I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API • Hacker News Board

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#361

Post by imwillofficial » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 2:58 AM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #100

wnissen wrote: post #49

Just a note, the machines are not broken, they have shut themselves down for sanitary reasons. Ice cream, as a food that is very close to neutral in pH and without much in the way of preservatives, is a common source of listeria bacteria. To prevent serious health issues, the machine must be sanitized regularly. As I understand it, the process is involved, and any given McDonalds may not have a person with the time a…

Here's some detail, as someone that has worked with those machines before (internally and externally). In the good old days the soft serve and shake machines were taken apart every night and every piece was washed and bleach-sanitized by hand. Then it was reassembled in the morning. This would leave a lot of room for error and possible contamination in the process. And the sight of a shake machine hitting full pressu…

I actually froze my hand inside an ice cream machine like this when I was a teenager working fast food. I hit a standby button instead of the off switch. (I was too tall to see the off switch and was never trained.) I spent two weeks in a burn unit while they healed my hand with magic synthetic sin grafts. Today you can’t even tell which hand got frozen in there.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#362

Post by Can_Not » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 3:05 AM UTC

dylz wrote: post #42

jawns wrote: post #30

Some details here: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/mcbroken A commenter asks: "How are you funding the $18k per minute this requires?" He replies: "I'm actually not paying for it! just placing an order." I'm not sure how he's placing an order without payment information, or if he is providing payment information, how he's managing to not get charged for successful orders (when the ice cream machine is not broken).…

McD app does not post txn until you arrive at location and tap check in (GPS "enforced"; if you don't send a reasonable location to the backend it will tell you to just show your phone to a cashier and fail it) that being said - this is probably irrelevant, because you don't actually need to place an order. mcflurries will show up as not available / disabled if the restaurant is not accepting ice cream orders (to dis…

I wish they would use this technology to make coffees unavailable in the app when they're not available in real life.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#363

Post by Thorrez » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 3:05 AM UTC

ryankrage77 wrote: post #224

macintux wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew iOS had a strong accessibility story, but I had no idea it could compensate for color blindness.

Android can do it to, under the accessibility settings you can have greyscale and various other colour modes

Windows 10 can do it too. It's called "Color filters". Both "Red-green (green weak, deuteranopia)" and "Red-green (red weak, protanopia)" work to allow me to use the site. The second one is more visible, but also much more distorting. Also I've now enabled the hotkey (win+ctrl+c).

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#364

Post by travisjungroth » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 3:14 AM UTC

nixgeek wrote: post #191

dcolkitt wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A standalone GPS NTP server is $750 retail. Commercial soft serve ice cream machines are at least $4000. Just building the machines with an autonomous GPS clock that doesn't need to be set, would double the revenue but only increase the upfront cost by 18%.

Since they need internet connectivity to phone home status to McCloud, I don't know why they wouldn't just run an NTP client to keep their time synchronized and accurate? Moreover the $750 you reference must be a commercial product since you can do GPS on a Raspberry Pi for < $50 easily? Which product are you thinking works for this scenario? Think I've seen everything from $300 to $13000 solutions for this over the…

Or a G Shock with radio based time correction is $90. Not saying you could use the watch, but maybe the receiver is available.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#365

Post by noahl » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 3:16 AM UTC

realityking wrote: post #279

codetrotter wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> McCloud That’s an awesome way to name their cloud computing stuff that fits the brand really well. Is this an official/semiofficial name?

Imagine McDonalds had invented AWS and called it McCloud.

Imagine if Barnes and Noble had done it, and you could drive to one of their stores to quietly sip a drink and peruse the new machines they had provisioned recently.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#366

Post by dkn775 » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 3:25 AM UTC

nixgeek wrote: post #191

dcolkitt wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A standalone GPS NTP server is $750 retail. Commercial soft serve ice cream machines are at least $4000. Just building the machines with an autonomous GPS clock that doesn't need to be set, would double the revenue but only increase the upfront cost by 18%.

Since they need internet connectivity to phone home status to McCloud, I don't know why they wouldn't just run an NTP client to keep their time synchronized and accurate? Moreover the $750 you reference must be a commercial product since you can do GPS on a Raspberry Pi for < $50 easily? Which product are you thinking works for this scenario? Think I've seen everything from $300 to $13000 solutions for this over the…

Can you provide some information as to how I could do a cheap GPS setup for a non GPS iPad in a similar manner?

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#367

Post by grimli333 » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 3:36 AM UTC

warent wrote: post #250

Interesting, there's a location off the coast of San Francisco in the pacific ocean called "Morocco Mole Lab Pacific Ocean, Pune" Anyone know what that's supposed to be? Maybe a dummy location for test data?

There’s also a Knight Rider Lab in the Atlantic Ocean. Michael Knight is so cool his secret base has a McDonald’s. I wonder how KITT gets there though.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#368

Post by EdgarVerona » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 3:39 AM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #100

wnissen wrote: post #49

Just a note, the machines are not broken, they have shut themselves down for sanitary reasons. Ice cream, as a food that is very close to neutral in pH and without much in the way of preservatives, is a common source of listeria bacteria. To prevent serious health issues, the machine must be sanitized regularly. As I understand it, the process is involved, and any given McDonalds may not have a person with the time a…

Here's some detail, as someone that has worked with those machines before (internally and externally). In the good old days the soft serve and shake machines were taken apart every night and every piece was washed and bleach-sanitized by hand. Then it was reassembled in the morning. This would leave a lot of room for error and possible contamination in the process. And the sight of a shake machine hitting full pressu…

I worked there in the old days when I was in high school (late 90's), and one of the most disgusting stories I have about a job is when I went to refill the orange juice dispenser machine, and a giant swarm of flies were all over and in the top of the machine. In the orange juice, all along the sides of the inside, and flying around like a small swarm when I opened it.

I yelped and stepped back. A manager rushed over to me, slammed the lid shut, and told me to not tell anyone.

I quit a couple weeks later.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#369

Post by pathseeker » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

imwillofficial wrote: post #361

joezydeco wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's some detail, as someone that has worked with those machines before (internally and externally). In the good old days the soft serve and shake machines were taken apart every night and every piece was washed and bleach-sanitized by hand. Then it was reassembled in the morning. This would leave a lot of room for error and possible contamination in the process. And the sight of a shake machine hitting full pressu…

I actually froze my hand inside an ice cream machine like this when I was a teenager working fast food. I hit a standby button instead of the off switch. (I was too tall to see the off switch and was never trained.) I spent two weeks in a burn unit while they healed my hand with magic synthetic sin grafts. Today you can’t even tell which hand got frozen in there.

Woah, how cold are these things that you would need skin grafts like that?

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#370

Post by skissane » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

aliabd wrote: post #33

AFAIK, reverse engineering APIs isn’t illegal. [1] There are some (VC backed) start ups that are open about doing it. Teller API is an example. [2] [1] “Reverse engineering generally doesn't violate trade secret law because it is a fair and independent means of learning information, not a misappropriation. Once the information is discovered in a fair and honest way, it also can be reported without violating trade sec…

> AFAIK, reverse engineering APIs isn’t illegal

It doesn't matter whether or not it is illegal. What really matters is whether some prosecutor somewhere thinks it is illegal, and dislikes you sufficiently to prosecute you–or sees enough political benefit from it to make it worth their while. "Hacker indicted for sending McDonald's $18,752 of fake orders every minute". It might be misleading (or even just plain false) but it makes a great headline. Even if they end up losing the case, they can still make your life hell for months on end with their criminal charges.

As the saying goes, "You might beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride"