00:01:13.700I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.
00:01:17.400Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable,
00:01:21.100abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:01:24.740These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:01:28.800Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:40.420There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:01:48.540I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:51.280in last week's news roundup one of the stories that we cut for time was about the tea dating
00:01:58.860app for women at the time when we were recording the story was still pretty simple just that this
00:02:03.220dating app that had quietly existed for two years had rocketed to the top of apple's app store
00:02:08.240because it was getting a ton of attention on social media from people making videos on platforms like
00:02:12.940about how the app played into gender dynamics around women who date men i was seeing posts
00:02:18.840on TikTok about the T app from my own city here in D.C., about how some women were using it to
00:02:23.960talk about legitimately abusive behavior from men, while other women were using it to talk about
00:02:29.600sort of commonplace dating annoyances, like men who don't text back or men who ghost, and how
00:02:35.140conflating those two things on one app is probably not great. According to the people who run the T
00:02:41.020app, all of these kinds of potes were really driving a ton of attention, which is not at all
00:02:46.100surprising because gender war stuff will always generate engagement. Fat attention was both0.99
00:02:51.540positive and negative, with a lot of men complaining about how this app was unfair.
00:02:55.920But in the economy of the internet, it really doesn't matter because it's all engagement either
00:03:00.260way. So everybody was talking about this app and it became number one on the app store in the
00:03:04.960lifestyle category. The company said that something like 1 million people had downloaded the app in
00:03:09.940just a few weeks alone. Sensor Tower, a marketing intelligence firm that tracks app data, estimated
00:03:15.620that the downloads of the app increased 185% in the first 20 days of July compared with June of
00:03:21.980that same period. The company that makes the app said on social media that they had gotten over
00:03:26.0204 million female users with a waiting list of approximately 900,000 new prospective users.
00:03:32.100There is a waiting list because before women can use the app, they have to be verified.
00:03:36.320This will be important for later. So as recently as last Thursday night when we were recording
00:03:41.780the News Roundup, that was really the main gist of what was going on. So I ended up not talking
00:03:46.540about it at all because there was a lot of other important stuff going on and I kind of just ran
00:03:50.240out of time. But now I am glad that we did not talk about it because right after we published
00:03:55.740that episode, the T app experienced a pretty major data breach. So let's talk about what the T app is,
00:04:03.000what exactly happened, the gendered history of online platforms like the T app, and what I think
00:04:08.760it all means. So what exactly is the T app? I want to spend some time on how it works before we get
00:04:14.420into the data breach. It's a dating app that's kind of like the Yelp if you were rating men
00:04:19.300instead of restaurants. So not a dating app that helps you match with people to date, but an app
00:04:24.380that tries to help you make more informed dating choices. Women can anonymously share information1.00
00:04:29.600about the experiences that they've had with specific men to help inform other women. The key
00:04:34.860here is the anonymity. When you first join the app, you're told that it is totally and completely
00:04:39.880anonymous, and that screenshotting the app is not possible. If you try to take a screenshot,
00:04:44.960you'll get a black screen. Though you can obviously still take a photo of the app with
00:04:49.260an additional device, which people do pretty often. On the T app, you can even describe a
00:04:53.900guy's behavior and have other women weigh in on whether you should keep seeing him or not.0.76
00:04:57.800Women assign men red flags for problematic behavior and green flags for good behavior.
00:05:02.620Basically, it's a digital whisper network in the form of an app for women to post photos of men and talk about whatever they might know about that man.0.82
00:05:28.200pay for T's $15 a month subscription, or invite friends to keep using it for free.
00:05:34.400So basically, invite your girlfriends to have their data breached as well.
00:05:38.200All kidding aside, it's actually kind of a smart strategy for a growing app,0.99
00:05:41.960especially one that is so dependent on having a large user base of women
00:05:45.680able to weigh in on the men in any particular area.
00:05:48.640For apps like this, users are basically as good as cash,
00:05:51.680so either pay up for the premium version or invite your girlfriends.
00:05:54.420The T app promises that women who date men can make sure your date is safe, not a catfish or not in a relationship.
00:06:02.020According to T's marketing materials, the app's founder, Sean Cook, who formerly was a product manager at Salesforce and Shutterfly, launched the app because he witnessed his own mother's terrifying experience with online dating.
00:06:14.840He said she was catfished and unknowingly engaged with men who had criminal records.
00:06:19.520He teamed up with a social media creator named Daniela Satella, who came on as the T app's social media director, who created a buzzy, pink and purple, Gen Z friendly social media presence for the app.
00:06:30.640The website says that T is on a mission to revolutionize dating safety by equipping women with cutting edge tools, real time insights and a powerful community to navigate the modern dating world with confidence and control.
00:06:42.720At its core, the site says, T is built on one fundamental belief.
00:06:47.300Women should never have to compromise their safety while dating.
00:06:50.940So users anonymously post photos of men they're dating and asking others if they have any T on them.
00:06:56.780Users can also turn on notification alerts to see if a specific name is mentioned on the app.
00:07:01.700So if I meet Joe Blow on the street and I want to keep tabs on whether or not he shows up on the T app, I can set a notification alert for his name.
00:07:09.660Other tools on the app allow users to run background checks, search for criminal records,
00:07:13.640and reverse image search for photos in the hopes of spotting catfishing or people passing
00:07:18.360off photos of other people as themselves.
00:07:20.600If this premise sounds kind of familiar, it's because it's very similar to those
00:07:24.680are we dating the same guy pages on social media, which you might recall sparked lawsuits.
00:07:30.360Last year, a Chicago man sued Meta, as well as women who dated him and their parents,
00:07:35.320women who commented on Facebook posts about him in a Facebook group and the moderators of the group
00:07:40.700for defamation, invasion of privacy, doxing and more. The complaint was dismissed. And similarly,
00:07:46.300a man in L.A. filed a lawsuit against 50 women. The man, Stuart Lucas Murray, sued 50 women for
00:07:52.580defamation, libel, sex-based discrimination and other allegations, all stemming from their posts
00:07:58.200in the Facebook group Are We Dating the Same Guy? Some of the women that he sued had never even met
00:08:03.800him only commented on the Facebook post with things like, oh, wow, and he sued them too.
00:08:10.620This situation is pretty interesting. I would actually recommend Googling Stuart Lucas Murray
00:08:15.400because he has a pretty prolific public profile. I won't say much more than that because,
00:08:20.780in my opinion, he seems like a pretty litigious guy, but it is an interesting Google. So one of
00:08:26.200the defendants in that suit described the accusations as baseless, emphasizing that
00:08:30.680the group serves as a platform for sharing personal experiences with men and opinions,
00:08:34.940which she says are protected from defamation. Here's a little bit of their press conference.
00:08:39.380As myself and my fellow co-defendants were just speaking their truth,
00:08:43.980and unfortunately for him, it was, again, not favorable. So he somehow found those comments
00:08:51.660that we did make. Again, they were factual and they were based in our true experiences.
00:08:58.240He found those comments and decided to come forth with this lawsuit with his claims of defamation, which we feel are invalid because there is no evidence that we know of that would exist in support of his claims.
00:09:19.800So just like that Chicago case, this case was also dismissed.
00:09:24.300But even still, Facebook really started cracking down on those are we dating the same guy pages,
00:09:29.900where women would dish about men on Facebook,
00:09:32.280which is pretty ironic considering Mark Zuckerberg originally conceptualized the idea of Facebook
00:09:36.640to rate the looks of the women that he called dogs in his college dorm.
00:09:40.640But in any event, a lot of those groups are being pushed off of Facebook,
00:09:43.760which is why apps like the T-app have popped up in their place.
00:09:47.760This kind of Yelp for people thing may seem novel, but it's actually not a new idea at all.
