engage in, but there are simply no alternatives for this one. I would be very surprised to find out that Scruff is actually any better. The web based ones are likely far far worse. I hate that this has become normal so much.

aaomidi 5y ago
Eventually EU is going to ban data warehousing for any purpose other than storing and giving it back to the user. And honestly, I think it's necessary.
- perfunctory 5y ago
  Why do you think the EU will do it?
  - dspillett 5y ago
    They are the closest to doing it than anywhere else at least, and still edging in the direction of greater regulation not less or on a plateau.
  - OkayPhysicist 5y ago
    Probably because they're the jurisdiction that's taking user privacy rights the most seriously so far, with enough market share to leverage their demands.
  - baisq 5y ago
    They don’t have a tech industry so they have nothing to lose from it.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    Because most of that kind of industry is US based, and they earn money from EU users, so on one hand, you seem to be working "for the people", on the other hand, you fuck the americans :)
  - raxxorraxor 5y ago
    The EU doesn't everything right in the digital sphere but at least some parts of it understand the importance of privacy. Of course there is an opposition that believes this hinders digital development in Europe, which is quite slow or nonexistent, but that is also often caused by said opposition itself instead of privacy laws. Because the few digital experts need all their energy in fighting their ideas and corruption.
- doliveira 5y ago
  I really hope so. Maybe this will yield better privacy-preserving schemes for data analysis and recommendation engines. Necessity is the mother of invention (or whatever the equivalent idiom is in English). I think I'm hardly making an original argument, but a big problem is binding Compute and Data, so companies have an incentive to hoard as much data as possible and keep it hostage. Feels like deep down that's the whole valuation of Silicon Valley
  - aaomidi 5y ago
    I worked on Prio, now divvi up by ISRG. I don't even think that was really the best solution out there, but certainly better than the status quo. Honestly I should look to see if there's places that are working on privacy preserving metrics systems and apply.
    - doliveira 5y ago
      Didn't know Prio, seems like an interesting approach. I also would like to work with these problems someday. As a layman, I'd love to see something like fully homomorphic encryption taking over. But in the end, IMHO what really needs to happen is to enable full data ownership. The semantic web, there was also another project by Tim Berners Lee...
firephonestival 5y ago
If you are a startup, you cannot create a popular app in a crowded marketplace by being scrupulous about best practices. Match owns almost all of the dating-app market, and they have extremely deep pockets to buy/extinguish competition with. Because of the consolidated nature of the market, and the winner-takes-all nature of the industry, I really believe that it is impossible for a new entry to gain popularity and focus on hard problems like security. This is fundamentally a problem with capital allocation and incentives. There's not much that a small team can do about it.
- nerdjon 5y ago
  Maybe for security (however that being second for any app is a serious issue). But this is a conscious choice. A small team should not need to make the decision to do something like this. Also Grindr or Scruff isn't exactly small and have a fairly devoted base that doesn't end just because they get into a relationship.
  - madamelic 5y ago
    Users kinda suck and hate to pull out their wallets if they don't have to. Dating apps also suck at giving compelling reasons to pay them unless the app is purposefully made worse so they can sell the functionality back.
    - nerdjon 5y ago
      How much of that is because they have been conditioned that things should be free though? We have 10+ years of Google, Facebook, and others handing out major tools and functionality for free because of the privacy invasion. I have to wonder how things would have looked had that not become the norm. As far as being purposefully made worse, yeah both apps do that. Grindr charges $100, Scruff charges $120 a year. Considering how popular both apps are I have to assume they are pulling in quite a bit of money.
  - aerostable_slug 5y ago
    > have a fairly devoted base that doesn't end just because they get into a relationship. At least in the US, one might imagine this is more important to users than hiding their sexual preference.
tomc1985 5y ago
There's a few other sites that are good for hookups, but I wouldn't trust any apps. Sniffies and A4A are the ones I know of
- nerdjon 5y ago
  I don't imagine sniffies, a4a, MH, bbrts (for anyone reading, please don't look these up while at work... or at least not on a work computer... these are all Gay hookup sites) is any better. Particularly the first one when it comes to location data considering it just legit shows a map if people. I really don't trust any of them (App or Website), enough so I have seriously contemplated getting an iPod touch or something and tethering anytime I want to use them. But I have not quite gone that far yet. There are certain conveniences the apps get you.
  - tomc1985 5y ago
    There's less data tying you to your identity with the web apps, and you can use an adblocker to reduce your profile even further. The location data is troubling but I've seen at least one of those randomize the pin slightly each time it updates your location, though in a circle radius so I guess you could triangulate it by staring at the pin a bunch.
    - nerdjon 5y ago
      I am not entirely sure I by there being less data. I don't allow Grindr or Scruff access to anything on my phone. Even for photos I use the iOS feature to limit what photos they can see. The only real difference between the... accepted profile structure. Grindr and Scruff tend to be face...ish pictures vs Sniffles that is... not. Facebook and Google have become very good at tracking you across the web. Sniffles has ads (admittedly all of them are to sign up for premium but I don't know how those ads are served... I have not looked). So add in google fonts or some other tracking mechanism and suddenly you have a ton of data to tie someone too a website that is meant to be anon. (more or less, I know its not quite that simple but I don't think being on the web makes it necessarily any better)
GekkePrutser 5y ago
> Sex is still considered taboo in many parts of the world and some parts of the US. Gay sex is still illegal in 71 countries in the world. Many of them still have the death penalty https://76crimes.com/76-countries-where-homosexuality-is-illegal/ https://76crimes.com/76-countries-where-homosexuality-is-ill... It's extremely sad how homosexuality is criminalised in such a large part of the world and it makes leaks of Grindr even more dangerous than just for the prospect of blackmail or just exposure.
- VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
  > It's extremely sad how love is criminalised First of all, we need to stop characterizing it as some kind _emotional_ thing like "love". It is not an emotional thing. It's a real thing.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    I think there's nothing more profound than love in the human condition to be honest. I don't think it's not real at all. It is probably the strongest driving force in human behaviour. I didn't mean to downplay the significance. But I changed my comment as it was not my intention to offend. On the contrary. Just saying "homosexuality" sounds distant and clinical so I said love to make it feel more real. Because really that's what it's about isn't it? For me love is what makes a relationship real. One based on just sex isn't, at least not to me. Why would something emotional not be real? Sexual attraction is a big part of love but I think the term goes much further than that.
    - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
      I wasn't intending for you to change anything in your comment at all! It was very thoughtful and well-articulated and I really didn't have anything else to offer. I just always zoom in on the "love" keyword when talking about gays. It's just not a keyword term to use anymore.
      - GekkePrutser 5y ago
chimeracoder 5y ago
> I hate that all of these apps (Grindr and similar) appear to take security and privacy secondary.... I would be very surprised to find out that Scruff is actually any better. The average case is quite bad, but I wouldnt generalize it to quite every app. Scruff, for example, does take privacy seriously - both in rhetoric and in their user-visible design decisions. That's not to say there might not be vulnerabilities (which could be said about any company or service), but they don't treat it as a secondary priority. Grindr, on the other hand, is actively malicious with how aggressively it sells and/or exposes user data willfully.
- nerdjon 5y ago
  Maybe I am just jaded by Grindr (and even non hookup apps) at this point. But I just take Scruff's words with a grain of salt at this point. There is so much that they can do server side that we can't block. A big part of me thinks it is just inevitable until something like this comes out about Scruff. I don't want to think that... but we have been burned way too many times by apps. Look at what came out about several mental health apps a few days ago.

