
Show HN: How to access my personal API - bckmn
http://www.bckmn.com/blog/how-to-access-my-personal-api
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tudborg
I like the idea, though it makes the life of the identity thief a b it easier.

A few thoughts on how to standardize the content;

It seems more logical to just send your date of birth as a ISO8601 string or a
UTC unix timestamp, instead of all the fluff. (i would prefer the ISO8601)

Lat/Lng is an exact point, and i figure you removed a few digits to avoid
showing your exact location. A geohash would be better suited to indicate a
geographical area of users precision choice. Also more compact.

You are missing country - not everyone live in the US, or even in a city, a
common geo indication seems more suited (again, a geohash).

All values should be describes with a standard name, not just the english
name. so english: "en", german: "de", etc. Also, more compact.

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bckmn
Yes. These are all good ideas. I have experience making APIs, but not ones
designed for international use. This is good to learn. Thanks.

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jameshart
All that is old is new again:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_protocol](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_protocol)

~~~
clarkm
In fact, MIT's user search is just a front end for the finger command:

[http://web.mit.edu/search.html](http://web.mit.edu/search.html)

And as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it does raise some privacy
concerns. For example:

[http://amap.mit.edu/](http://amap.mit.edu/)

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rohitv
Very Cool. Although, I was wondering if there is any framework/library
available that lets you organize such JSON data into more of a visual
interface. Something as simple as getting the keys and values and inserting
into an organized table with beautiful CSS3. As I was thinking of making such
library which does this. I have seen parsing libraries that help parse JSON
and display it in a structured manner but, haven't come across something that
visualizes it in a more beautiful manner.

~~~
jimmytidey
Presumably you are already using JSONview plugin for your browser? JSON isn't
really going to fit in a table though...

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covati
I've thought about doing something like this for a while, but on a more
dynamic level. More along the lines of capturing check-ins from Facebook and
Foursquare as well as other life events and making them available (with
permission) via an API.

Someone brought up to me that it would be pretty much like Google Now - which
isn't completely correct, but it gets to what the value could be.

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jcutrell
I really like this idea. (May be worth changing the name to a Show HN, or
starting an ask thread about it.)

I think it would benefit from a standardization with something similar to
OpenGraph, though. And really, endpoints to arbitrary services, publications,
etc would make a lot of sense.

A good, open space for something like this is academia, I think.

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ismaelc
(Disclaimer: I work for Mashape). I just added this to Mashape -
[https://www.mashape.com/community/joshua-
beckman#!documentat...](https://www.mashape.com/community/joshua-
beckman#!documentation)

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lemcoe9
This really isn't an API, it's more of a résumé that happens to be in JSON.

~~~
privong
And is vaguely reminiscent of the Geek Code.
[http://www.geekcode.com/geek.html](http://www.geekcode.com/geek.html)

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apgwoz
Thanks. With your birthday and birthplace, I can probably become you quite
easily.

~~~
junto
This is an interesting point.

We want to be able to share things about where we live and when we were born,
but since these variables are used for identity confirmation, we are stuck
with a trade-off.

A unique reference to be used for identity confirmation is an alternative, but
it also has drawbacks. The identifier becomes concrete over time, so we become
bound to the identifier. Anonymity becomes more challenging and the identifier
slowly becomes a requirement rather than an option.

An challenge to get the right balance.

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jimmytidey
There are quite a few microformats that would get you close to this:
[http://www.microformats.org/wiki/hresume](http://www.microformats.org/wiki/hresume)
would be a start...

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leoedin
tudborg covered a lot of good points. Another alternative to a geohash would
be to use a GeoJSON[1] object to define location. It's a fairly widely adopted
geographical standard and means you could throw the data from the API straight
into a map (leaflet) or a database (mongoDB has native geoJSON support).

[1]: [http://geojson.org/](http://geojson.org/)

Be careful with broadcasting your date of birth widely. It's surprising how
little information is needed to open a store credit card.

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jqueryin
If you're watching comments, how often do you change your lat/lon coordinates
if at all? I'm just wondering if you track changes or you simply located your
home.

~~~
bckmn
I was thinking about this. I think it would be cool to track live location via
phone, but was concerned about security. I have it set to an arbitrary 'area'
average of residence/workplace.

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colinhowe
Cool idea. However, you should remove your age from it. Given a lot of banks
etc rely on date of birth as a security identification

~~~
jameshart
It is weird that we accept that "knowing person A's date of birth and mother's
maiden name" is remotely acceptable as a proxy for "being person A"; similar
to the weird US bank custom of accepting "knowing the account number and name
associated with an account" as a proxy for "is authorized to withdraw money
from the account"...

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picsoung
make your own about.me API :) To make it more appealing we could add more
computation: sync your github profile and it will fill the programming
languages field automatically. add data from Klout, to get topics of interest
Add goodreads, to point out the type of books you are reading. and other datas
from other APIs...

It could even be a self-service app.

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Ryoku
I just have one issue with this. It's a social engineering gold mine.

~~~
jussy
Just limit access to the api to key services or applications.

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waylonrobert
Reminds me of humans.txt.

