8 ms·
Ask HN: Why is "Tea" still on the App Store after so many data breaches?
Furthermore, it’s being promoted in the “Top Charts” while the “App Privacy” card says they only collect email addresses.
- amarcheschi 1y agoJust a fyi, but it is not available in eu
- jaennaet 1y agoWas it available at some point?
- znpy 1y agoRules are made up, and only apply to regular people.
- sdoering 1y ago[flagged]
- moralestapia 1y agoGreat quote. I wouldn't ascribe it to conservatism, though. Corruption is part of human nature, it's present wherever there are humans.
- jinnko 1y agoAccording to Wikipedia this is misattributed. Still resonates though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Wilhoit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Wilhoit
- debugnik 1y agoMisattributed to the wrong Frank Wilhoit, so it's still Wilhoit's law.
- denismenace 1y agoWhat does this "law" have to do with conservatism? Seems completely irrelevant and to related to the ideology at all. (Aside from being a skewed and straw-manned view of it)
- DonHopkins 1y ago[flagged]
- nsksl 1y ago[flagged]
- DonHopkins 1y ago[flagged]
- xdennis 1y agoYour brain may have been broken by internet politics if you go from an app created to dox men to blaming conservatives.
- jennyholzer 1y ago[flagged]
- colesantiago 1y agoAs long as Apple collects their cut of popular apps through in app purchases, They don't care, and nobody cares. But they should. Tea will just update the app / force update the app to fix these issues.
- msgodel 1y agoThey didn't even instrument the apps during review for the longest time. I think they recently started using an HTTP proxy to watch the connections they make. People put way more trust in the review process and app store gate keeping than it deserves.
- worthless-trash 1y agoThr irony that i had apps rejected for asking for personal information only stored in the app. But having drivers license stolen is fine.
- cmxch 1y agoThey did care enough to repeatedly pull apps when they did the same thing but in the opposite direction.
- isodev 1y agoBecause Apple's stance on protecting users only covers cases supporting the App Store walled garden or such that make you buy a new phone. If anything, it's good to keep it on the store - so many people are searching for it, seeing and clicking ads.
- anonzzzies 1y agoI see many breaches and people still use the products. Even tech stuff: people knowingly using tech/dev products of people who are either sloppy, plain incompetent or both. I don't get it but here we are.
- TradingPlaces 1y agoIn the 80s and 90s I was positive that customers would revolt over the constant security issues and generally poor quality of Microsoft software. I don’t need to tell you that it did not happen.
- anonzzzies 1y agoTrue. Well, we as a company left them (in the 90s). Thats 500 people. So nothing. Still happy we did.
- amarcheschi 1y agoWe didn't revolt when tobacco companies screwed generations of people, and this is just an example of the many screwing happened in the past from big companies, I'm not positive on the fact people will revolt for privacy breaches such this one
- red-iron-pine 1y agohard to revolt against a monopoly. the only alternative is expensive Apple gear, or (for most of the 90s-2000s) learning a deep set of skills to use the nascent linux desktop options.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- risyachka 1y agoTbh this is possible only in software. No matter what you do - epic incompetence, leak user data, doxx users, basically allow their identities to be stolen etc - zero consequences. Kinda crazy. In any other industry they would not even allow you in the door without showing some king of understanding what you do. You can't even sell hotdogs without food license. But in software - wild west.
- cjs_ac 1y agoThe general public has come to accept that computers are magic. Sometimes the magic does good things, sometimes it does bad things. If there's a person with a public profile who is seen to be controlling the computers, governments might do something to punish that person, but if they remain invisible, no one dares tamper with the magic.
- nomilk 1y agoNot quite true, see Banking.
- 0_____0 1y agoOr medical devices. Or aviation/spaceflight. Or automotive. It turns out there's actually quite a bit of precedent for doing actual Software Engineering, versus what most of the software world seem to be doing (presumably rotating a database by 90 degrees, duct taping it to another database, and sticking a front-end on it?)
- thefz 1y agoWell, finance and banking can do even worse and be bailed out with public money.
- testfrequency 1y agoPrivacy is a fundamental human right.* *Unless your app has an IAP and is wildly popular, then we don’t mind
- Simulacra 1y agoIt's possible, although I have zero proof, that some of the people responsible for removing apps from the App Store, agree with it. The moderation has always been bull crap and recourse is little if any.
- cyanydeez 1y agoPrivacy is a fundamental capitalist product. Theres something that changes in the brain when it learns that everything can be translated to cash value.
- camillomiller 1y agoAs a man who's always considered himself a strong feminist, I think that tea's issue are way more profound that just some data breach. Women were convinced to trust the app as a safe space, but it never was for various reasons. First, as proven by the breach, privacy was not guaranteed. Second, I do not see how a women-only app made to complain on men can help any men get better in their behavior, instead of balcanizing society even more, creating camps and hatred. This is not safe in itself. It won't further women's condition in their relationship with men. It alienates men even more, gives arguments to the Jordan Peterson-style toxic masculinity influencers, and inevitably fosters toxic behavior in women too.