00:09:52.240There was an app back in 2012 called Lulu, which integrated with Facebook to let you rate men that you dated and judge them on what other women say about them.
00:10:00.580It was actually pretty similar to the T app in that when a Facebook user joined Lulu, it pulled the names of the men that they knew in their network.
00:10:07.900And if a user decided to rate them, it would generate a public facing page announcing that that man had been reviewed.
00:10:13.880Originally, that page featured that man's name and photograph pulled from his Facebook account.
00:10:18.640So Lulu is kind of similar to the TF, but it was really more about rating men in bed, like a cheeky way of being like, oh, this guy has hashtag big feet, and less about trying to keep women safe from abuse.
00:10:32.340Lulu was eventually acquired and shut down.
00:10:34.700Its Wikipedia page says it was described in popular press as sexist and objectifying, non-consensual and shallow and mean.
00:10:41.640I also remember way back in the early 2000s, there was this big splash about a site called Girl Don't Date Him that advertised itself as a kind of credit report for men.
00:10:51.600The site's founder, Tasha Joseph, was kind of a fast-talking lady, and she was always going on entertainment news shows to talk about dating.
00:10:59.480And I actually remember that site got quite a lot of good press, but it went just about as well as you might expect.
00:11:05.100The Miami New Times wrote an interesting piece in 2006 about how somebody fabricated a very
00:11:10.220sensational story about a horrible man who sexually assaulted a woman that later led
00:13:34.600run a business and not thinking about podcasting think again more americans listen to podcasts
00:13:40.620than ad-supported streaming music from spotify and pandora and as the number one podcaster
00:13:45.220iheart's twice as large as the next two combined so whatever your customers listen to they'll hear
00:13:49.940your message plus only iheart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio
00:13:54.800think podcasting can help your business think iheart streaming radio and podcasting call 844
00:14:00.940844-844-IHEART to get started. That's 844-844-IHEART. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held
00:14:09.660captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive
00:14:15.900what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files. I just
00:14:22.040remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week,0.97
00:14:30.940I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.
00:14:34.380I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:14:38.840I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:14:46.460They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:14:50.380But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:14:53.840They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:14:56.940Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:15:05.880If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:15:11.820This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:15:24.300I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:15:31.400I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed, so obsessed.
00:15:35.000From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:15:40.940It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:15:48.420Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:15:58.020Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:18:18.340You know, we believe that women deserve to be able to share their stories and to be able
00:18:23.260to have safe, you know, relationships.
00:18:27.240So I obviously don't disagree with him that women should be able to have safe relationships.
00:18:32.840But it really highlights the question, are apps like the T-app, the digital version of a whisper network,
00:18:38.620and a way for women to inform each other about potential abusers, stalkers, and catfishes?
00:18:43.240Or is it an app for women to gossip about men, potentially defame them, and put those men at risk?
00:18:49.460Here's how Dazed puts it in a piece that was written before news of the data breach, which we'll get to in a moment.
00:18:54.520For some, the app is a vital resource, a way to alert other women to the predators and abusers lurking undetected in the dating pool.
00:19:01.740Unlike anything else out there, this is an app designed with women's safety, awareness, and empowerment as its top priority, reads one review on the App Store.
00:19:09.580It goes beyond basic dating protection and truly provides a layer of defense against liars, cheaters, scammers, and even predators.
00:19:16.440Another reviewer says they're glad to have a means of warning other women about her abusive ex.
00:21:26.020But that bit about having to submit your driver's license is going to be pretty key here.
00:21:30.980So on Friday night, after the news roundup is published and live in the world,
00:21:35.320your girl is happily two margaritas deep at the bar,
00:21:38.160and the folks who run the T app said that there had been a data breach of a legacy storage system holding data for its users.
00:21:46.760This came after the app angered some men and prompted a thread on the extremist troll message board 4chan
00:21:53.160in which users called for a hack-and-leak campaign of the T-app.
