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iPhone Takes Screenshots of Everything You Do

Posted by kdawson on from the watchbird-is-watching-you dept.

The_AV8R writes "Jonathan Zdziarski showed that every time you press the Home button on your iPhone, a screen capture is taken in order to produce a visual effect. This image is then cached and later deleted. Zdziarski says that there have been cases of law enforcement looking up sex offenders' old data and checking recovered screenshots." This revelation occurred in the midst of a webcast on iPhone forensics, demonstrating how to bypass the iPhone's password security (not trivial, but doable). Video from the talk is not online yet but is promised soon over at O'Reilly.

11 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's nice to know by mmkkbb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Errr, it's not phoning these screenshots home. You must have a problem with .bash_history too, right? Caching your keystrokes! OMG!

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    -mkb
  2. Anybody know if he was hacking 2.1? by wisebabo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sorry to diverge from the screenshot topic but does anyone know if Mr. Zdziarski will demonstrating how to hack the just released 2.1 firmware? Or is a previous version that (may have) been patched? This seems much more significant than being able to see (via a screenshot) what the last user action was.

    As for the screenshot, hmm... well at least it doesn't seem to be a deliberate attempt by Apple to get more info on the user. Also, it seems pretty difficult to get these screenshots (since they are automatically deleted according to the article you have to find and undelete them). Doesn't sound like a trivial or reliable way to snoop on people. Still I guess a security flaw is a flaw so be aware!

  3. What's the problem by KasperMeerts · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So it takes a screenshot for some effect? Is there even a way to do this without taking a screenshot? A way that is easy enough to be performed on a smartphone?

    And what did you expect from Apple? That every bit of data that was discarded is overwritten ten times? Jeez, I enjoy bashing big companies as much as the other guy but now they're looking too far. Remember, it also saves your web history, every picture you took, every file you opened everything you did somewhere...

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    As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
    1. Re:What's the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Those files are hidden away. This image should live in /tmp/, it doesn't. Apple decided you'd like it to appear in your photos list, which is clearly ridiculous. It does it on the ipod touch too.

      2.1 is a mess, apple's forums are full of bugs already, stupidly obvious ones that are found as soon as you use an updated device. Some seem to be problems with what itunes is doing to your files, others are bugs on the device itself. Clearly they didn't do enough testing, and the beta testers should be fired from the testing program.

  4. Re:Yeah, right. by D'Sphitz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, apparently, from TFA it is cached on disk (flash, whatever). That's my question, hy not just create it directly into RAM and release it after the effect? What purpose is there to saving the screenshot beyond the second or so it takes to show the animation?

  5. Re:It's nice to know by Hyppy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's trivial to disable logging to .bash_history. What about for this?

  6. I've seen this... by zosa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I had a glitch occur that put one of these screen shots in my photos collection. I was wondering what kind of glitch would have generated a screenshot. Now that is partially explained.

  7. Re:Makes you wonder.... by cayenne8 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    "It makes me wonder what parental unit is stupid enough to give their kid an iPhone"

    Just curious...why would you think it stupid for a parent to get a kid an iPhone? That way they'd be giving them an iPod and phone in one fell swoop.

    Hell, when I was a teen.....I was working, and if they had them in my day...I'd have bought my own.

    But really....are you saying buying a phone in general for a kid is stupid or just if it is an iPhone that is stupid?

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    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  8. Re:It's nice to know by Em+Ellel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You'll no doubt be shocked to learn that even though you might empty your Recycle Bin there are some thing that anyone with physical access to your computer MAY be able to recover.

    Thank you, that's the point. I DO know that about files *I* create and *I* delete and I can delete them securely if I choose to. What I did NOT know is that something is capturing screenshots of what I am doing and saving them without my knowledge. Generally this sort of a behavior is reserved for spyware, rootkits and other malware. I realize it is not intended as such, but neither was the Sony DRM rootkit a while back.
    I would guess most people would have an issue to have a keylogger installed on their computers. This is no different..

    (the word may is in all caps for the imbeciles reading, and because some of us are unable to detect when we are being patronizing)

    Ok, but there MAY be something vaguely self-referential about that....

    -Em

    --
    RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
  9. no foundation by dynamo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This fool doesn't even present any evidence that this 'screenshot' is -ever- even written to storage. Sure, it has to be in RAM to be shown zooming away, but the same thing applies to showing anything on the screen at all. Just because it saves processing power to capture an image instead of zooming the live app like OS X does, doesn't imply that the image ever leaves volatile RAM.

    - written from my iphone.

  10. Re:FUD by stewbacca · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes, caffeine. The recreation drug of choice. I can't wait for my next caffeine party. Maybe I'll go tailgating at the football game today and get hepped up on coffee!