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I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

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Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#341

Post by chihuahua »

surbas wrote: post #248
DerekL wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah! Whatever you do, never eat pretzels! They dip them in oven cleaner before baking, then they sprinkle them with those crystals they use for removing ice from roads!

Lye dipped pretzels are a thing! I didn’t know that thanks!

A solution of about 4% NaOH is generally recommended. Submerge the pretzels for a few seconds just before baking. It does something to the outside layer of dough that results in the brown crust of the pretzel. In addition to the pleasant color, it also affects the flavor. Also, it makes it easier for the coarse salt to stick to the outside of the pretzels. NaOH immediately causes stains on clothes and wooden cutting boards and countertops. Obviously it's also bad for your skin and especially the eyes, so be careful.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#342

Post by ergocoder »

brokenmachine wrote: post #319
alexchamberlain wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under the Computer Misuse Act in the UK, unauthorised access is enough, especially if it impedes other uses from legitimate access. (IANAL either mind)

Could that really be considered unauthorised access, considering it's a public-facing API that every customer interacts with?

Just bcause my house's door is open, it doesn't mean you can come in.

Making a mistake once or twice is fine. Attempting to enter my house 18,000 per minute? Yeah, it is probably illegal.

But I'm not a lawyer neither are you.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#343

Post by EE84M3i »

nullsense wrote: post #310
Dylan16807 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Four to five hours, so let's say that happens daily and machines are out of commission 20% of the time. Currently it's early afternoon and the site says that over 8% are out. That's about halfway between "all overnight" and "all at completely random times". Are almost half of the clocks set wrong? Assuming that the actual number of broken machines is relatively small.

They need to load balance them so the world can have HA soft-serve. Run them in a Kubernetes cluster.

Chick-fil-a actually has been running kubernetes at all their stores for a few years.

https://medium.com/@cfatechblog/bare-metal-k8s-clustering-at...

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#344

Post by scythe »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #220
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not my field, but edible gums (guar gum, or xanthan gum for example) is "plastic" (adj.). Gums are used more and more, AFAICT as a consumer; presumably to allow products to be bulked out with air. Basically take anything homogeneous, add gum, add air, create a foam. Basically like an Aero bar but with way smaller bubbles. You just cut a quarter (I'm guessing on this figure) off your ice-cream ingredients by weight an…

This 'bulking up with air' is most evident if you go to the yogurt or cream cheese section and look for the Yoplait Whips or Philadelphia Whipped containers. It's the same product, just as a foam, and seems to be marketed as a healthier alternative where users choose a satisfactory portion by volume, not by calories or weight. And while I think the whipped foods are stupid, I don't think that packaged food sellers ar…

The bulking aspect doesn't bother me so much, what does bother me is that it's not as good and the only major ice cream brands left that aren't like this are Haagen-Dazs and Talenti.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#345

Post by scythe »

csours wrote: post #231
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 'bulking up with air' is most evident if you go to the yogurt or cream cheese section and look for the Yoplait Whips or Philadelphia Whipped containers. It's the same product, just as a foam, and seems to be marketed as a healthier alternative where users choose a satisfactory portion by volume, not by calories or weight. And while I think the whipped foods are stupid, I don't think that packaged food sellers ar…

Whipped cream cheese is much easier to spread, in my experience. I know I could whip it myself, but why not just buy it that way?

Essentially all cream cheese, whipped or otherwise, contains gums anyway. "Real" cream cheese is kinda grainy whenever I've seen it.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#346

Post by skykooler »

seanwilson wrote: post #99
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…

> 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. How come the the high amount of sugar in ice cream doesn't help? Would it be any different if it was a non-dairy milk like soy?

Sugar is pH-neutral, and is not itself a preservative (it's pretty much the opposite).

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#347

Post by pkulak »

the_only_law wrote: post #335
pkulak wrote: post #152

So I guess this guy doesn't know what "reverse engineer" means? He seems to think it means "use".

Well, I suppose it it's not a public API he may have had to o some work to analyze and piece together conventions, parameters, etc. Personally I just refer to this basic stuff as "analysis".

Yeah, I think my comment is not so great, as you could totally call this reverse engineering. Kind of an off-the-cuff reaction on my part that wasn't very considered.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#348

Post by SaladFork »

hug wrote: post #332
duxup wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose ice cream isn't high on the list of services they feel they need up and running all the time, but if the machine is determining this I would think there would be some level of predictability that would allow them to schedule sanitizing and etc. It's funny that the machine tells them there's no ice cream. I visited my local library for a tour. They have an automated system that collects returned books, sorts…

It's about ten years since I've worked with an ice-cream machine, but in my experience no matter the model they never forced you to try not to serve ice-cream. They would enter their self-pasteurisation cycle, and the display at the front would tell you that is what it was doing, but it wouldn't prevent you from pulling the handle, if you so wished. The problem, though, was that the barrel of the machine where the mi…

demonstrated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0ZxgI59_Ak

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#349

Post by chapium »

joezydeco wrote: post #320
trelliscoded wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A manager is doing it by hand. Their POS system has the ability to lock out individual items, and this information is available in real time to the server backing the mobile app (GMA). The machines that I've seen don't have real-time telemetry, and are not networked.

Good info, thank you! There was an old effort a long time ago where the machines were on a powerline-networking system (LONWorks) but that is dead and buried. The next-gen effort was ramping up a few years ago and I don't really know where it is now. The predictive analytics company they bought was a big part of it.

Not sure if this is the same thing, but I recall reading a case study in 2006 on McD's cloudifying their kitchen equipment. The project was apparently a huge failure and was eventually stopped due to runaway costs.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#350

Post by sbarre »

slg wrote: post #183
sbarre wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like any other e-commerce store, you can add stuff to your cart, and then choose not to check out. And it is typically during the cart-adding process that you find out if a product is actually available for purchase or not, as opposed to at checkout time. I would assume that's what is happening here, which means it's not actually affecting any in-store operations, just (as the author says) probably messing with their…

He has said multiple times that orders are "placed". He also said they aren't "executed". Based on what other people are saying here about McDonald's workflow, it sounds like a placed order wouldn't actually be executed unless he shows up to the store. That is probably what is happening here. It may be "reasonably harmless" but it is still not a nice thing to do just for fun and 15 minutes of internet fame. EDIT: I'm…

For what it's worth the author joined the discussion and confirmed he is not actually placing orders, but rather using the API to check availability of a product.

He doesn't say how that works, but again if I had to guess I would bet it's checking the response to "add to cart" or something similar.

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