- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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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This is what happens when you decide to vibecode a service with zero attention to safety or web development. This is why you don’t immediately jump onto a new service without it being vetted properly. Now one of the worst communities on the Internet is in possession of over a hundred thousand women’s driving licenses and faces. This is going to be an absolute disaster.
This is ALSO why no service should ever require or get my driver’s license information. Fuck that. Also, yet another Constance to those who can’t afford a car or want to improve the environment by living car free.
My only exception to that are uber drivers. But then again we live in an age where somehow better help has become popular, even though they sell your data.
I disagree on even that. It should be enough to have some trusted “notary” tick a box that they have verified your driver’s license as valid. It should not be stored out sent anywhere at any time. Just showed to a human. Regularly, if needed.
Instead, just prove you have a credit card by submitting the details. Also totally safe. Be sure to include the CVV, please!
The only site I ever felt comfortable scanning shit like that into was a site that sold things only to military/medics/fire fighters so I had to upload my medic license and my FF cert.
Anything beyond that is a no go from me.
Now now, I like to shit on vibecoders too but let’s not pretend this is some new problem.
Idiots leave databases on cloud servers exposed all the time rather than deal with their companies often arcane rules for generating certificates
Remember when the government published SSNs in HTML? https://www.zdnet.com/article/missouri-will-not-prosecute-hacker-reporter-for-daring-to-view-state-website-html/
Where do you think the AI learned it?
Like, I get that competent coders do it too, but now any skiddie with an idea can cosplay as a developer so this is going to be so much more prevelant
That’s not new, either.
To be fair, I’m not sure why firebase even has a public access option. That’s a recipe for issues.
Though if it’s anything like Google Cloud Store, they hopefully make it very clear that your bucket is public.
How is something “vetted properly” and how do I find out about that?
You wait a while until something like this happens.
This is something I worry about all the time as well, especially since I’ve started to learn how to code and experienced how easy it is to mess up and send a list with all registered users to everyone opening a page. (This was in a test environment.)
As a user, there is no proper way I know of to verify an app’s security. Most apps are closed source, but even if you could view the code, what would you look for?
Both Apple and Google have a verification process for apps that are published in their app stores, but if these worked, we wouldn’t see this happening.
There are academic researchers working on apps and privacy as well, but it’s not like you can ask them for a report on an app you’re thinking of installing.
I think it basically comes down to trust. Check if a developer has messed up in the past and how they dealt with that, that sort of stuff. And for dating apps there is this interesting article: https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/06/24/queer-dating-apps-beware-who-you-trust/#reducing-the-risks-when-using-dating-apps
It’s a long read (haven’t fully read it myself yet) and it paints a bleak picture, but that’s the world we live in today.
I honestly don’t understand what op is talking about.
Leaks happen all the time, even in billion dollar companies.
Their comment is the equivalent like, “This is why you should lock your doors!” Like uh okay.
This situation would have been easily preventable with basic understanding of what they’re doing is what OP is saying. This leak is not something highly complex, it is painfully stupid on the side of the developers.
There’s a difference between a hack, where data is exposed, compared to data exposure due to negligence or ignorance on the development side.
Again, how should the end use know anything about what is going on at their end? How does anyone “vett” that? It is a nonsense “argument” to put blame on the users.
Where I’m from there’s certificates a company can get, that confirm a certain level of process and IT security. Also a company existing for at least 5-10 years without incidents is a “vetted” company in my books. At least anything that managed to produce a working IT system before 2021 when AI came around.
I also believe there’s a bit of bad wording going on with the original comment. Take it up with that guy, lol.
This was more like leaving all your valuables in a cardboard box on your front lawn. Anyone can just take it, if they care to look inside the complete unsecured box.
Someone just drove up and tossed the box in their truck. No lock involved.
Deutsch ≠ English
Schau mal nach, in welcher Sprache die Wikiseite ist…
I assumed people would be able to find Wikipedia’s “switch language” button and Datensparsamkeit has a better fit here that would be lost in translation.
I love how people just jump on whatever they like, instead of actually thinking about the stuff they read/comment on/upvote. Exactly like on Reddit, no difference.
How strange that a site designed exactly like reddit behaves like reddit.
The thing is that many here think they are better, they look down on Reddit. There is a certain shift in what demographic switched over but generally it is the same.
I thought they were looking down on the owners of reddit, not the user base.
Anybody oblivious enough to create something like this isn’t someone you should trust your most private data with. This service had red flags from the concept phase, never mind the execution.
This is not to say, of course, that the victims deserved it. It just really sucks that they had to learn this lesson this way.
“Vibe coded” you just made that up didn’t you, because you don’t like llms. I don’t see anything in the article about “Ai” and this service has been operating for 2 years.
