App designed for safe sending of naughty selfies is rife with risks
Teenager subtitles: App makes selfies safe BLAH BLAH BLAH
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A smartphone app touted as a safe way to exchange naked pictures and saucy texts poses a huge privacy risk.
Snapchat is available for both iPhone and Android devices, and is marketed towards teenagers and young adults. The app lets senders control how long a message or picture can be viewed, before it expires after a maximum of 10 seconds.
The idea is that a picture is only visible for 10 seconds - limiting the opportunity for others to forward it around the school campus, or (worse) upload it to Facebook or an image sharing site.
The problem is that this doesn't stop anyone receiving a message taking a screenshot of their device and creating their own copy of the image, providing they are nimble fingered enough. The Snapchat app offers a warning if someone takes a screenshot, but not a way to stop this happening. Even this limited safeguard can be circumvented, warns net security firm Sophos.
"There are 'how-to' guidelines online explaining how jailbroken iPhones can subvert Snapchat, and take snapshots without informing the image's sender," explains Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.
"A less high-tech method to grab the image is to simply take a photograph of the phone that has just received the nude photo. And then there's no way the Snapchat app can tell you if that's happened," he added.
Snapchat's privacy policy admits that it can't offer guarantees that any naked photos you send through the app will be only available for ten seconds.
"Although we attempt to delete image data as soon as possible after the message is transmitted, we cannot guarantee that the message contents will be deleted in every case. For example, users may take a picture of the message contents with another imaging device or capture a screenshot of the message contents on the device screen. Consequently, we are not able to guarantee that your messaging data will be deleted in all instances. Messages, therefore, are sent at the risk of the user."
Snapchat, which received a 12+ rating from Apple for "Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content or Nudity", is ahead of Instagram and only behind YouTube in the list of top free photography apps in Apple's online store. The firm claims its iOS version alone has been used to shared over 1 billion photos ("snaps").
US child safety online Mary Kay Hoal has also expressed concerns that youngsters might be fooled into thinking that Snapchat is a safe way to share nude and inappropriate photographs of themselves.
Despite these well intentioned warnings it's unlikely that young people will stop sharing intimate photos of themselves over the internet anytime soon. Parasite porn sites are stealing and spreading such images and videos, according to recent research by the Internet Watch Foundation. In one very sad case, Amanda Todd was bullied so badly about images of her that were shared online that she eventually took her own life.
"Sharing a naked photo of yourself with someone via the internet is putting yourself at dangerous risk of embarrassment, humiliation or serious bullying," Cluley concludes.
"Young people who adopt Snapchat shouldn't fall into a false sense of security that it's somehow a safe way to share naked pictures with their friends," he added. ®
COMMENTS
This is an old problem
Back when I was just 8 years old, I invented a method of creating a "self-destructing message". This involved making a recording on a tape cassette; then, after rewinding it, carefully opening up the cassette housing and inserting a small piece broken from an old loudspeaker magnet in the path to the take-up spool, where the tape would rub over it. This made a cassette that was only listenable once: the very act of playback wiped out the content.
However, there was a fatal flaw, as follows: There was no way to tell whether or not the EARphone socket of the playback machine was plugged into the AUXiliary input of another machine; so the technique was insecure against anyone who knew the trick (and had another cassette recorder).
Summary: Any kind of "limited read" is inherently insecure, because you only ever need to be able to read something once to make a copy of it.
Seriously?
What sort of group of people would set up a business specifically aiming to get nude pictures of teenagers?
===
Dear authorites,
I can reassure you that all photos will be deleted after 10 seconds.
Yours faithfully,
G Glitter,
J Savile,
Managing Directors.
old advice?
Whatever happened to the common sense advice: face *or* bits - it's either naughty or identifiable - never both.
Deniability, people... deniability...
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