Disclaimer:

I am not a fan of online dating, nor do I have any online dating apps installed on my devices. I have tried few of the most famous online dating apps and they did not appeal to me. I love approaching people anywhere and saying Hi.

So why did I sign up for this one?

They promoted it in the underground as a dating website based on science. That really intrigued me into seeing how this works.

You’d register, answer tens of questions about yourself, then they’d show you some matches with blurred photos, telling you that they have something like 95% compatibility with you. Without paying for full membership, you’ll only be able to look at how compatible you are, smile at people, and send pre-defined ice-breaking messages such as “If you are famous, who would you be?” or “If you had one last day in your life, what would you do?”. If they did reply, you wouldn’t know what they replied or be able to send a personal message unless if you pay.

This dating website charges more than £50 per month to be able to see photos and to message people. That surely is because they are providing such smart service.

Tonight while working on my startup DeveloperHub.io — A service to create your own beautiful product documentation, API reference, user guides in hosted developer hubs (portals) — I got a message from someone with 100% compatibility as the dating website claims, so I was highly intrigued to know who she was.

The dating website does not even allow you to read the message. So I thought: Hmm, let’s see how smart these “smart” people are.

If you are not a technical person, jump to Moral of the Story below.

Let the Reverse Engineering Begin

I thought, first thing I can do is to see the network traffic coming in and out of the app. I am using the app on my iPhone. So I installed a proxy on my Mac, Charles, and ran the iPhone’s WiFi through that proxy.