00:21:57.520A spokesperson for the T-app confirmed all of this to Lifehacker, saying,
00:22:01.560T identified unauthorized access to one of its systems and immediately launched a full investigation to assess the scope and impact.
00:22:08.580The initial results of this effort suggest that the incident involved a legacy data storage system containing information from over two years ago.
00:22:15.120approximately 72,000 images, including approximately 13,000 images of selfies and photo
00:22:21.760identification submitted during the verification, and 59,000 images publicly viewable in the app
00:22:27.500from posts, comments, and direct messages were accessed without authorization. So yeah, that
00:22:33.880includes about 13,000 images of women's driver's licenses that they submitted back when that was
00:22:39.720a requirement to join the app. And also posts, comments, and direct messages in the apps were
00:22:44.880also part of this breach. Now, here's kind of a key detail. According to T's privacy policy,
00:22:51.000the selfies that it requires from people signing up for the app are deleted shortly after those
00:22:55.380users are verified. But that obviously was not happening, or at least it wasn't happening with
00:23:00.180the images that were included in that breach. According to the New York Times, rather than
00:23:04.740being deleted like the privacy policy said would happen, that data was stored, quote,
00:23:09.160in compliance with law enforcement requirements related to cyberbullying prevention.
00:23:14.140T said in a statement, and that data was not moved to newer systems that T said were better fortified.
00:23:20.280So basically, the T app lied to its users about the privacy policies that it was taking.
00:23:25.800It's also not clear what law enforcement requirements are talking about.
00:23:30.600I've got to admit, it kind of sounds like a pretty convenient dodge to me, but I'm not totally sure.
00:23:35.020When the breach initially happened, the company said that the only people impacted were those who signed up before February 2024.
00:23:42.240But on Monday, 404 Media reported that there was a second major security issue
00:23:47.100impacting women who had signed up and used the app much more recently.
00:23:51.100Basically, the T app exposed much more user data than was initially reported,
00:23:55.480with an independent security researcher now finding that it was possible for hackers
00:24:00.220to access really sensitive direct messages between users.
00:24:04.160Kashra Bajardi, the researcher who flagged the issue to 404 Media,
00:24:07.600sent a database of more than 1.1 million messages they said stretched from early 2023 to as
00:24:14.340recently as last week. And some of the private messages viewed by 404 Media that hackers could
00:24:20.060have had access to included very sensitive stuff. Conversations about having had abortions,
00:24:25.580information about cheating partners, and even messages that included people's phone numbers.
00:24:30.080Despite T's initial statement that the only thing impacted was information from over two years ago,
00:24:34.800The researcher also said that they found the ability to send a push notification to all of Tee's users.
00:24:41.500Like, it is hard to overstate how bad this is.
00:24:45.340So just to be clear, I am not a software developer, so I'm not an expert in this.
00:24:50.600But doing some research, it sounds like the company has a lot of the blame here,
00:24:54.660to the point where I'm not even sure that it's fair to call this a hack or a leak because they were just that sloppy with user data.
00:25:02.400Like, it truly sounds like these women had photos and their driver's license photos posted to 4chan
00:25:07.660because the T app just didn't bother to take basic security steps.
00:25:12.720404 Media, one of my favorite tech outlets, was the first to break the story of what happened,
00:25:17.920which is that users from 4chan claimed to have discovered an exposed and unsecured database
00:25:22.760hosted on Google's mobile app development platform, Firebase, belonging to the T app.
00:25:27.760On 4chan, folks were bragging that this let them rifle through women's personal data and selfies that were uploaded to the app.
00:25:34.460Then, of course, they posted that data online.
00:25:47.920Driver's licenses and face pics, get the fuck in here before they shut it down.0.53
00:25:52.500Now, the thread says that the issue was this exposed database that allowed anybody to access this material.0.90
00:25:57.980And 404 Media confirmed a voluminous list of specific attachments associated with the T app.
00:26:03.860Eventually, that page was locked down.
