EVE General Discussion

None of those requires a full api key

Yes... actually....

Because said corp leaders are willing to put in the effort to protect the corp... It isnt a matter of trust, they WANT you in their corp, but they have to look out for their members and protect their interests from the potential of theift or awoxing. An API check is the fastest and easiest way of doing this.

I've given both limited and full API at various times because I'm not quite as paranoid as the people who ask for it. I'm also very candid about the fact that I have 5 accounts, 4 almost always active at a time so they are gathering no useable data from my API.

It doesn't even provide effective meta any more assuming I only had one account. Once upon a time you could determine what I might be flying and use it to profile me for spy ganking but with the two accounts I send to large corps, they both have SP for every sub cap in the game. It isn't even a game advantage choice, it was just wise to Nerf proof.

tl;dr it's not a threat but it's an antiquated habit we have in the game and speaks volumes about the corp you are applying to.

This is always an arguement between the "My Privacy!" crowd and the "Meh, who cares" crowd.

There are many completely acceptable reasons to want to see or check any and all parts of the API, but likewise, there are many reasons why those same parts don't need to be seen. It is all a matter of your point of view. Ultimately, it's going to depend on what you personally consider acceptable.

What you need to know about API's is:

- They can see your skills. They cannot change your training.
- They can see your assets and wallet, and they can see who you have given money to in the past. They cannot take any of those assets or send them on to anyone else.
- They can read your mails. They cannot read mails you have deleted, and they cannot send mails in your name.
- They can see your contacts. They cannot change any of your personal contacts or add any personal contacts (although, if you join, you will inherit corp/alliance contacts)

If you are giving your API to anyone, you have to ask yourself:

- What are you lettimg them see?
- Can allowing this information to be seen put you, your assets, or your plans at risk?
- Can keeping information hidden place you, your assets, or plans at risk ? (bear in mind, any information a recruiter allows you to keep hidden, he is likely allowing others to keep hidden - what potential risk are you being put in by lax recruiting standards)

Ultimately it is your choice. Some places will ask for full APIs, others will ask for tailored APIs to cut out the irrelevant information. For example, to be a member of my corp and alliance, I have submitted three different APIs for each of my two accounts with information pertinent to what I am involved in. One of those does indeed include assets, something that a lot of people would balk at. Why? Because I am part of the Alliances Capital and Supercapital groups, and as part of that, its kinda mandatory to ensure I possess the Capital and Supercapital assets I claim I have (and that I have the skills to fly the vessel, and my ship fitted to the level required by alliance doctrine). It may not be much, but thats an extra level of security to my ships, since I know that random throwaway spy alts can't infiltrate those groups without having the needed skills and assets, and it also means I am not being put at risk on the field by discovering too late that my cap buddy doesn't have the skills or mods needed to do his job, something that could leave me stranded and vulnerable. To me, the extra protection provided to my Supercarrier by knowing every other SC going in to battle with me is correctly fit and piloted, is worth the miniscule risk added to my pimped Nightmare by having that appear on the API survey.

Just to clear up this small point...

First it shows if you are self efficient, and able to support yourself effectivly. A corp will normally help in making isk but not hand holding.

Second it can flag up some annomilies... i interviewed a toon that transfered 5 billion isk between a couple of toons 3 months before and when i asked why they dropped the conversation never to be seen again.

Its all little bits useful for an interviw... finding about alts they failed to mention, surprise income sources, aplicable for a training corp, they say they can do x but can really only do y....

Actually we just prefer not to run our computer game guild like a totalitarian police state.

Yes.

It's a READ ONLY view of your characters.

The purpose is often to allow for automation of access to secure resources such as forums, communications and 3rd party tools.

Now, if you need to 'hide' something from recruiters, you're probably already too much effort for any entity with over 100 characters in it.

Look here for more details https://developers.eveonline.com/resource/xml-api

Don't be too scared.

Please. Tell me you didn't say that. You need an API to tell if a corpy is selling capitals to the enemy? The only way this makes sense is if you AREN'T a CEO. Tell me, just how many people in this game can build caps? How many can build caps on the side - UNDETECTED? The best way to keep up with personnel in a large organization is by structural hierarchy and authority delegation. The best way to THINK you're doing all this is to monitor APIs and hallucinate.

...scourge missiles.....yeah...a lot of text you have, but no point.

I had a conversation about this with a friend one time. Don't count on deleting your mails faster than your corp pinging the API and downloading what's there. It's a better policy to not have anything sensitive in email.

I have a hard time following that advice myself.. most or all my mails have some personal content so it is not trivial just to hide myself completely.