API

API Method

We are not gonna talk about the fact that I never even tried using this approach... M'kay? ANYWAYSSSS...

By using the Telethon module for Python, we can create a Telegram client to request the data. This method also does not even require any GPS spoofing since we can just pass coördinates to the API call... (Yeah this is not a problem at all Telegram, keep telling yourself that)

Getting started

1. Make sure you have a Telegram account and an API key. (Register your key Here)
2. Clone the repository and move your terminal over to this folder
3. OPTIONAL: I recommend and prefer creating a virtual environment using python -m venv venv
4. Install the required Python modules: python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
5. Make a copy of config_default.json and name it config.json
6. Edit config.json to your preference and place in your API ID and hash
7. Run the program by using python nearby.py

First run only On your first run of the program, the bot will ask for your phone number, Telegram password and will let you verify these by a 2FA code. This information will be stored in trilat.session and should be remembered automatically.

Compatability When run on Windows 7, I had trouble getting the Telethon Client to start and ask for my credentials. I had no trouble doing so on Windows 10.

Parsing the data

When the bot is done gathering data. the result will be saved into the data folder inside this folder. These .json files are compatible with the Webview part of this project and allow you to render a map of people's locations.

Notes

• Rate limiting still applies on this endpoint. I did not bother to detect issues by comparing timestamps, you have to check for this for yourself. I found that I can make 3 consecutive API calls before the rate-limiting kicks-in and requires you to wait for about ~15 minutes. (There are ways to bypass this, but again, this is a proof-of-concept)