00:26:06.660The 4chan post includes a photo of four women's driver's licenses that the 4chan user says they redacted.
00:26:12.440But the comment on that 4chan thread indicates that many more photos of T users have been exposed,
00:26:18.700with one person claiming that they downloaded thousands.
00:26:22.520404 Media saw 4chan users share dozens of photos of women that they claim were downloaded from the database,
00:26:28.200which all shared the same image dimensions and file naming format that they saw on the list in the exposed Google Firebase bucket.
00:26:35.540Initially, the person who discovered all this says they tried to report it to Google, but ended up reporting it to 404 Media instead.
00:26:41.620So let's break this down because it's basically like if your doctor stored your private personal medical records in an open crate in the back alley behind the clinic.
00:26:50.880Or like if your bank stored all of your money in an open shoebox in the bank's lobby.0.93
00:26:55.680Obviously, it's pretty fucked up for 4chan to access this, but it is even more fucked up that the T app,0.97
00:27:02.100this app that is getting away with billing themselves to be about women's safety,0.98
00:27:05.880is letting this level of sensitive information just essentially be publicly accessible.0.99
00:27:10.780I cannot overstate what a massive, massive fuck-up this is,0.87
00:27:14.400because both because of the very serious harm that has been done to these 13,000 women,0.87
00:27:18.980And also because it happened because the developers just left this information sitting out there unsecured for anybody to just come and get it.
00:28:45.020Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.
00:28:49.560I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:28:54.120I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:29:01.560They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:29:05.520But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:29:08.960They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:29:12.100Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:29:21.060If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:29:27.000This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:29:39.460I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:29:46.580I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:29:50.160From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:29:56.100It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:30:03.580Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:30:13.180Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:30:34.500A lot of my cybersecurity friends that I talked to about this said that the site might have been vibe-coded,
00:30:39.940which is when someone who doesn't know any better or is just careless and sloppy and lazy
00:30:44.560just uses AI to help them put together a site,
00:30:47.880and they don't really know the things they should be asking for, so it comes out really janky.
00:30:52.280But other friends have suggested this could also just be a careless person.
00:30:56.580There's also the idea that this kind of fuck-up is unfortunately not super uncommon.
00:31:02.040Just a few weeks ago, the insurance company Alliance Life disclosed a breach through a third-party cloud vendor affecting most of its 1.4 million U.S. customers, including financial professionals and employees.
00:31:13.700And all of their personal data was accessed.
00:31:16.560And due to a Google Analytics misconfiguration on their site, up to 4.7 million individuals had their names, insurance details, zip codes, and patient identifiers shared improperly.
00:31:27.340So as shocking as this is, this kind of breach is not terribly uncommon.
00:31:32.420There was also such big fervor around the TF breach.
00:31:35.920An interactive Google map was circulating online purporting to show where all the different women's addresses included in the breach were located.
00:31:43.140This even got to a point where a fake story emerged on social media using an AI-generated news broadcaster warning women about the so-called T-bag killer,
00:31:51.980who, the fake report said, was killing the women whose addresses were exposed in the breach.
00:32:56.320And then those same women getting doxed by the really sloppy privacy protocols and their images being posted all over the Internet.
00:33:03.400Like, it almost seems like a tailor-made kind of gender wars just so story to the point where when I first heard about this breach, I almost wondered if it was some kind of a setup.
