greenbandit

This might work in cases where those with the data are engaged in noble acts, but not ever actor is.

I scrape and process websites of actors engaged in fraud. I do this to make the data more presentable to the proper authorities and to help uncover further evidence of their activities.

I suspect that asking for consent would be quickly denied and the data/evidence would quickly become inaccessible.

> cute little altruistic process

Maybe it is not the opinion which is unpopular, but the way it is being presented.

I use web scraping to identify and monitor fraud.

Exhibit A: https://archive.ph/0ZUA8

This website is used to recruit people to set up "lead generation" Google Business Profiles and leave paid reviews.

Exhibit B: https://archive.ph/WWZuw

This is an example of the Craigslist ad used to initially attract people to the website above.

Exhibit C: https://archive.ph/wip/7Xig4

This is one of the Google Maps contributors which left paid reviews.

If you start with the reviews on that profile, you'll find a network of Google Business Profiles for fake service-area businesses connected through paid reviews.

Web scraping allows me to collect this type of data at scale.

I also use scraping to monitor the status of fake listings. If they are removed, the actor behind them will often get them reinstated. This allows me to report them again.

I don't think the smallest binary was the goal but rather the smallest compiled binary. I assume they were restricted to a specific compiler as well.