How to hack dating websites

How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

Chris McKinlay was folded into a cramped fifth-floor cubicle in UCLA's math sciences building, lit by a single bulb and the glow from his monitor. The subject: large-scale data processing and parallel numerical methods. While the computer chugged, he clicked open a second window to check his OkCupid inbox. McKinlay, a lanky year-old with tousled hair, was one of about 40 million Americans looking for romance through websites like Match. He'd sent dozens of cutesy introductory messages to women touted as potential matches by OkCupid's algorithms. Most were ignored; he'd gone on a total of six first dates. On that early morning in June , his compiler crunching out machine code in one window, his forlorn dating profile sitting idle in the other, it dawned on him that he was doing it wrong. He'd been approaching online matchmaking like any other user.

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Hackers have stolen email addresses, direct messages, and other personal data from users of two dating websites, according to a data breach expert. Earlier this week, someone alerted Troy Hunt, the founder and maintainer of the data breach alerting website Have I Been Pwned , that hackers had breached two dating websites, CityJerks and TruckerSucker. The stolen passwords are scrambled with a weak algorithm that could potentially be broken and allow hackers to see the actual passwords. Hunt said that the tipster told him the breach was advertised on a hacking forum.

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A well-known hacker has leaked the details of more than 2. Here is a step-by-step guide to reducing your digital footprint online, whether you want to lock down data or vanish entirely. The dating site's data has been shared as a free download on a publicly accessible hacking forum known for its trade in hacked databases.

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Hackers steal emails, private messages from hookup websites

Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission. Tinder says that it looks at things like app usage, profile details, and swipe history to find your matches. The apps, she suspects, run off of predictive algorithms. In episode three of Land of the Giants: Dating Games , we dive into just how these algorithms work and speak with daters who are trying to hack the code that controls their love lives.

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