00:33:13.100up. And of course, those women's images were floating all over the internet with men making0.51
00:33:18.180fun of them with all kinds of sexist, misogynistic barbs. And just a few days after the breach,
00:33:24.400someone made a site that ranks the looks of the women featured in the breached images,
00:33:28.580which, hey, I thought Mark Zuckerberg already had that idea. And some of those photos have
00:33:33.060been ranked tens of thousands of times. And I think that really demonstrates why women would1.00
00:33:38.440flock to an app like the T app, you know, an app that is promising even falsely to help women have
00:33:44.440safer experiences with men. The fact that men on 4chan would do this kind of thing kind of proves
00:33:49.900their point. When I went to see what people were saying about this online, I found a lot of women
00:33:54.940upset at the idea that men would be so bothered that women would have a space online to discuss
00:33:59.680the behavior of men. One Instagram comment on the T app's Instagram page reads, wow, it's crazy how
00:34:05.440some men are genuinely upset about this app, mainly because it disrupts their ability to
00:34:09.860move in deception and avoid taking accountability for their actions. The T app's Instagram page
00:34:15.500is littered with stories purporting to show women who have used the app to find out their husbands
00:34:20.340or the fathers of their kids are running around on them. No, it's not clear to me if these are
00:34:24.560actually real stories or just more marketing from the app. And again, I don't want to discount that
00:34:30.320women should have a space to talk about their experiences in dating. And I don't want the
00:34:34.560survivors of abuse to go unheard. But I have to admit that I am personally very uncomfortable with
00:34:40.540apps like this, even while I understand why women might feel empowered by what these apps are0.57
00:34:46.260selling. And of course, there's already calls and online forms to make a version of the T-app for
00:34:51.780men to rate women as payback, even though men kind of already have this. Like, men don't really need
00:34:58.220a dedicated app to rate women. One such app called T-Born, according to NBC News, quickly ignited
00:35:04.660backlash after its creator called out users for posting revenge porn. Wow, what a shocker. Who
00:35:10.040could have seen that coming? The T-Born app has now been removed from the app store, and there
00:35:15.180are men all over men's rights Reddit communities saying that this is evidence of anti-male bias,
00:35:20.740that the T-app for women to rate men would be able to remain on the app store, but the app for men
00:35:26.760to rate women was taken down. I think what makes me the most angry about this entire thing honestly
00:35:33.180isn't the 4chan goons responsible. It's the fact that this app would purport to give women a space
00:35:39.100to keep themselves safe and betray them so cruelly by putting them at risk. Like, as fucked up as1.00
00:35:45.0804chan is for circulating these images and this data, who expects anything other than this kind0.99
00:35:50.320of behavior from the guys who hang out on 4chan? If anything, the fact that these kinds of threats
00:35:55.420exist for women should mean that the people who run apps like the T app have an even bigger
00:36:00.280responsibility to protect those women that they have attracted to their platform with the promise
00:36:04.700of caring about their safety. Or at the very least, they ought to not be outright lying to
00:36:10.560those women about what steps they're taking to keep them safe so they can make up their own
00:36:14.600minds about whether or not they're going to trust this platform. The T app issued an apology for the
00:36:19.040breach, but it kind of doesn't matter. They had a responsibility to protect their users and they
00:36:23.860failed hard. And fuck-ups like this are not a force of nature. They happen because somebody0.99
00:36:29.220somewhere in the company decided that this amount of security was good enough. They could have hired
00:36:33.920additional software engineers or contracted with an outside company to do a security audit,
00:36:38.220but they didn't. They decided to spend money on other stuff. And it's obvious that they did not
00:36:43.040invest enough in security to keep their users safe. The T app's security practices, or lack
00:36:48.640thereof make me think that this app that was started by a man was never really invested in
00:36:54.560women's safety at all, because if they were, they would have had better security practices.
00:36:59.260I think that what they were actually interested in is just capitalizing on the inevitable online0.98
00:37:03.980engagement from the promise of women telling each other juicy stories about men. Cover that with a0.85
00:37:09.720little splashy pink influencer style social media presence, and you've got a solid business plan1.00
00:37:14.800to capitalize on the unpleasant experiences of women.0.99
00:37:18.560Who cares if you put those women at risk?
00:37:20.900I mean, this is just my personal take,
00:37:22.540but I think the T app was basically quickly and sloppily thrown together
00:37:26.480with security and privacy obviously as an afterthought1.00
00:37:29.720just to generate and make use of gendered rage bait1.00
00:37:32.660in order to garner attention for the app.
