Myfitnesspal has been hacked.

[leonmagnus99]

thanks for notifying man, i think i used my gmail for this app.
I'll change my gmail password asap.

 

[SG854]

I pondered the same thing earlier.
I figure it is either

People hear data loss and immediate jump to conclusions. The little list then being a direct "this was not lot" type quote.
People look for a positive in the story. If it is something as disposable as usernames, emails and password hashes (note however no mention of whether the database was properly salted) and anything nothing valuable was taken then yeah. Basically a tactic used to sort of bury bad news.

Anyway I am still genuinely curious about the actual data the service collected. 150 million counts of a dietary log would make for some nice data to poke at, and given most studies would consider themselves awesome for getting 1000 individuals for their data. Potentially kind of scary from a "big data" angle though.

If they take passwords its not big deal. All they are going to do is have the ability to log in your myfitnesspal account. What use is that for? To check your diet plans? Someone is interested in mech's health?

At most I would think SS is optional, but why even have it at all. What use for SS is in weight loss? Or drivers license? And why would anybody enter their SS for a fitness app? Those are red flags there. I can see if its to steal credit card information thats used to pay for using the app. But according to this post its not stolen. Im too lazy right now to look up the original article.

 

[leonmagnus99]

do you even lift? TC

nothing is going right in life for me so i go lift.

edit: well dang, checked the pawned site and the gmail i used for fitnesspal says pawned.
gotta change pass

ugh got mail from fitnesspal :
We recommend you:

• Change your password for any other account on which you used the same or similar information used for your MyFitnessPal account.

so they mean to say i should change the password of every other site that i have my gmail linked to? there is too much.. why do i have to ,hmm..

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I'm so used to this by now, I'm not even bothered by it. Every other month some site I have an account on gets hacked. All my important accounts are already secure (I've had to change the password on a few of them though)

Is social security required for an account? I don't see why it would even be an option.

Not that I know. They don't really require any personal information (except username, email and password of course)

I'm honestly more surprised that anyone uses/used this 'my fitness' app in the first place.

I'm surprised you would think that. It's a convenient way to count your intake vs how much you burn. Pretty much every restaurant or premade food is already in there. Without such an app it's impractical if not impossible for most people to count their calorie intake when eating out.

 

[Old]

I'm surprised you would think that. It's a convenient way to count your intake vs how much you burn. Pretty much every restaurant or premade food is already in there. Without such an app it's impractical if not impossible for most people to count their calorie intake when eating out.

Just seems like a redundant 'technology', as is the case with so many things these days. It's all been done before, from Richard Simmons "deal-a-meal" program to Weight Watchers. A pen, a sheet of paper/notebook, and a bit of research have always sufficed.
Regarding dining out, simple logic/common sense & a few basic questions should easily work for most folks. I mean, how have we been minding calories and keeping fit before this 'app'?

But hey, to each their own; it's apparently been working for some, or it wouldn't be as popular as it is.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Just seems like a redundant 'technology', as is the case with so many things these days. It's all been done before, from Richard Simmons "deal-a-meal" program to Weight Watchers. A pen, a sheet of paper/notebook, and a bit of research have always sufficed.
Regarding dining out, simple logic/common sense & a few basic questions should easily work for most folks. I mean, how have we been minding calories and keeping fit before this 'app'?

But hey, to each their own; it's apparently been working for some, or it wouldn't be as popular as it is.

How do you do research on the calorie count of food you haven't cooked yourself and doesn't have nutritional facts on it though?
Clearly, people aren't very good at minding calories and keeping fit on their own. An app like this was much needed.

 

[Ryccardo]

A pen, a sheet of paper/notebook, and a bit of research have always sufficed.

How do you do research on the calorie count of food you haven't cooked yourself and doesn't have nutritional facts on it though?
Clearly, people aren't very good at minding calories and keeping fit on their own. An app like this was much needed.