My thoughts as well. But hey, it’s lemmy! Just accuse someone of doing something we hate, good to go!
The og 4chan post brought up the vibe coding. Using it as an insult to quality is wider spread than just lemmy.
Maybe I shouldn’t have used the term vibe coded. I apologize.
People sign up to app intended to share personal information about others without their permission, end up having their own personal information shared without permission - the irony is impressive.
At first I was going to call bullshit because I thought you were exaggerating and being ridiculous.
Nope. That’s the app. “Anonymous” sharing of pictures and info of other people. Presumably without their permission. That’s fucked up.
Yeah. I mean, I get it. The concept of the app makes sense. And I would be that, on average, it is/would be used for good.
On the other hand, as a guy, the idea that people are out there sharing reviews of me as a person on the open internet, and I have no way of knowing this, is deeply unsettling. Like, I haven’t done anything wrong - just the whole concept feels very gross.
Especially because the app is called “tea”, like the slang term for gossip. The letter of the intention may have been good but the whole thing is toxic.
You could ask someone you know to register and share the login, it’s a flawed concept. There’s probably a bunch of partners in there who didn’t even know their boyfriend used their info to create an account to check on themselves.
My problem is how it’s implemented.
An app where you simply post a name and a location, and then people can DM you with their experiences directly, would be a lot less invasive.
That’s terrible.
Have an upvote.
Removed by mod
…
k
Bruh
I kniw right? Its pretty fucked, but sometimes belief that people, or even men, are mostly good gets you raped or crawling through a puddle of your own blood with fewer than four functioning limbs.
Cynical bitches like me though; we tend to make it out.
as a woman or woman categorized person
Can’t tell if you’re being transphobic to trans femmes or supportive to femme leaning enbies.
Well im talking about external interpretation of ones identity rather than one’s intended expression, so you figure it out. Or don’t.
I’d say that’s supportive of femme leaning enbies rather than transphobic towards trans women.
There are other things it could be. Interperet as you like.
Wow that was fast.
I did not even know this app existed untill about 8 hours ago.
Already comprimised.
EDIT: Also, lol, this arguably is not even largely a hack.
These idiots just had everything stored in a fucking publically accesible firebase bucket… amazing.
They didn’t delete anything they claimed to.
Either way you look at it, anywhere on the spectrum from:
A ] A bunch of women reasonably concerned for their safety
B ] A bunch of gossip mongers
… well, they’ve now all been doxxed, ironic from each angle.
What a fucking disaster.
if that’s truly how the leak happened then these people, in any reasonable jurisdiction, would be considered criminally negligent, at the least.
yay compsci ethics courses :D
boo courts failing to uphold the law >:(
Hooray two tiered legal system, huzzah!
/s/s/s
this arguably is not even largely a hack.
While I agree in principle, I think we should still call it a hack. As in “to gain illegal access to (a computer network, system, etc.)” as Merriam-Webster puts it. It shouldn’t be legal to do do this just because the website had horrible (non-existent) security. You shouldn’t be allowed to rob a house just because the door wasn’t locked.
This is more like the door was left open and the lights were on, and you took pictures of the artwork on the entryway walls and then left.
Except it wasn’t artwork, it was driver’s licenses. You know, things you obviously shouldn’t have access to.
At which step should it turn illegal? You accessing publicly available website? How exactly are you to know if it is supposed to be public or not, if there is not even an attempt at security?
The thing is we don’t need to come up with some absolute definition of what should and shouldn’t be illegal to talk about this case specifically. They didn’t accidentally stumble on this. They doxxed the users instead of responsibly disclosing the problem. This is extremely cut and dry.
If the story here was “I mistyped something and got to a page I shouldn’t have access to, I disclosed it to the company, didn’t dox anyone by sharing the problem, and now the FBI is after me” it would be different.
They were looking through publicly accessible buckets on firebase. They literally did stumble upon this by accident while going through public data. And then just told other people about what they found. Should they have disclosed it once they realized what it was instead of spreading it? Sure, morally speaking. But I don’t see how you could write a law to make this illegal without just trampling on free speech.
And then just told other people about what they found.
That’s a weird way to say they doxxed people instead of ethically disclosing what they found. Hiding that detail is why I have a problem with defending this.
If someone steals something they didn’t know belonged to someone (say through an unlocked door), should we prosecute them? I don’t know. What did they do next after they found out they shouldn’t be there? Did they give it back and tell the building owners “hey, you have an unlocked door” or did they yell to the street “hey everyone, come get free stuff!” How did they behave once they knew they did something wrong.
From what I have seen, they initial guys shared a link to the database, not any content. The equivalent of telling people: “Look at this unlocked door I found.” They did not “steal” anything as far as I know.
Also, the analogy doesn’t work either. What if it really was intended to be public? Making a copy is not analogous to stealing something, it’s analogous to taking a picture.
