thomfre

It’s not just you, it’s everyone

The Norwegian and Swedish reviewers have posted on their Facebook pages that they have been told to stop reviewing due to major technical issues which will take a few days to fix. Maybe these issues are related to that?

Are you saying that we can't trust the integrity of the message center? Can anyone send messages as other users?

It turns out that they are actually doing a lot. I have just heard that some of the fake-loggers have received emails telling them to stop. Thank you, Groundspeak!

Which is why I used the word "temporarily". That would solve the issue right here and now, and give Groundspeak time to figure out a real solution.

Or even better, just temporarily block discovering via the API for all applications. That will probably stop all of the mass discovering right now, as people use tools like logthemall to submit the fake logs...

So I have to make sure I activate all my unactivated trackables now?

That won't happen. Most likely, Facebook will do nothing about this. Yes By the looks of it, no.

This is wrong. Project-GC has nothing to do with that page, in fact, Project-GC just implemented changes to prevent people from being able to log those lists through Project-GC. Edit: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectGC/posts/2854779711246266?comment_id=2855094981214739&reply_comment_id=2856020204455550

The last one to log using the lists from Facebook is trying to disguise it, he's using a date from months ago and the text "Discovered at the Mega". At leas the others were honest enough to say that they were cheating

You are describing a different game, that already exists. If you want to play ****ee, you can play that

This is how HQ responds to everything now. They mostly use canned answers for all incoming email. I wrote a rather long email, and got the exact same response - word for word. Let's just hope they actually do something about it.

I think I figured out how someone did this. They probably first generated a list of all possible codes (not that many), and then just ran a script to check the URL https://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?tracker=CODE. If the URL worked => valid code. Might take a while to run, and that's probably why the codes have been shared in blocks on that page. I really hope Groundspeak can block the people that do this.

You do realize that this is the exact same link that I commented on? Where do GeocacheTBSpoiler get the codes from? Codes to trackables that has never been shared, or logged, before...

So where do they get the codes? Has there been a data breach on geocaching.com? Are they randomly guessing, and just hoping that they will hit? Or have someone figured out the algorithm that generates the codes?

The ability to opt out of data selling is what CCPA is about. Most API partners I know about doesn't pay anything for the data. The law is meant to protect consumers from tracking and targeted ads, not from partner applications. So CCPA doesn't actually cover official partners (maybe it covers Project-GC, but not the rest). GDPR allows sharing too, as long as proper written agreements are in place - and that is the case for official partners. So I'm starting to think this entire change is rushed, just to err on the safe side, instead of actually doing what the law require. When it comes to tracking, cookies and selling data, that should have been handled a long time ago. GDPR has been in effect for a while now. I'm surprised that Groundspeak has been allowed to ignore this for so long without getting fined.

I'm not wrong. The agreement has this as a requirement. Partners failing to follow the requirement does not affect me being right in this statement. https://apidevelopers.geocaching.com/apiagreement

I disagree. Other companies have dealt with problems like these by sending cease and desist letters. As long as Groundspeak doesn't do anything, I see no reason why people can't hold them liable. But I am not a lawyer either. There are ways for Groundspeak to block c:geo (without blocking legitimate traffic), they would find a way around it probably, so it would be a game of cat and mouse. But I still believe they should do something. This release is related to CCPA, yes? One of the requirements are: So in relation to this change, I am asking: are you prosecuting c:geo for infringing on the rights of your users?

Also wrong. C:geo takes logs from people that doesn't use c:geo. Not allowed by the user.

Wrong. Partners are required to delete data when told to do so by Groundspeak.

I was just trying to be a bit funny If you use ad blocking, you can try to block cookiebot.com. That should make it work.

So you are saying that you violate the ToU as well?

If this is the case, why is some profiles blocked in the API? That data is also visible on the website. If Cachly is blocked from showing the data l, why is c:geo allowed to display it? This is wrong. Time for c:geo to finally face it, and start behaving like the rest of the apps.

What I meant is that there's a difference. Gclh is not scraping the site like c:geo is.

Of course it has to do with us. It's our data they scrape......