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Unofficial APIs

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Re: Unofficial APIs

#43
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't all of these libraries require you to provide your own credentials? I do think this violates their ToS anyways though.

I'm sure it would, in some cases at least. I'd be more interested in understanding who gets the blame.

The few things I clicked on are scripts/modules you'd run yourself, so they're not really APIs in the commonly used sense, but website-wrappers that let you use the website as if it was an API. In that case, the user and the messengers are one and the same, the developer of the wrapper isn't involved at all in the transaction.

If it was Unofficial-API-As-A-Service, I'm pretty sure both would be in violation for most services. The user at least for sharing their account credentials, the UAAAS provider likely for some thing in the fine print about only being allowed to use the website for the intended purposes. I doubt either will get sued, the user will get their account cancelled and the provider will get their servers blocked and an angry letter from the lawyers telling them to stop.

Re: Unofficial APIs

#44

No offense to the people who built this, but sharing your username and password with random packages on the internet seems like a bad idea, especially for finance apps.

Working at a cybersecurity *aaS company has both made me paranoid about 3rd party code that I pull and also made me realize that at some point paranoia is paralyzing and some amount of risk is necessary.

Bad idea? Likely.

Worth the squeeze? YMMV.

Re: Unofficial APIs

#45
post #16

> Designed to inspire your next Friday night hack. I've been hit with some burnout recently, and this is the kind of inspiration I need. Small, fun, short term project to get some juices flowing, as opposed to forcing myself to work on personal projects I currently don't have passion for, but feel I need to work on out of some weird sense of obligation. Thanks, this is actually a really great help.

Upvoted, it's also what eventually got me out of a burnout. Didn't program side projects for a long time (apart from work) and then just started small hackish things for personal use.

Re: Unofficial APIs

#46

From a practicality standpoint, I strongly discourage using unofficial APIs, as tech companies nowadays are very prone to sending out C&Ds. If you have a use case where the official API doesn't suffice, then do not redistribute anything obtained from the unofficial API, and definitely do not attempt to commercialize it.

Max remember this is Hacker news. You sound like you're on Nextdoor complaining about the neighbors who are in clear violation of HOA yard maintenance policies.

Re: Unofficial APIs

#48

From a practicality standpoint, I strongly discourage using unofficial APIs, as tech companies nowadays are very prone to sending out C&Ds. If you have a use case where the official API doesn't suffice, then do not redistribute anything obtained from the unofficial API, and definitely do not attempt to commercialize it.

Max remember this is Hacker news. You sound like you're on Nextdoor complaining about the neighbors who are in clear violation of HOA yard maintenance policies.

It's a warning to avoid wasting valuable time, speaking from experience.

I used to use unofficial APIs years ago. There's a reason I don't anymore.

Re: Unofficial APIs

#49

No offense to the people who built this, but sharing your username and password with random packages on the internet seems like a bad idea, especially for finance apps.

The bad idea in this scheme is to not take a look at what the code does, considering these are open-source packages.

Re: Unofficial APIs

#50
post #49

No offense to the people who built this, but sharing your username and password with random packages on the internet seems like a bad idea, especially for finance apps.

The bad idea in this scheme is to not take a look at what the code does, considering these are open-source packages.

I agree, but that's not sufficient in an open source software supply chain. You also need to inspect the dependencies and you need to do this every time you pull any new versions.
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