"Anonymous" Yik Yak Users Can Be Tracked Down, Say Researchers


We already know that if you threaten to shoot up a school on the ostensibly anonymous social media messaging platform Yik Yak, the law will come knocking, and that gossamer veil of not-really privacy will be shredded.

As Yik Yak says in its guidelines for law enforcement, it maintains a log with the following non-publicly available information for every message posted: 

  • The date and time of the interaction with the app, beginning with installation of the app
  • The IP address used to access the app
  • The GPS coordinates of the device used to access the app

(See more...)