Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I Hacked My University's Registration System with Python and Twilio

twilio.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 163 posts

Re: How I Hacked My University's Registration System with Python and Twilio

#111

Post by icebraining »

e12e wrote: post #41
makr99 wrote: post #25

I was in the US and want to immigrate to Canada because of US broken H1B immigration system ( for me it will take 9 years to get a greencard). Here is what I did - The immigration website of Saskatchewan province opens up randomly to apply for immigration. I missed it many times because there is no indication other than the "Apply" button being enabled and a small text in their homepage which says "Applications are n…

Nice story, and great that Twilio worked out for you - but this really is the sort of thing that email alerts (or IM alerts, or IRC alerts) should also work fine for. I would argue that the fact that you find SMS/phone calls a more urgent alert is a fault with your phone/communication setup - and twilio is an interesting hack around that. But there really should be an easy way to make just as much ruckus from a simpl…

Receiving phone calls is free, a data plan isn't :)

Re: How I Hacked My University's Registration System with Python and Twilio

#112

Post by pbhjpbhj »

cgmg wrote: post #56
_sbrk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because of US broken immigration system Immigration is working just fine: It is a rate-limiting mechanism to prevent massive immigration of every "me too" person from other random countries. You're just like everyone else, and everyone else wants to get in, too. Just like a lifeboat, the US can't let everyone in at once or we'd sink. Buy a parka and enjoy Canada!

"Just like a lifeboat, the US can't let everyone in at once or we'd sink." Actually, the consensus among economists is that immigration makes your own economy better off. It has a net positive effect on productivity and prosperity. In other words, your "rate-limiting" analogy makes zero sense. You want more immigration, not less.

The rate-limiting analogy can work: thing is the boat is leaking, so you think that if you let someone in it will leak quicker. And it will. But when you let someone in then you can bail it out and they can row (or vice-versa). You're still sinking but actually slower and now you can move too. Let someone else on and you can stop the sinking.

Testing the limits of the analogy, but there you are.

Re: How I Hacked My University's Registration System with Python and Twilio

#113

Post by pm90 »

makr99 wrote: post #25

I was in the US and want to immigrate to Canada because of US broken H1B immigration system ( for me it will take 9 years to get a greencard). Here is what I did - The immigration website of Saskatchewan province opens up randomly to apply for immigration. I missed it many times because there is no indication other than the "Apply" button being enabled and a small text in their homepage which says "Applications are n…

Did you manage to keep your compensation around the same? Or did you have to give up on it somewhat?

Canada does seem more attractive than US. However, there are definitely a lot more jobs in technology, and a lot more software engineers here in the US.

Re: How I Hacked My University's Registration System with Python and Twilio

#114

Post by icebraining »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #103
KekDemaga wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put the phone number in front of a domain for each carrier, a list is here. https://github.com/WilliamFCipriano/FreeSMS/blob/master/data...

There are several international lists too, here's a couple: https://martinfitzpatrick.name/list-of-email-to-sms-gateways... https://www.opentextingonline.com/emailtotext.aspx

Do they work? For Portugal it still lists Telecel - which hasn't existed since '99.

Re: How I Hacked My University's Registration System with Python and Twilio

#115

Post by sdca »

Twilio is great and all but an SMS or other notification doesn't actually guarantee you a class that's available to all students.

A class was sniped from me one time while I was still on the confirmation screen. So unlike OP I fully automated the process.

EDIT: A notification & response is good for solving a captcha if they have one, if you don't want to outsource that to mechanical turk (or trust their timing / accuracy).

Re: How I Hacked My University's Registration System with Python and Twilio

#119

Post by j45 »

Odd that this is still an issue 20 years after the first time I heard about this.

This reminds me of the story of beartracks, and how it was shut down by the University of Alberta to make everyone register by phone .. and eventually was brought back by the university.

Tried to find a link I had read about the story, but can't seem to find it.

Post reply on HN