> Every record has gam_audiences and audiences_member_of populated, Google Ad Manager audience segments, with values like coach-nudge experiment groups, trial eligibility, lapsed-user cohorts and rating-band targeting.
It sure seems like the evidence doesn't point to scraping to me.
Have I been pwned reports 99% of email addresses from chess.com leak were already in their database. Rather strong indicator that the Hacker scraped an API with a list of email addresses.
> The data had been pulled by abusing the platform’s find-friends feature
Sounds like the find-friends feature shouldn't allow access to the majority of that data unless the "friend" accepts, don't think the "scraper" got 7mil accepts just because they had access to emails... To me this is 100% a breach, even more so because its already happened once years ago to 700k, and they changed nothing to prevent it.
A lot of chess.com information is public (by default) if you know someone's profile. Stuff a couple million email addresses and phone numbers into the "find friend" API and all you need to get profile information is the associated account username.
Chess.com should probably prevent scraping, but as we can read in just about every comment thread about LLMs/Cloudflare/Anubis/Go-away, that's not as easy as it sounds these days.
I just logged in to delete my chess.com account, got a message: "This account is closed, please log in with your e-Mail to reactivate". No word by them having been hacked.
I only started playing less than a year ago. I paid for one year because of game review to improve my game. Didn't know lichess exist, but I'm not paying for a second year for sure
When I started playing online chess, which was around a year before the hype came with corona, I checked out both websites chess.com and Lichess. I very quickly decided to use Lichess since it just appeared superior in all aspects and it, in my opinion, look way better.
Almost all of the people I met who play chess prefer chess.com and I just don't understand it. I just never managed to warm up with that site
After reading this, the only respectable thing to do was to close my account, and I did close it. Email addresses were not supposed to be leaked but they were, which hints at atrocious security.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 47.7 ms ] threadIt sure seems like the evidence doesn't point to scraping to me.
https://infosec.exchange/@haveibeenpwned/117263977537458510
Sounds like the find-friends feature shouldn't allow access to the majority of that data unless the "friend" accepts, don't think the "scraper" got 7mil accepts just because they had access to emails... To me this is 100% a breach, even more so because its already happened once years ago to 700k, and they changed nothing to prevent it.
Chess.com should probably prevent scraping, but as we can read in just about every comment thread about LLMs/Cloudflare/Anubis/Go-away, that's not as easy as it sounds these days.
Btw I hate that chess.com puts game reviews under their most expensive plan, I ain't paying so much for something I can get in lichess for free.
Far superior to chess.com in all regards. If you're still on chess.com, make this your opportunity to switch. You won't regret it.
Almost all of the people I met who play chess prefer chess.com and I just don't understand it. I just never managed to warm up with that site