PS: Maybe to make it clearer what I am thinking of. A real court case that happened: A person found a bunch of documents on a government website, just sitting there. He decided to share them. Turns out they were not supposed to be public. The government tried to prosecute the guy who had no idea the files were not public. They thankfully lost.
How can it be the responsibility of a person to try to figure out if these files are supposed to be public or are public on accident? Yes, these guys had a good guess that this was an accident, but so what. We don’t prosecute people for having good guesses.
Damn, do you think this link I found that has a ton of women’s drivers licenses is supposed to be public? Better share it to 4chan. They’ll know what to do.
I can’t open the article, but I think I read that this was hosted on an unprotected bucket. Assuming that’s correct I wouldn’t say this was a breach. A better headline would be “Women dating safety app ‘Tea’ exposed women’s PII”.
To be 100% clear, I’m not excusing the hackers. I don’t believe it’s morally correct to publicize something because it is exposed. For folks curious about that you can look into how to ethically disclose vulnerabilities. I still view this as doxxing. I still believe what the hackers did should be a criminal offense, it’s just that I also believe the app holds a ton of the blame as well. How can you proclaim to be about keeping women safe while putting them at risk? That should be punished as well.
Like if the storage facility you trusted to hold your stuff never had locks on the doors, shouldn’t they take a lot of the blame as well as the thief who found out a door was unlocked?
The bigger problem is trying to get the mainstream that would read an article like that to understand the technical difference between hacking and accessing unsecured data.
One of the definitions of hacking is illegally gaining access to a computer system. It doesn’t need to involve any sort of exploit. Stealing from an unlocked home is still stealing. Gaining access to a system by phishing is still hacking. Leaking data that is technically publicly accessible that isn’t meant to be publicly accessible is still hacking.
Not that I suspect anything good from 4chan but the proper thing to do would be to disclose to Tea that their data is public and allow them to fix the problem. The ethics of vulnerability disclosure still apply when the vulnerability is “hey you literally didn’t secure this at all.”
This reminded me of an anecdote from maybe 6 years ago. I was setting up and testing a small network and a couple devices to install for a customer, let’s say the subnet was 192.168.2.0/24.
Weird things were happening, I was being lazy and wasn’t directly connected to the network, may have setup a VPN between devices somewhere; can’t really remember. But pings would sometimes drop or blow out to 100’s ms.
I eventually ended up disconnecting that network entirely, then the pings continued and got more stable?? WTF! I need we didn’t have that subnet in use, even checked before setting it up. In the time between checking and the issues happening, someone in Sydney somewhere had stuffed up on their router and exposed there LAN to the internet without any Firewalls, just available.
Scanned and found all the IPs in use and in them found a printer. Connected to it and printed a page saying I’m from company XYZ and found all these devices available, and to either contact their IT and resolve it ASAP or my company to help. About an hour later it seemed to be resolved.
It was an interesting day.
Uh… you can’t just “expose a LAN network to the Internet” in this manner. Local subnets aren’t routable over the Internet, so you can’t just enter 192.168.2.3 and end up on somebody else’s private LAN.
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/computer-networks/non-routable-address-space/
They would have needed to either have all their internal devices being assigned public IP’s or had NAT+firewall rules explicitly routing ports from their outside address(es) to the inside ones. The former is unlikely as normally ISPs don’t allocate that many to a given client, or at least not by DHCP. the latter would require a specific configuration mapping the outside addresses/ports to inside devices, likely on a per device+port basis.
Either your story is missing key details or you’ve misunderstood/made-up something.
They did indicate that the subnet they provided in the example was not the actual one they used.
I worked for a ISP. A cable company. We were getting our local offair channels from a site that was in easy reception of them. They had a large amount of bandwidth and did the same thing for dish and direct tv. The man who ran network side had a stroke and died. The hack that ran the broadcast side of their main business took over. Next thing I know I’m having all kinds of problems with our multicast tunnel. I port scanned the IP range and discover they have opened the whole thing up. We had a conference call where I detailed my concerns. Later that day the hack called my boss with his boss on the line and we had another meeting where I told them that they were exposed with default passwords and it could be a real problem.
After I was given verbal permission to demonstrate my concerns with some limitations I took over all default password equipment and sent a large amount short stories to their printers. I ended it with the story superiority by Author C. Clark. Some back and forth a day later and they needed a new sysadmin.
illegally gaining access to a computer system
This is also The legal Definition applied in Germany (with the only difference being, that in Germany it is "gaining access to a system not meant to be accessed). The problem with this is, that everyone who finds security breaches is at threat to be punished for it, even if they ethically disclose it. There have been various cases of ethical hackers receiving fines for disclosing security vulnerabilities.