aaomidi 5y ago

Eventually EU is going to ban data warehousing for any purpose other than storing and giving it back to the user. And honestly, I think it's necessary.

perfunctory 5y ago
Why do you think the EU will do it?
- dspillett 5y ago
  They are the closest to doing it than anywhere else at least, and still edging in the direction of greater regulation not less or on a plateau.
- OkayPhysicist 5y ago
  Probably because they're the jurisdiction that's taking user privacy rights the most seriously so far, with enough market share to leverage their demands.
- baisq 5y ago
  They don’t have a tech industry so they have nothing to lose from it.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Because most of that kind of industry is US based, and they earn money from EU users, so on one hand, you seem to be working "for the people", on the other hand, you fuck the americans :)
- raxxorraxor 5y ago
  The EU doesn't everything right in the digital sphere but at least some parts of it understand the importance of privacy. Of course there is an opposition that believes this hinders digital development in Europe, which is quite slow or nonexistent, but that is also often caused by said opposition itself instead of privacy laws. Because the few digital experts need all their energy in fighting their ideas and corruption.
doliveira 5y ago
I really hope so. Maybe this will yield better privacy-preserving schemes for data analysis and recommendation engines. Necessity is the mother of invention (or whatever the equivalent idiom is in English). I think I'm hardly making an original argument, but a big problem is binding Compute and Data, so companies have an incentive to hoard as much data as possible and keep it hostage. Feels like deep down that's the whole valuation of Silicon Valley
- aaomidi 5y ago
  I worked on Prio, now divvi up by ISRG. I don't even think that was really the best solution out there, but certainly better than the status quo. Honestly I should look to see if there's places that are working on privacy preserving metrics systems and apply.
  - doliveira 5y ago
    Didn't know Prio, seems like an interesting approach. I also would like to work with these problems someday. As a layman, I'd love to see something like fully homomorphic encryption taking over. But in the end, IMHO what really needs to happen is to enable full data ownership. The semantic web, there was also another project by Tim Berners Lee...

firephonestival 5y ago

If you are a startup, you cannot create a popular app in a crowded marketplace by being scrupulous about best practices. Match owns almost all of the dating-app market, and they have extremely deep pockets to buy/extinguish competition with. Because of the consolidated nature of the market, and the winner-takes-all nature of the industry, I really believe that it is impossible for a new entry to gain popularity and focus on hard problems like security. This is fundamentally a problem with capital allocation and incentives. There's not much that a small team can do about it.

