Motivation for Hacking Yik Yak

Yik Yak seems to currently be the most popular anonymous geolocation application, and therefore serves as a great platform for research and development. It is not the intent of the author of this blog to enable malicious intent, although this may become a byproduct of these efforts. If and when this is the case, the author feels that the due diligence of this medium will allow developers to implement additional features and functionality to address these shortcomings, therefore creating a more robust, secure and functional platform. As this field continues to evolve, the state of these applications should improve, further enabling users to submit content in a manner conducive to value contribution.

The importance of these types of applications is the unfettered submission and review of localized content. Without identity association, people post content more freely, without fear of reprisal. Allowing this type of functionality leads to revealing opinions and truths more along the extremities, for better or worse. Wikileaks publishes secret information, news leaks and classified media from anonymous sources, which has led to mass critical review of once unknown and highly controversial policies of governments and other such groups. 4chan, an anonymous image board, is currently a top 500 site according to Alexa, and has produced subcultures responsible for the creation and proliferation of many cultural phenomena. Both of these sites have begun exploring the potentiality of anonymous submissions with varying degrees of success and process discovery.

Yik Yak adds geolocation to this concept, allowing one to view anonymous messages from their locale. This opens a whole new area of possibilities. Allowing social and professional networks to be established simply by association of location has been explored by organizations such as Craigslist, but is accelerated and encouraged by the advent and integration of technologies such as GPS and network location services. Still early in vetting processes related to these types of activities, it is the intent of the author to educate and speed innovation/contribution.