American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants • Hacker News Board

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#141

Post by OJFord » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:52 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #119

OJFord wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the reality is that scraping is legal, always possible, but difficult. > This particular case is a bit harder since it's not purely using public data, but may still qualify since it's likely scraping with legally-obtained credentials. No, it's easy: they're employees, they can be told they're not allowed to do that. Doesn't matter if the app's legally allowed to exist or not.

They can always tell their employees they're not allowed to do something, and punish the ones that do. I think it's an important distinction though that whatever they tell their employees, the app isn't doing anything wrong in a legal sense. So still legal, possible, and difficult.

And I don't think there's anything illegal about the employer making it more difficult; that may well be the cheapest/easiest way of stopping employees using it.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#142

Post by eddieroger » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:55 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #65

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #22

What seems unsaid in the article but seems to be the case, is that the app is logging in to American Airlines systems using the flight attendant credentials and then scraping. If this is the case, I think American Airlines is justified in trying to block them. An app storing/using credentials for a different service is a data breach waiting to happen.

This argument could be made about literally any software or hardware used to access any service. It is like argung they should make everyone wear mittens 24/7 so they can't write their passwords down.

Capturing a user's credentials and logging in to a system they don't manage is nowhere near your analogy. Unless AA is operating a public API, this is an unauthorized use of their service, which they absolutely have the right to shut down and protect themselves against. If someone takes the key to my house and goes inside without my permission, it's still breaking and entering.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#143

Post by mfext » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:55 PM UTC

I worked briefly years back on a web app at AA that provided the scheduling features for flight staff that this app provides. I didn’t see what happened to it in the end, but reading the app’s feature list, it sounds like that app plus social elements and weather. From scraping, which is scary IMHO.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#144

Post by munk-a » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

toss1 wrote: post #136

sammalloy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The employer would like employees to have the minimum information This kind of old, hierarchical thinking from the 1950s needs to go away.

>>This kind of old, hierarchical thinking from the 1950s needs to go away. Yes, it does, but no, it won't. Just as democracies must always be better armed and prepared than expansionist autocracies, or the autocracies will take over, people need to be better armed and prepared than those who want to exploit them, or they will get exploited. Unfortunately, the exploiters often arrive better armed and prepared, and it…

Well the winning move in these cases is usually unionization - when a large number of employees are being exploited by an employer a union that allows collective bargaining can force the employer to act in a more sane manner.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#145

Post by jdelman » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

Reminds me a bit of the dispute between McDonald's/Taylor and Kytch. An independent company Y stepping in to fix a particularly broken aspect of another company X's workflow (or literally a piece of hardware), company X responds badly, company X doesn't have the internal resources to do better, or company X is purposely not fixing things for some dumb and/or profit-motivated reason.

A possible solution: build your scraper as a Chrome extension and have legitimately logged-in users periodically hit that SCRAPE button.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#146

Post by ddoolin » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

alexanderchr wrote: post #128

ddoolin wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for driving, into Mexico, there is no real check. For anything. You merely drive through at speed while border guards glance into the cars. You don't actually speak to anyone unless they flag you. I think the U.S. is the only one of the three that would really care.

They don't even check your passport?

Nope. It's very strange coming from just about any other border crossing.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#147

Post by ddoolin » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #129

ddoolin wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for driving, into Mexico, there is no real check. For anything. You merely drive through at speed while border guards glance into the cars. You don't actually speak to anyone unless they flag you. I think the U.S. is the only one of the three that would really care.

Canada definitely cares. Driving into Canada, every vehicle has to stop for an interview. If anything is off, they will send you off to the side for more intense scrutiny.

Ah sorry, I just meant about nitpicking the "working while traveling thing" -- but I was just guessing. Seems like they might care more than I expected.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#148

Post by quartz » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

pb7 wrote: post #115

dcdc123 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never had an uneventful flight on American. I avoid them even if it costs me more time and money.

Everyone has “that story” about one particular airline but AA is particularly bad because a large portion of their fleet is old and requires a lot of maintenance which unsurprisingly causes delays and cancelations. I echo the statement that I’ve never had an uneventful flight on AA. I fly a lot and can confidently say other major airlines are more reliable but usually also more expensive.

Pre-bankruptcy AA was so good. Exec plats were treated super well and their fleet was massive— even if a plane had an issue they could almost always hot-swap it out for another one.

Despite the website feeling dated now it used to be one of the only airlines where the website accurately reflected the backend system (even phone agents couldn’t touch your booking if you had it open on the site) and their lounges were solid too.

These days I agree they’re towards the bottom of the stack sadly… everyone else caught up and they stayed still.

I mostly fly Delta now almost entirely for the on-time performance.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#149

Post by gnopgnip » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:12 PM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #94

arciini wrote: post #21

I'm sad that this is happening to an app that's useful to its users, but the reality is that scraping is legal, always possible, but difficult. This particular case is a bit harder since it's not purely using public data, but may still qualify since it's likely scraping with legally-obtained credentials. I know of businesses (scraping for ride-sharing, scraping for business intelligence for retailers, scraping from L…

> the reality is that scraping is legal, always possible, but difficult. > This particular case is a bit harder since it's not purely using public data, but may still qualify since it's likely scraping with legally-obtained credentials. No, it's easy: they're employees, they can be told they're not allowed to do that. Doesn't matter if the app's legally allowed to exist or not.

AA Flight attendants are in a union working under a collective bargaining agreement. The employer can’t just change this unilaterally.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#150

Post by sidewndr46 » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:14 PM UTC

anovikov wrote: post #58

mannerheim wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is it checks whether their shifts are compliant with labour laws.

These aren't labour laws strictly speaking, more like airline safety laws. I.e. they aren't about well-being of employees but safety of planes operated by overworked crews.

They are labor laws. They restrict the exchange of labor for income.