nerdjon 5y ago
Maybe for security (however that being second for any app is a serious issue). But this is a conscious choice. A small team should not need to make the decision to do something like this. Also Grindr or Scruff isn't exactly small and have a fairly devoted base that doesn't end just because they get into a relationship.
- madamelic 5y ago
  Users kinda suck and hate to pull out their wallets if they don't have to. Dating apps also suck at giving compelling reasons to pay them unless the app is purposefully made worse so they can sell the functionality back.
  - nerdjon 5y ago
    How much of that is because they have been conditioned that things should be free though? We have 10+ years of Google, Facebook, and others handing out major tools and functionality for free because of the privacy invasion. I have to wonder how things would have looked had that not become the norm. As far as being purposefully made worse, yeah both apps do that. Grindr charges $100, Scruff charges $120 a year. Considering how popular both apps are I have to assume they are pulling in quite a bit of money.
- aerostable_slug 5y ago
  > have a fairly devoted base that doesn't end just because they get into a relationship. At least in the US, one might imagine this is more important to users than hiding their sexual preference.

tomc1985 5y ago

There's a few other sites that are good for hookups, but I wouldn't trust any apps. Sniffies and A4A are the ones I know of

nerdjon 5y ago
I don't imagine sniffies, a4a, MH, bbrts (for anyone reading, please don't look these up while at work... or at least not on a work computer... these are all Gay hookup sites) is any better. Particularly the first one when it comes to location data considering it just legit shows a map if people. I really don't trust any of them (App or Website), enough so I have seriously contemplated getting an iPod touch or something and tethering anytime I want to use them. But I have not quite gone that far yet. There are certain conveniences the apps get you.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  There's less data tying you to your identity with the web apps, and you can use an adblocker to reduce your profile even further. The location data is troubling but I've seen at least one of those randomize the pin slightly each time it updates your location, though in a circle radius so I guess you could triangulate it by staring at the pin a bunch.
  - nerdjon 5y ago
    I am not entirely sure I by there being less data. I don't allow Grindr or Scruff access to anything on my phone. Even for photos I use the iOS feature to limit what photos they can see. The only real difference between the... accepted profile structure. Grindr and Scruff tend to be face...ish pictures vs Sniffles that is... not. Facebook and Google have become very good at tracking you across the web. Sniffles has ads (admittedly all of them are to sign up for premium but I don't know how those ads are served... I have not looked). So add in google fonts or some other tracking mechanism and suddenly you have a ton of data to tie someone too a website that is meant to be anon. (more or less, I know its not quite that simple but I don't think being on the web makes it necessarily any better)

GekkePrutser 5y ago

> Sex is still considered taboo in many parts of the world and some parts of the US. Gay sex is still illegal in 71 countries in the world. Many of them still have the death penalty https://76crimes.com/76-countries-where-homosexuality-is-illegal/ https://76crimes.com/76-countries-where-homosexuality-is-ill... It's extremely sad how homosexuality is criminalised in such a large part of the world and it makes leaks of Grindr even more dangerous than just for the prospect of blackmail or just exposure.

VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
> It's extremely sad how love is criminalised First of all, we need to stop characterizing it as some kind _emotional_ thing like "love". It is not an emotional thing. It's a real thing.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  I think there's nothing more profound than love in the human condition to be honest. I don't think it's not real at all. It is probably the strongest driving force in human behaviour. I didn't mean to downplay the significance. But I changed my comment as it was not my intention to offend. On the contrary. Just saying "homosexuality" sounds distant and clinical so I said love to make it feel more real. Because really that's what it's about isn't it? For me love is what makes a relationship real. One based on just sex isn't, at least not to me. Why would something emotional not be real? Sexual attraction is a big part of love but I think the term goes much further than that.
  - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
    I wasn't intending for you to change anything in your comment at all! It was very thoughtful and well-articulated and I really didn't have anything else to offer. I just always zoom in on the "love" keyword when talking about gays. It's just not a keyword term to use anymore.
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago

chimeracoder 5y ago

> I hate that all of these apps (Grindr and similar) appear to take security and privacy secondary.... I would be very surprised to find out that Scruff is actually any better. The average case is quite bad, but I wouldnt generalize it to quite every app. Scruff, for example, does take privacy seriously - both in rhetoric and in their user-visible design decisions. That's not to say there might not be vulnerabilities (which could be said about any company or service), but they don't treat it as a secondary priority. Grindr, on the other hand, is actively malicious with how aggressively it sells and/or exposes user data willfully.

nerdjon 5y ago
Maybe I am just jaded by Grindr (and even non hookup apps) at this point. But I just take Scruff's words with a grain of salt at this point. There is so much that they can do server side that we can't block. A big part of me thinks it is just inevitable until something like this comes out about Scruff. I don't want to think that... but we have been burned way too many times by apps. Look at what came out about several mental health apps a few days ago.