- navane 1y ago[flagged]
- lazide 1y agosquints is that what we’re calling libel/slander now?
- thinkingtoilet 1y agoThe app wasn't made for men to get better. It wasn't made for men at all, believe it or not. It was made, very poorly, for women to protect themselves because women face realities men do not.
- general1726 1y agoAnd yet it turned into girl's version of Kiwi farms.
- ENGNR 1y ago[flagged]
- tr_user 1y agoYes, let's use blanket statements to justify our preconceived notions. I'm not sure what the conclusion you're trying to push here -- feminism is about women having rights. Including the right to complain.
- tebbers 1y agoBecause Apple carefully vets all apps and that's why it must be allowed to maintain its App Store monopoly!
- vdfs 1y agoTo be fair the app itself wasn't compromised, heck even the server wasn't breached, it was just a database open for everyone!
- nickthegreek 1y agoThats true of the first hack, the photos. But I dont believe that is true for the 2nd, the messages.
- general1726 1y agoEverything works as it has been designed. I wonder which companies will start using this excuse after being hacked.
- znpy 1y ago> it was just a database open for everyone! All good then!
- danielhaven 1y agoMost likely, you're being sarcastic, but just to put this out there, that would be like me publishing an app where you just write text into a box and click submit and I promise in the app store info and privacy policy that submitting it just causes it to get erased, but the information is actually being sent to all your worst enemies.
- oc1 1y agoTea is too big too fail, that's why Apple doesn't pull the plug otherwise they would anger a good portion of their angry female user base.
- unlogic 1y agoAnd that angry user base will do what, exactly? Switch to Android? One can dream.
- neilv 1y agoRelated: Tea app leak worsens with second database exposing user chats (bleepingcomputer.com) | 120 points by akyuu 1 day ago | 145 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44716529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44716529
- gadders 1y agoThere was also a website posted on 4chan where you could rate member's photos against each other in terms of attractiveness.
- jonplackett 1y ago> “A legacy data storage system was compromised” I am always amused by corporate jargon used to cover up ineptitude. In this case legacy data storage system = publicly accessible bucket
- rich_sasha 1y agoIt's like when B737 Max crashed and Boeing blamed a "software glitch". It's about dressing the failure up as something that could randomly happen to anyone.
- TheNewsIsHere 1y agoIt is amazing how quickly anything relatively modern gets designated “legacy” when the business needs to blame it for their mistakes and/or incompetence.
- rester324 1y agoBecause there is no punishment for handling data with so much carelesness. If there was a law which seriously punished them, the app would be long gone. That's what you get when the tech bros dictate how the legislation should work
- flanked-evergl 1y agoTech Bros don't dictate how legislation should work. And Tea is not in Europe because under GDPR an app which does doxxing as a service is not legal.
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- flanked-evergl 1y agoThe app provides doxxing as a service, not sure why Apple would start worrying about data breaches for such an App.
- istumbler 1y agoI wonder if they will approve my new apps: “Ezzy” and “Cray” where people can rate dates for how easy it was to get them into bed and how crazy they were during and/or after.
- flanked-evergl 1y agoI'm somewhat opposed to the idea of having a walled garden App Store as Apple does, which is why I don't use Apple. But Apple insists they do have a walled garden, and people buy Apple with that expectation, so I certainly hope and expect that Apple doesn't approve apps like these. Any app that does doxxing as a service should not be on Apple's app store IMO.
- buyucu 1y agobecause Apple doesn't care.
- cmxch 1y agoDoxxing as a service is OK for Google/Apple if you market it as safety for their favored audiences against disfavored audiences.
- DonHopkins 1y ago[flagged]
- anonymousiam 1y agoCouldn't one ask the same question about Facebook?
- hazmazlaz 1y agoThe same reason that Microsoft products are still in the App Store after so many breaches. Because having a security breach is not part of the App Store equation.
- runjake 1y agoI don't know, but I don't want Apple exercising even more draconian control over what apps I have on my Apple devices. If I want to use an app with a horrendous security track record, I should be able to. See also: the plethora of other popular apps with horrendous security track records. So, be careful what you ask for.
- danielhaven 1y agoThe demographics of the app and its owner tick all the right boxes for a company like Apple, but even then, less serious violations would earn an app an insta-ban. My guess is the owner has friends in high places who are pulling strings in his favor.
- gotouted 1y ago[flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago> I found a simple takedown tool... Based on your submissions you seem to the creator of the tool, which is fine, but you need to disclose it. Also, it's not the done thing here to go through past threads promoting a product/service with a copy+pasted comment.