Many Top iPhone Apps Collect Unique Device ID

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 1, 2010 @11:19AM from the your-computer-is-broadcasting-a-UDID dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like iPhone users are not immune to the types of data leaks recently discovered on the Android platform. Researchers looked at the top free applications available from the App Store and discovered that '68% of these applications were transmitting UDIDs to servers under the application vendor's control each time the application is launched.' The iPhone's Unique Device ID, or UDID, cannot be changed, nor can its transmission be disabled by the user. The full paper is available in PDF form."

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Is there a difference? by blair1q · 2010-10-01 12:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

iPhone and Android. Two peas in different pods.
The Internet is not secure.
Your phone company is not your mommy.
Software is more complex than humans can comprehend, and there will be holes in its behavior relative to your expectation, especially but not exclusively when you were not the one who wrote the requirements for it, but especially again when the people writing it want to leave avenues for future revenue growth.