Show HN: Twitter API Reverse Engineered • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Twitter API Reverse Engineered

#21

Post by wartijn_ » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 6:32 AM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #19

ck2 wrote: post #11

If this can be built, build a twitter clone. As each big entity/celebrity quits twitter or starts having serious conflicts, approach them to cross-post their content to the new clone site. In a year the masses will follow. Once Musk misses a billion-dollar-per-year payments a few times to the Saudis they will own twitter and then it will be like TikTok censorship the next time they murder a journalist they disagree w…

I don't care if twitter dies, but humans DO NOT need to die for that to happen.

The parent post isn’t saying people need to die, they’re referring the Saudi government murdering a journalist.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khash...

Re: Show HN: Twitter API Reverse Engineered

#22

Post by iudqnolq » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 6:39 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #12

TheObviousOne wrote: post #2

Is this replacement for paying to Twitter new policy subscription?

The fact that people will pay for what's already possible for free (with not that much effort) says a lot about what's wrong with the state of the world today. Around the turn of the century and before, there was no such sentiment. People just RE'd like it was completely natural, and in general weren't "afraid to read" what they had access to. As the saying goes, "no source, no problem." As a result, multiple alterna…

I'm between then and now there were some significant court cases establishing that it's very very tricky to legally RE networked setvices in the USA. That had a chilling effect, especially on commercial reverse engineering.

Re: Show HN: Twitter API Reverse Engineered

#23

Post by thereisnoself » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 6:58 AM UTC

Has anyone built a js version of this?

Re: Show HN: Twitter API Reverse Engineered

#24

Post by _5hxt » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 9:11 AM UTC

Related but archived (scraper): https://github.com/twintproject/twint

Re: Show HN: Twitter API Reverse Engineered

#25

Post by krisoft » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 10:01 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #12

TheObviousOne wrote: post #2

Is this replacement for paying to Twitter new policy subscription?

The fact that people will pay for what's already possible for free (with not that much effort) says a lot about what's wrong with the state of the world today. Around the turn of the century and before, there was no such sentiment. People just RE'd like it was completely natural, and in general weren't "afraid to read" what they had access to. As the saying goes, "no source, no problem." As a result, multiple alterna…

> The fact that people will pay for what's already possible for free (with not that much effort) says a lot about what's wrong with the state of the world today.

There are these places near me where they just heap up a bunch of food. You can literally walk in, grab something to eat and walk out. Nobody will stop you. Yet people for some reason queue up to pay for the food. I believe this is what is wrong with the state of the world today.

Just to spell it out: read it as sarcasm. Do you just steal stuff unless they keep it under lock and key? If usually not what makes this case different?

Re: Show HN: Twitter API Reverse Engineered

#26

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 10:08 AM UTC

krisoft wrote: post #25

userbinator wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that people will pay for what's already possible for free (with not that much effort) says a lot about what's wrong with the state of the world today. Around the turn of the century and before, there was no such sentiment. People just RE'd like it was completely natural, and in general weren't "afraid to read" what they had access to. As the saying goes, "no source, no problem." As a result, multiple alterna…

> The fact that people will pay for what's already possible for free (with not that much effort) says a lot about what's wrong with the state of the world today. There are these places near me where they just heap up a bunch of food. You can literally walk in, grab something to eat and walk out. Nobody will stop you. Yet people for some reason queue up to pay for the food. I believe this is what is wrong with the sta…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Twitter API Reverse Engineered

#27

Post by halfmatthalfcat » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 10:59 AM UTC

simonw wrote: post #3

Huh, TIL Twitter uses GraphQL under the hood: https://github.com/trevorhobenshield/twitter-api-client/blob...

I believe its running on Sangria (Scala's biggest GraphQL lib)

Re: Show HN: Twitter API Reverse Engineered

#28

Post by userbinator » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 1:23 PM UTC

krisoft wrote: post #25

userbinator wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that people will pay for what's already possible for free (with not that much effort) says a lot about what's wrong with the state of the world today. Around the turn of the century and before, there was no such sentiment. People just RE'd like it was completely natural, and in general weren't "afraid to read" what they had access to. As the saying goes, "no source, no problem." As a result, multiple alterna…

> The fact that people will pay for what's already possible for free (with not that much effort) says a lot about what's wrong with the state of the world today. There are these places near me where they just heap up a bunch of food. You can literally walk in, grab something to eat and walk out. Nobody will stop you. Yet people for some reason queue up to pay for the food. I believe this is what is wrong with the sta…

How is it "stealing" to access a service you already have access to for free?

Go to twitter.com in a browser.

This is just a different type of browser.

Physical analogies never work right with digital data.

Re: Show HN: Twitter API Reverse Engineered

#29

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 1:26 PM UTC

hobenshield wrote: post #20

dawnerd wrote: post #18

Nothing new. Nitter for example has been using these endpoints for a while.

yup, I'm just accessing /i, /1.1, and some /2 endpoints in addition to /graphql

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Twitter API Reverse Engineered

#30

Post by xeromal » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 1:55 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #28

krisoft wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that people will pay for what's already possible for free (with not that much effort) says a lot about what's wrong with the state of the world today. There are these places near me where they just heap up a bunch of food. You can literally walk in, grab something to eat and walk out. Nobody will stop you. Yet people for some reason queue up to pay for the food. I believe this is what is wrong with the sta…

How is it "stealing" to access a service you already have access to for free? Go to twitter.com in a browser. This is just a different type of browser. Physical analogies never work right with digital data.

I'm sure companies wouldn't mind if a singular person was doing singular things with the API, but when someone uses this API to behave like more than 1 person is where companies get annoyed.

To use an annoying analogy or two, take a penny leave a penny but someone shoves their hand in there and takes all of it.

It costs money to service requests and twitter et all make that money back through advertising and subscriptions. If someone uses an unauthorized API, it could use more than they've budgeted for.