San Francisco Shuts Down Viral Website That Tracked Parking Cops in Real Time - 1

Image by Caspar Rea, from Unsplash

San Francisco Shuts Down Viral Website That Tracked Parking Cops in Real Time

  • Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
  • Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager

A website designed to help San Francisco drivers dodge parking tickets went viral this week, only to be shut down by city officials within hours of its launch.

In a rush? Here are the quick facts:

  • A viral app tracked San Francisco parking cops in near real time.
  • The app scraped data from the city’s parking ticket payment portal.
  • It showed officer initials, ticket locations, and a fines leaderboard.

The tool, called ‘ Find My Parking Cops ’, was created by software engineer Riley Walz. It worked similarly to Apple’s Find My Friends, but instead of locating people, it tracked parking enforcement officers in near real-time, as first reported by Tom’s Hardware (TH).

The app would retrieve locations of tickets that had just been issued, by extracting data from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) website. The app displayed officer initials together with their current locations and a ranking system, showing which officers had issued the most valuable fines. One officer was shown collecting over $20,000 in a single day, as reported by TechSpot .

Walz posted on X:

I reverse engineered the San Francisco parking ticket system. I can see every ticket seconds after it’s written So I made a website. Find My Friends? AVOID THE PARKING COPS. pic.twitter.com/67MOWVMleF — Riley Walz (@rtwlz) September 23, 2025

They can even write custom notes on the tickets pic.twitter.com/AWqAAXpHWl — Riley Walz (@rtwlz) September 23, 2025

Walz discovered that ticket numbers followed a predictable pattern, usually increasing by 11, except when the last digit was 6, in which case the next jump was 4. The system had a security flaw which let him carry out automatic citation scraping operations for thousands of cases, as noted by TechSpot.

The website obtained rapid popularity because it received more than 50,000 visitors during its first few hours of operation, reported TechSport. On the app, users could see fines for street cleaning, hill-parking violations, expired meters, and more, reported 404Media .

But the city reacted swiftly. At 2:34 p.m. Tuesday, the SFMTA altered its website to block access, making parking citations invisible to the public, reported the San Francisco Standard . “When our staff’s safety, and personal information of people who have received parking citations, is at risk, we must act on that swiftly,” an SFMTA spokesperson said, as reported by TechSport.

Walz insists he isn’t “pro or anti parking cop,” but wanted to expose how predictable city systems are, as reported by SF Standard. While he briefly found a workaround, the app has since been unstable, as noted by 404Media.

Instagram Hits 3 Billion Active Users And Reveals Growth Strategy - 2

Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

Instagram Hits 3 Billion Active Users And Reveals Growth Strategy

  • Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
  • Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager

Instagram announced on Wednesday that it has reached the milestone of 3 billion monthly active users. The company says it will continue focusing on video and improving its algorithm.

In a rush? Here are the quick facts:

  • Instagram announced it has reached 3 billion active users.
  • Adam Mosseri said the company will optimize its algorithm and give users more control.
  • In 2022, Zuckerberg disclosed that Instagram had 2 billion monthly active users.

According to CNBC , Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, revealed that Instagram had surpassed 3 billion active users. The last time Zuckerberg disclosed Instagram’s user base was in 2022, during an earnings call, when he reported it had reached 2 billion monthly active users.

“What an incredible community we’ve built here,” said Zuckerberg in a post. The milestone represents significant growth in the past few years.

According to TechCrunch , Instagram had 1 billion users in 2018. Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, reflected on the platform’s journey, achievements, and strategies behind its rapid growth.

“Messaging, reels, and recommendations have driven most of our recent growth,” said Mosseri in a post on Instagram. “So, over the next few months, we’re going to better organize the app around those features.”

He added that, as part of Instagram’s upcoming strategy, the company will optimize its algorithm and give users more control.

“We’ll soon start testing a way for you to tune your algorithm by adding and removing topics based on your interests, starting with reels,” added Mosseri.

This year, Instagram has been applying new strategies to boost user engagement. A few weeks ago, Meta introduced a new AI-powered translation tool to translate videos in English and Spanish, allowing content creators with more than 1,000 followers to “speak” in another language with its AI-dubbing system.

Meta is also developing AI-driven ad automation , which will allow businesses to create and target ads automatically by 2026.

In May, Meta also announced that the messaging platform WhatsApp reached 3 billion monthly active users during an earnings call.