Block/Ban user from SoundCloud group via API - rest

How does one block/ban one user from a SoundCloud group via REST API?
Logic:
Though not in the docs (but then again, lots of other wrong info is there), one would expect that this should work:
DEL api.soundecloud.com/groups/{id}/members/{member_id}
Note:
Taught by my previous experience, I did not venture into testing any of my ideas since there is probably no way to guess how developers got it implemented, if implemented at all.

Related

AdMob in iOS app - Collected user data deletion

New to AdMob and trying to understand compliance as it relates to providing and deleting collected user data to a user upon request from purely programming standpoint.
In my research, it appears that there is an API for the user to at least delete the data. https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/config/userdeletion/v3/ being the most helpful so far though not specifically particularly helpful in code examples. This would probably be accomplished either by the developer using the client ID manually or via the developer's app -> user deletion API.
Assuming one of the two approaches is the proper way the industry is currently handling this, how is this typically handled in Swift (ideally via SwiftUI not UIKit but I can follow along either way)? Please note I am not asking how to set up AdMob in general, or how to use UMP to provide GDPR consent, or what anything related to legal/compliance beyond programming.
If there is some other, more preferred option, please let me know that as well.
Thus far I have researched the differences in client ID and user ID from an end user perspective. Code-wise, I am unsure where to start until understanding which approach to take as dictated by the answers above. I have also looked into exposing the client ID vs various items that might be used as a generic device ID but am unsure how best to obtain this as well.
Thanks!

securing usage of REST API when using SPA without authentication

after reading all the threads on stackoverflow and other platforms, I still wasn't able to find an answer, which satisfies me.
The task:
I want to create a single page application (SPA) which receives data from a REST API. In this SPA, NO authentication should be used. It's a public site.
But the REST API should only be accessible from people who loaded the SPA from my webserver.
I assume this is only solvable with something on server side like sessions, cookies etc. - otherwise I'm open for your suggestions, solutions etc.
Thx in advance!
There's no reasonably easy way to do this. You can easily prevent other domains (in browsers) from accessing a an API on your domain (via CORS), but it's significantly harder to prevent scripts from doing this.
The issue lies in 'how do you detect legit browser traffic from a script'. It turns out that this is not easy. You could try to detect 'unusual behavior' as much as possible (for example a large amount of requests in a short time), but this doesn't stop clients that are slower.
Ultimately if people want your data, they will find some way around whatever restrictions you come up with. You should reevaluate this and use one of the following options:
Don't do an SPA and API. Although one could wonder, if the data exists in HTML it can still be crawled.
Add authentication. But obviously this won't help you in any way if anyone can authenticate.
Re-evaluate why you have this restriction. What are you worried about? If you're worried about people taking your data and using it elsewhere, how does only showing it in a browser from 1 domain help with that? If you're worried about copyright theft, why not use a legal approach to this?
I've seen a lot of these types of questions, but in my opinion I haven't yet seen one that has a legitimate good reason to want this. But, maybe you're the first.
I believe I answered my question myself on a comment 30 minutes ago... I think with captcha I'm able to secure the REST API against unwanted access to my REST API

soundcloud: Is api-v2 allowed to be used and is there documentation on it?

yea, the title pretty much sums it up. Is it allowed for an app to access ressources on api-v2.soundcloud.com?
Is there any documentation for it?
Relevant since I'm currently working on a soundcloud app and I just recognized that most of the calls on the websites itself are done with api-v2. The responses from the server would be extremly helpful to build some kind of infinite streaming which is the feature I like most about soundcloud.com.
I cant speak for SoundCloud, but gryzzly (a former SoundCloud engineer) stated in a previous answer:
Letting you know, that using undocumented APIs is not going in line with the our developers’ Terms of Use.

REST HATEOAS - How does the client know link semantics?

