{"id":220,"date":"2014-10-11T08:55:29","date_gmt":"2014-10-11T06:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/harsmann.com\/blog\/?p=220"},"modified":"2020-04-13T13:47:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T11:47:00","slug":"snap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/2014\/10\/snap\/","title":{"rendered":"Snap! [Updated]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday [Oct 10] news broke that Gigabytes’ worth of Snapchat photos and videos had been posted on the Internet. Yet another hack with personal info stolen, but what makes this different is that confidentiality was breached at several levels. Not only was data stolen from an insufficiently protected service, but the fact that data was there to be stolen in the first place,\u00a0goes very much against the point of a service that should destroy messages after few seconds. \u00a0It has\u00a0now reported that the\u00a0material did not come from Snapchat itself, but from SnapSaved – a third party app used to save the shared files online (detailed report from Ars Technica ->here<\/a> and comment from the app developer ->here<\/a>).\u00a0According to the reports the leak was caused\u00a0by a webserver that was not configured correctly.<\/p>\n

I haven’t tried Snapchat myself\u00a0–\u00a0I am probably too old with too boring interests to try out something that looks like a digital doctor game\u00a0(with opportunities for mature flirting and nasty “your Mommy and Daddy will never know”)\u00a0–\u00a0but\u00a0as long as no laws are broken and noone abused, it ain’t\u00a0my business [Update:\u00a0I am definitely too old, but there is plenty of business for some<\/a>]. However, I\u00a0feel bad for everyone who has shared\u00a0private photos and videos with friends, lovers, spouses in good faith that the other part was also\u00a0using the service in\u00a0the way it was intended. Now all Snapchatters must wonder if their partners in fun can\u00a0be trusted<\/p>\n

The initial coverage in here Denmark focused on\u00a0how people are naive and way too trusting on the Internet (plus the inevitable sensationalism), hinting that everybody getting their pictures exposed only got themselves to blame\u00a0(ha!). And while I do not disagree that people should take web security more seriously, I think it is wrong. First of all, that is blaming the victim, ignoring the criminal\u00a0hacking\/leaking and the negligent hosting. Second, considering the\u00a0data breaches from major corporations and from public institutions where you have little or no choice of having your data registered, anyone can become a victim at some point. Third, even if the victims have done all the right things to protect them selves online, they would not be protected when the people they shared with stored data that was supposed to be destroyed.<\/p>\n

The nature of the\u00a0incident does not change the\u00a0usual advice about safe conduct on the internet:<\/p>\n