When Apps Go Rogue: The Curious Case of TeaOnHer
Picture this: you’ve just downloaded a trendy new app, TeaOnHer, promising a fresh twist on the original Tea craze, built for men to brag about the women they’ve supposedly dated. Instead of a harmless social platform, you discover a bonafide vault of personal data, ready for the wrong hands.
What’s in the Hack Closet?
- Government IDs & driver’s licenses – those are usually for passports, not dating apps.
- Selfies that look as if someone tried to prove they’re not a hologram.
- Randomly left open public URLs that let anyone click and view anyone’s ID photo.
- Emails and user names, ta‑da! Guess what… don’t (or do?) say it out loud.
The Parallel Troll‑War
Remember the original Tea app, the one where women post about the men they date? It’s topped with a “women’s safety” badge and a splashy 6 million‑user count. The fans fought back at TeaOnHer by creating a mirror‑image platform, only to copy the same questionable slogans and let the same problems show up in a fresh coat. The developers clearly didn’t keep a diary of better security practices.
Viral Chaos and Data Disaster
After 404 Media exposed a data dump saturated with 72,000+ images – from selfies to IDs – cyber‑enthusiasts waddled on the internet, sharing a million private messages that Tea had to shutter its messenger. The fallout? An app that was supposed to mean “girls are safe” became a personal data dispenser.
Security Blunders in the Spotlight
- Access with a single click – Any web visitor can pull up a user’s full profile, complete with email and location, purely by tumbling through the link list.
- Admin credentials exposed – The founder’s email and plain password are sitting on the server side, unlocking the “admin” panel for anyone who can guess or resembles a random email address.
- Guest view hypocrisy – You can get a “guest” glimpse without logging in, and teensy‑weens of the app reveal graphic or spam material (like repetitive nude images, defaming tags “easy”) riding the same data stream.
- Estimated 53,000 users over exposed, a number that hints about how many “miracle” matches are actually absorptive social media consumption.
Who’s Running the Ship?
Newville Media Corporation slotted the app in the Apple store—right on the “Lifestyle” shelf, where you’d expect to find fitness trackers or travel journals. The CEO, Xavier Lampkin, tries to rate his credentials but gets caught in the loop of leaving his email as a marketing splash.
Takeaways & Where to Crood‑waft
Never underestimate the importance of data hygiene. If you’re a developer, put a lock on your app before publishing it into the wild. If you’re a user, set expectations that each app is not a passport office. And for the record, TeaOnHer is playing a hotter chess battle than Netflix or Instagram when you look at how it’s scored in the free-app arena.