Imagine I have a fully implemented REST API that offers HATEOAS as well.
Let's assume I browse the root and besides the self link two other links (e.g. one for /users and one for /orders) are returned. As far as I have heard, HATEOAS eliminates the need for out-of-band information. How should a client know what users means? Where are the semantics stored?
I know that is kind of a stupid question, but I really would like to know that.
Suppose you've just discovered Twitter and are using it for the very first time. In your Web browser you see a column of paragraphs with a bunch of links spread around the page. You know there's a way to do something with this, but you don't know specifically what actions are available. How do you figure out what they are?
Well, you look at the links and consider what their names mean. Some you recognize right away based on convention: As an experienced Web user, you have a pretty good idea what clicking on the "home", "search" and "sign out" links is meant to accomplish.
But other links have names you don't recognize. What does "retweet" do? What does that little star icon do?
There are basically two ways you, or anyone, will figure this out:
Through experimentation, which is to say, clicking on the links and seeing what happens, then deriving a meaning for each link from the results.
Through some source of out-of-band information, such as the online help, a tutorial found through a Google search or a friend sitting next to you explaining how the site works.
It's the same with REST APIs. (Recall that REST is intended to model the way the Web enables interaction with humans.)
Although in principle computers (or API-client developers) could deduce the semantics of link relations through experimentation, obviously this isn't practical. That leaves
Convention, based on for instance the IANA 's list of standardized link relations and their meanings.
Out-of-band information, such as API documentation.
There is nothing inconsistent in the notion of REST requiring client developers to rely on something beyond the API itself to understand the meaning of link relations. This is standard practice for humans using websites, and humans using websites is what REST models.
What REST accomplishes is removing the need for out-of-band information regarding the mechanics of interacting with the API. Going back to the Twitter example, you probably had to have somebody explain to you at some point what, exactly, the "retweet" link does. But you didn't have to know the specific URL to type in to make the retweet happen, or the ID number of the tweet you wanted to act on, or even the fact that tweets have unique IDs. The Web's design meant all this complexity was taken care of for you once you figured out which link you wanted to click.
And so it is with REST APIs. It's true that in most cases, the computer or programmer will just need to be told what each link relation means. But once they have that information, they can navigate through the entire API without needing to know anything else about the details of how it's all put together.
REST doesn't eliminate the need for out-of-band information. You still have to document your media-types. REST eliminates the need for out-of-band information in the client interaction with the API underlying protocol.
The semantics are documented by the media-type. Your API root is a resource of a media-type, let's say something like application/vnd.mycompany.dashboard.v1+json, and the documentation for that media type would explain that the link relation users leads to a collection of application/vnd.mycompany.user.v1+json related to the currently authenticated user, and orders leads to a collection of application/vnd.mycompany.order.v1+json.
The library analogy works here. When you enter a library after a book, you know how to read a book, you know how to walk to a bookshelf and pick up the book, and you know how to ask the librarian for directions. Each library may have a different layout and bookshelves may be organized differently, but as long as you know what you're looking for and you and the librarian speak the same language, you can find it. However, it's too much to expect the librarian to teach you what a book is.

Getting up to speed on current web service design practices

I'm admittedly unsure whether this post falls within the scope of acceptable SO questions. If not, please advise whether I might be able to adjust it to fit or if perhaps there might be a more appropriate site for it.
I'm a WinForms guy, but I've got a new project where I'm going to be making web service calls for a Point of Sale system. I've read about how CRUD operations are handled in RESTful environments where GET/PUT/POST/etc represent their respective CRUD counterpart. However I've just started working on a project where I need to submit my requirements to a developer who'll be developing a web api for me to use but he tells me that this isn't how the big boys do it.
Instead of making web requests to create a transaction followed by requests to add items to the transaction in the object based approach I'm accustomed to, I will instead use a service based approach to just make a 'prepare' checkout call in order to see the subtotal, tax, total, etc. for the transaction with the items I currently have on it. Then when I'm ready to actually process the transaction I'll make a call to 'complete' checkout.
I quoted a couple words above because I'm curious whether these are common terms that everyone uses or just ones that he happened to choose to explain the process to me. And my question is, where might I go to get up to speed on the way the 'big boys' like Google and Amazon design their APIs? I'm not the one implementing the API, but there seems to be a little bit of an impedance mismatch in regard to how I'm trying to communicate what I need and the way the developer is expecting to hear my requirements.
Not sure wrt the specifics of your application though your general understanding seems ik. There are always corner cases that test the born though.
I would heed that you listen to your dev team on how things should be imolemented and just provide the "what's" (requirements). They should be trusted to know best practice and your company's own interpretation and standards (right or wrong). If they don't give you your requirement (ease-of-use or can't be easily reusable with expanded requirements) then you can review why with an architect or dev mgr.
However, if you are interested and want to debate and perhaps understand, check out Atlassian's best practice here: https://developer.atlassian.com/plugins/servlet/mobile#content/view/4915226.
FYI: Atlassian make really leading dev tools in use in v.large companies. Note also that this best-practices is as a part of refactoring meaning they've been through the mill and know what worked and what hasn't).
FYI2 (edit): Reading between the lines of your question, I think your dev is basically instructing you specifically on how transactions are managed within ReST. That is, you don't typically begin, add, end. Instead, everything that is transactional is rolled within a transaction wrapper and POSTed to the server as a single transaction.