I hacked a dating app (and how not to treat a security researcher)

Not excusing this is any way, but this app is apparently a fairly junior effort by university students. While it should make every effort to follow good security (and communication) practices, I'd not be too hard on them considering how some big VC funded "adult" companies behave when presented with similar challenges.

https://georgetownvoice.com/2025/04/06/georgetown-students-c...

I vehemently disagree. 'Well, they didn't know what they were doing, so we shouldn't judge them too harshly' is a silly thing to say. They didn't know what they were doing _and still went through with it_. That's an aggravating, not extenuating, factor in my book. Kind of like if a driver kills someone in an accident and then turns out not to have a license.

This is exactly why I think software engineering should require a licensing requirement, much like civil engineering. I get that people will complain about that destroying all sorts of things, and it might, yes, but fight me. Crap like this is exactly why it should be a requirement, and why you won’t convince me that the idea is not in general a good one.

Yes, I will happily fight against authoritarian takes cloaked in vagueries.

I don’t believe engineering licensing is authoritarian, and I’d be interested in hearing why you believe that to be the case (especially, considering, most “real” engineering field have had licensing requirements for a century, without any real complaints against that process).