HN Explorer

Can I Curl to Downvote?

4 points by byearthithatius ↗ HN
There is no downvote button. Some say you need 500 Karma to see it, while others say it never showed up or its random.

My question: I notice the upvote is just a hyperlink to `voteid=__&how=up&auth=__&goto=reply__`

So can I just curl `vote?id=__&how=down&auth=__&goto=reply__` or does server side have the same checks?

8 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 29.5 ms ] thread
toomuchtodo
Try it and see what happens.
byearthithatius
Trying it with you now:)

EDIT: It does work if you pass the user= cookie to curl and copy the URL exactly except how=up (for upvote) =un(for unvote). Doing how=down _seemed_ to work, but your comment didn't lose any points so idk.

LinuxBender
Downvote requires at least 500 karma to count. [1] You currently have 100.

[1] - https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#downvo... [not my site]

byearthithatius
Seemed to work for your comment: elgin@dell:~ » curl --cookie "user=byearthithatius&REDACTED" https://news.ycombinator.com/vote\?id\=43485499\&how\=down\&... elgin@dell:~ »

I think it worked but I am not totally sure. I got a valid response and your comment does seem changed but only you can see the points IIUC.

LinuxBender
The easier way to hide comments from me would be to use uBlock Origin and create a "My filters" rule with:

    news.ycombinator.com##tr.athing.comtr:has(a.hnuser):has-text(/\bLinuxBender\b/)
byearthithatius
I think you are misunderstanding what this thread is about. I already stated I knew some folks said it required 500 karma and I never asked to hide comments. I was curious if there is a server side check for downvote.

Downvote doesn't even hide your comment, it just takes points away. It is a different function.

LinuxBender
Turning off uBlock I see two downvotes. If you can do that without 500 karma that would be a bug in this site, especially if you can do 2+ downvotes of the same comment using the same account. I don't believe this site has a bug-bounty but you could always ask dang.
byearthithatius
Really? Nice! Hey I want to say thank you very much for confirming this worked for me. That was really considerate of you. I am just happy this little test worked. Have a great day sir:)