Same in America. Someone who found a government website had SSNs just sitting in the HTML was almost prosecuted for viewing the raw HTML after ethically disclosing it.
The term has had so many definitions its not really meaningful.
To a normie, turning the pull tab on a beverage can around so that it holds a straw is a “hack.”
The storage facility concept is kinda close, if you count it as “a storage facility beside a major intersection in a big facility, with the locker doors left open despite meant the warning at the front desk not to do so”
Soft rules have never applied to the internet.
Things that you wouldn’t do afk, just because “those are the rules”, doesn’t apply when every empathy damaged person in the world with an internet connection can break them.
Well said.
They also said they deleted IDs once users were verified. The breach proved that to be an outright lie.
Criminal negligence.
Not sure if this is ironic that the users are now less safe after using the safety app. But I still feel bad for the users. Dating is hard enough without the fear of being harmed.
Protecting our users’ privacy and data is our highest priority. We are taking every necessary step to ensure the security of our platform
Since sensitive data was put on a public bucket, maybe they meant it was their lowest priority?
deleted by creator
This is why there should be a nationwide rule that PII data should be deleted after the users identity has been verified
Truly impressive how little america cares about its citizens.
BUT WE HAVE FREEDUM!!!
There should be a time limit on all data.
A better rule is that PII data should never be used as a basis for auth/auth except by government agencies in the process of delivering legally mandated government services.
No sympathy from me whatsoever. The app was designed to allow these women to anonymously post personal information about other people. Fuck 'em. Turnabout is fair play. As my kindergarten teacher used to say, “you get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit”.
If by “personal information” you mean sharing their experiences with certain people … Yeah I guess.
They weren’t sharing addresses and social security numbers or drivers license numbers or other things that would lead to identity theft.
How can you not have sympathy for these women getting doxxed because they wanted to help create a safer space for one another and to help each other out? That’s wild.
This is far from turnabout, this is abuse.
No, we mean “sharing what they claim is their experience and details of such”
Maybe they weren’t sharing addresses and SSN’s (though what’s stopping them from doing so), but like anything online it’s certainly not hard to make up, spin, or highly exaggerate a story to the detriment of the subject, but without them knowing about it.
So yeah, even if Sally Smith claims that “**Billy Jones of 125 South Street is a big loser who has undisclosed herpes, which who knows how he got it with that small dick of his”, maybe the truth is that Billy refused to pay for an expensive meal on a first date it some other thing entirely.
This isn’t turnabout (as the leak wasn’t intentional), and not abuse either, but it may be a bit karmic.
** Names and story entirely made up for example purposes
So it’s fair because you completely made up a story about what happened in the app?
Plus the whole moral aspect of such an app. While I agree that women have been mostly objectified their whole existence, this doesn’t help anyone.
We need to get rid of both superficial way of looking at each other ( women: seeking mostly young, beautiful, rich yes men, men: seeking perfect body, face, housewife stereotypes). Both mindsets are equally trash.
Agreed
My friend came over and told me a story about this crazy date she was on. The guy love bombs her, sets her up with a massage, then in the morning, goes out and eats McDonalds alone and ghosts her. Then repeats every few weeks with love bombs.
I shared that with my discord group and someone said they know that guy too.
Im assuming that’s what Tea is for.
Wait what? How does one ghost and then repeat love bombing? Also why is eating breakfast alone remarkable? Tf is happening?
Im guessing he’s being way too pushy and overbearing, then goes no contact for two weeks, then repeats the process.
…eats McDonalds alone and ghosts her. Then repeats every few weeks with love bombs
Something something “cheat day”
You yadda yadda yadda’ed over the best part.
No, I mentioned the bisque.
And what part is that?
What did he order at McDonald’s?
sets her up with a massage, then in the morning,
What happened between the massage and him ditching her to eat breakfast?
You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here: https://www.literotica.com/stories
Never upload PII to social media
Your privacy is not legally protected.
Tell that to UK citizens. They have to. To be “protected”. The irony
I live in the UK and, like nearly everyone else in the UK, have never been required to do this. The only time it’s required is when accessing adult-only sites, and there are some obvious workarounds in those cases, yarr.
What are the chances of this being the main reason for the app’s existence?
Seeing as the word hack is doing a lot of heavy lifting. They didn’t bother to actually secure the data and then put it on the internet for anyone to access.
Reading these incredible comments has revealed a large piece of what was named as the reason for lemm.ee shutting down.
what was that?
Moderation.
I had been under the impression that 4chan had also basically died due to their own site getting hacked
That which has no life can never truly die (or something)
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and in strange eons even death may die.
I think?
It’s not like it was a complicated site, they just rebuilt it in some modern framework on the cheap.
Hungry data privacy lawyers when they learned about Tea this week:
