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Comment by coreyoconnor | Hacker News Reader

I am ignorant of what iHasApp means in terms of users. Much less the ethics of it all. Why is what iHasApp did considered unethical?

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From https://github.com/danielamitay/iHasApp:

> The iHasApp iOS Framework allows you to detect installed apps on a user's device. Detection results can be in the form of an array of detected appIds, or an array of appDictionaries from the iTunes Search API.

I'd also bet you a coffee that you could pretty reliably uniquely fingerprint devices this way. I don't bear OP any ill will for writing iHazApp, but I can certainly see why many would be uncomfortable with it.

Very, very skeptical of this. Apps that people have installed tend to be similar apps.

For some subset maybe. But I guarantee you that there is not one other person on Earth that has the same set of apps installed on their phone that I do. The chances of that are astronomically tiny.

Maybe we should make an app where you put in all the apps that you have on your iPhone to find your perfect match. We'll call it appxappxappxappxappxappxappxapp.

You can filter it down even more by reading carrier information which you can access without permissions:

http://iosdevelopertips.com/core-services/carrier-informatio...

I disagree. For a related piece of work, see https://panopticlick.eff.org

I'm running a browser with only two (what I believe are common) add ons installed and a fairly uninteresting system config on common hardware. This is enough (combined with other "safe" metadata) to uniquely identify me! Compare this to iPhones, which frequently have dozens of apps installed and expose comparable device metadata.

Presumably parent is offended by the privacy violation. It allows developer of app A to know I have app B installed, which can be used to target adds etc.

While unlikely, it could be used for worse. Let's say a local or niche publication has an app and can detect if any of its subscribers are also using Grindr, Tinder, or some sort of app that signifies, to them, some cardinal sin on the part of the subscriber. That could be used to blackmail/shame/harass people.

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