Sounds more like gratuitous use of a cloud service, when a database-app where you can pick from some presets (built into the app itself, not remotely sourced) or type the food in yourself, and the entries get stored on your phone, with the OPTION to export to a standard text format (csv) and/or sync with {for-profit service} would have done the job fine... but that's not cool technology nowadays, it appears

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Sounds more like gratuitous use of a cloud service, when a database-app where you can pick from some presets (built into the app itself, not remotely sourced) or type the food in yourself, and the entries get stored on your phone, with the OPTION to export to a standard text format (csv) and/or sync with {for-profit service} would have done the job fine... but that's not cool technology nowadays, it appears

That still wouldn't tell you how many calories are in a lot of food. Crowdsourcing is what makes MyFitnessPal good. Without it, it would be basically like what you're saying, and it would be almost useless.

 

[Old]

How do you do research on the calorie count of food you haven't cooked yourself and doesn't have nutritional facts on it though?

This is where the common sense & research I mentioned comes into play; it's a matter of looking into how many calories are in an average cheeseburger/steak dinner/pasta plate/etc. and deducing for yourself. Life experience and self-reliance come into play.

Also, it's not an issue of "people not being very good at minding calories and keeping fit", it's an issue of willpower, self-control, and giving a damn about your own health. As I said, I'll concede that this app can be (and apparently is for many) helpful, but "needed" it certainly is not. This sort of reliance on 'life coaching'/disposable tech could easily lead us down a bad road if we're not careful....next thing you know, we're living in a dystopia where we rely on smartphone apps to tell us when/how to eliminate our bowels, raise our children, make love, etc. - NO thanks.
I prefer to think/do for myself, thanks. I don't need an 'app' to break down the nutritional contents of a tuna sandwich for me.

The golden rule: 'To each his/her own'.

 

[Ryccardo]

That still wouldn't tell you how many calories are in a lot of food. Crowdsourcing is what makes MyFitnessPal good. Without it, it would be basically like what you're saying, and it would be almost useless.

Sure it could: they would be submitted by volunteers to the website at the submitter's discretion (this part probably already works this way), and the master list is integrated into the app itself by downloading the list and looking it up locally... the titlekeys site doesn't know, nor need to know, what Freeshop users download

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Sure it could: they would be submitted by volunteers to the website at the submitter's discretion (this part probably already works this way), and the master list is integrated into the app itself by downloading the list and looking it up locally... the titlekeys site doesn't know, nor need to know, what Freeshop users download

That would work but then it would still be "remotely sourced".

This is where the common sense & research I mentioned comes into play; it's a matter of looking into how many calories are in an average cheeseburger/steak dinner/pasta plate/etc. and deducing for yourself. Life experience and self-reliance come into play.

Also, it's not an issue of "people not being very good at minding calories and keeping fit", it's an issue of willpower, self-control, and giving a damn about your own health. As I said, I'll concede that this app can be (and apparently is for many) helpful, but "needed" it certainly is not. This sort of reliance on 'life coaching'/disposable tech could easily lead us down a bad road if we're not careful....next thing you know, we're living in a dystopia where we rely on smartphone apps to tell us when/how to eliminate our bowels, raise our children, make love, etc. - NO thanks.
I prefer to think/do for myself, thanks. I don't need an 'app' to break down the nutritional contents of a tuna sandwich for me.

The golden rule: 'To each his/her own'.

You can be off by 50% or even more if you're just guesstimating the calorie count. Some foods can have an insane amount of hidden calories (even compared to the same/equivalent dish from another place) and you'd never be able to guess with much accuracy how many calories are actually in them.

 

[FAST6191]

If they take passwords its not big deal. All they are going to do is have the ability to log in your myfitnesspal account. What use is that for? To check your diet plans? Someone is interested in mech's health?

People reuse passwords, and password fragments, all the time.
If you get a database of a site like this then you have potential passwords, logins and associated emails for many more sites, hence the part about the password hash table being properly salted.

 

[DarthDub]

People are talking about counting calories, when I count carbs cause I'm diabetic.

 

[WARlord1903]

Myfitnesspal was terrible anyways. I always use it to count carbs since I'm Diabetic, and usually it's either zero or something way off.