00:37:35.420And the sad thing is, this is effective.
00:37:37.980I just checked, and the T app is currently the number two app on the entire app store.
00:37:42.740To put that in perspective, right now, the number one app is ChatGPT.
00:37:47.500And I guess ultimately, I simply do not trust a lot of for-profit apps that are selling and packaging safety to women.
00:37:54.100Because real safety is not someone telling you on an app that a guy is a red flag.
00:37:59.180It's having safer communities, healthier relationship dynamics, avenues for meaningful accountability.
00:38:05.220It's about being able to communicate on platforms that aren't just lying to us and exploiting us and putting us at risk.
00:38:10.800So yeah, I guess I just don't like the idea of safety being sold to us as a for-profit app.
00:38:15.720And I think it also creates a dynamic that puts the burden on keeping yourself safe on women.
00:38:20.720Like, we should be able to have safe dating experiences without relying on apps that ultimately exploit us.
00:38:26.700And honestly, what makes me really sad is that on the T-apps Instagram post about the breach,
00:38:32.020a lot of the comments are from women who do not seem to care about the breach.0.53
00:38:36.120They just want to know when their verification to sign up for the app will be approved.
00:38:39.600And it makes me sad that the state of gender and dating is so bad that even on a post about the app admitting how carelessly it treated very sensitive information of their users, people are still just clamoring to get on the app.
00:38:52.660Like, it makes me think we really are cooked.
00:38:55.540And I think the T app is a bit of a harbinger of things to come, bad things to be clear, because we've talked a lot about the rise of age verification laws and laws that would require folks to submit their government ID to access different corners of the Internet.
00:39:08.180I am very personally against laws like this for several reasons, but what happened with the T-app breach is an excellent example of one of those reasons.
00:39:16.720A lot of what keeps us secure online comes down to shared norms, like we learn not to click those suspicious links and not to give away our two-factor authentication codes or how to spot a scam or a spoof call.
00:39:28.280But when apps and websites start asking for more and more sensitive information like social security numbers, face scans, or photo IDs, it trains us to just hand over our data without really thinking twice about it.
00:39:40.720Sharing this kind of information can start to feel as automatic as just hitting agree on a terms of service without thinking much about it.
00:39:48.720The more apps and services that require us to give up our personal information, the more opportunity there is for that information to fall into the wrong hands.
00:39:57.320Cybersecurity experts sometimes call this expanding the surface area of risk.
00:40:01.680And the real problem is, is that we don't have any real way of knowing how our data will be stored or used once we hand it over.
00:40:08.040The T-app said they were deleting verification selfies and government IDs, but we can see that they clearly did not because that information is now floating all over the Internet.
00:40:16.040So a company might say, oh, yeah, we're following very strict privacy policies, but that doesn't mean they actually are.
00:40:25.360Even companies with solid security protocols can still get hacked hacked.
00:40:29.760And when the stakes are this high, you know, when what's being collected is tied to your government name and identity and address, these risks are not theoretical.
00:40:38.100As more platforms require ID uploads and facial recognition, I think we're only going to see more problems with this.
00:40:44.780And weak security practices are not just inconvenient, they're dangerous.
00:40:50.320Last year, 404 Media reported that a company that verifies the identities of TikTok, Uber, and X users, sometimes by processing photographs of their faces and pictures of their driver's licenses, exposed a set of administrative credentials online for more than a year, potentially allowing hackers to access that sensitive data.
00:41:08.200And this is happening as more social networks and pornography sites move toward an identity or age verification model in which users are required to upload their real identity documents to access certain services.
00:41:19.880usually because laws require it in a misguided effort to protect children.
00:41:24.300The T-breach highlights that identity services are themselves a prime target for hackers
00:41:28.920and a major threat to all of our safety.
00:41:31.560So if these are the same companies that we might all be using
00:41:34.100if age verification becomes more widespread across the country,