2d ago

Women Dating Safety App 'Tea' Breached, Users' IDs Posted to 4chan

www.404media.co

Users from 4chan claim to have discovered an exposed database hosted on Google’s mobile app development platform, Firebase, belonging to the newly popular women’s dating safety app Tea. Users say they are rifling through peoples’ personal data and selfies uploaded to the app, and then posting that data online, according to screenshots, 4chan posts, and code reviewed by 404 Media.

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I don't quite understand the outrage in the thread. I've been looking through the comments, trying to see if this ever went beyond gossip and I can't find anything.
From my understanding the app was intended to be a safe space for women to discuss dating. Relaying information about dangerous individuals, or people who cheat. I can imagine that things might have gotten slightly out of hand in regards to anonymous gossip, but is that anything compared to being doxxed? Besides, women, and men have been gossiping behind each others backs for as long as humans have existed. An anonymous app makes it significantly worse certainly, but it is what it is. This behavior is always going to exist for better or for worse. For example, people already discuss this on sites like fetlife since the risk of ending up with someone who wants to batter you for the sake of battering you is somewhat high there.
Surely we can have some sympathy for people who have had their identifications doxxed by 4chan who haven't done anything worse than a bit of toxic gossip at most?
- you're right as far it's intentions go. I honestly couldn't give a rats ass about what it intended to do what I have a MASSIVE issue with is that it did the EXACT opposite of what it "intended to do."
  It didn't provide Women with a "safe space" because women's government issued IDs and their personal selfies were, quite literally, OUT IN THE OPEN. It opened Women who used the app to way more harm.
  Their database, and i'm being extremely generous when I call it that, wasn't even password protected. not even a simple plain text password like "password123" there was NO password. at all. period. All I would have had to do was simply see where the app sent the scanned ID's, open a terminal, SSH into it WITHOUT A PASSWORD OR KEY, and then I now have access to the IDs of over 13,000 Women. Hell I probably wouldn't have even had to SSH into it, probably could have opened the damn thing from a web browser.
  So when the media is saying 4chan "leaked" this stuff again they're being generous. It's like if you were walking down the street that Tea lived on and you noticed they left their door wide open so you decided to peak your head inside and while peaking your head in you noticed a box right by the door that had thousands of IDs in it so you picked up the box and walked out. Chances are other people got to this box before 4chan did, many people probably did, it's just that 4chan were the only ones to say "Hey I found this house with a wide open door and decided to pick up this box with all these IDs in it, neat huh?"
  
  None of this is what I am discussing. I'm talking about the people in the thread who are saying that these people deserved this.
  
  Are you the only one allowed to bring up points of conversation? Let them say their part
  
  Sorry if that came off the wrong way. I more so meant it to point out what I intended in case there was a misunderstanding.
  
  Why not address them directly?
- might have gotten slightly out of hand in regards to anonymous gossip, but is that anything compared to being doxxed?
  Well considering the app has profiles of guys with pics all uploaded without their consent or even awareness, and in addition to unaccountable anonymous gossip, the "pro" features include their entire background, address, phone number, etc? I'd say the doxxing app got it's users doxxed and it's really sort of a wash. I don't even use facebook or post pics online and now people dumb enough to upload their ID can upload unremovable pictures of me? Cool.
  Imagine if there was a site for just guys to upload pics of cheating women without their consent and shit talk them anonymously without any verification of their claims, and if they pay a fee it includes her address and phone number and criminal record. Nobody would be cool with that. This isn't different.

209 comments