Security Flaw On iPhone App Results In Thousands Of Private Photos Circulating On The Web

Post by Sharat | March 31, 2010 | Apple, Apple Computers, News, Smart-Phones | Comment

An embarrassing security flaw on the Apple iPhone application has resulted in thousands of intimate photos sent between users becoming public.

iPhone users who installed the Quip app, which was designed to let people send photos to another for free, found their private photos enter into the public domain.

What the makers of the Quip app failed to mention, was that anyone who has basic internet skills could access the images as well.

Quip stored the private images on a publicly accessible web server without any encryption, making them easy prey for savvy internet users.

As a result the most private moments of thousands of users have been made public and are being circulated on the internet.

Many photos show people having sex or in the nude (though we are not quite sure why people feel compelled to take those kind of photos, still each to their own). Others are fairly innocuous, and show people enjoying a day out at a baseball game, or baby photos.

One very disturbing image shows a half naked man, covered in what looks like cuts and blood, whilst another photo seems to have been taken in the White House.

To add insult to injury, some internet users have managed to make the connection between the people in the photos and their real names courtesy of their Facebook profile.

Internet message boards were set ablaze with outrage once the security flaw emerged, and one poster who identified himself as one of the makers of Quip App said the system had been shut down.

On one web forum, a user identifying as one of the makers of the Quip app said the system had been shut down.

“As soon as this post came to our attention, we immediately shut down our servers. We have also now disabled all S3 access and have started to systematically secure all files in the system. We will not bring the system back up until we have adequate security around all files shared over Quip.”

However many of the photos, saved by people before the servers were shut down, are still being circulated.

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