←back to thread

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

(alexschapiro.com)
561 points bearsyankees | 1 comments | 12 May 25 16:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.205s | source
Show context
michaelteter ◴[12 May 25 17:34 UTC] No.43965514[source]▶
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...

replies(10): >>43965600 #>>43965723 #>>43965782 #>>43966035 #>>43966222 #>>43966281 #>>43966578 #>>43967558 #>>43968803 #>>43969670 #
tmtvl ◴[12 May 25 19:18 UTC] No.43966578[source]▶
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.
replies(6): >>43966766 #>>43967142 #>>43967680 #>>43967819 #>>43968420 #>>43969894 #
mmanfrin ◴[12 May 25 21:35 UTC] No.43967680[source]▶
> They didn't know what they were doing _and still went through with it_

You don't know what you don't know; sometimes people can think they do know what they're doing and they just haven't encountered situations otherwise. We were all new to programming once; no one would ever become a solid engineer if they prevented themselves from building anything out of fear of doing something wrong that they did not account for out of lack of experience.

replies(1): >>43971667 #
1. tmtvl ◴[13 May 25 11:17 UTC] No.43971667[source]▶
This is where the 'unknown unknowns' quote comes in useful. I don't know anything about blockchain technology, but I know that I don't know anything about it. When you make software which involves handling people's information your first thought should be 'do I know all I need to know about handling this information properly?', and your second thought should be 'do I really know all I need to know about handling this information properly?'.