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Snapchat Says Users Were Victimized By Their Use of Third-Party Apps

Lucas123 writes: Reports that the servers of photo messaging site Snapchat were hacked are being denied by the company, which is now is saying its users were instead victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps. Hackers on 4chan have said broke into the site and they're preparing to release 200,000 photos or videos in their own database that will be searchable by Snapchatter name. According to one report, the third-party Snapchat client app enabled access for years to the data that was supposed have been deleted. The hackers have said they have a 13GB photo library. For its part, Snapchat in a statement reiterated its Terms of Use Policy, that "expressly prohibits" third-party app use "because they compromise our users' security."

3 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ban third parties by mythosaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are they going to ban development systems and emulators? Pretty sure BlueStacks can take all the screenshots I want. How about cameras? Eyeballs? Is the analog hole closed yet?

    Anyone who thought a Snapchat image was truly ephemeral was, at best, ignorant.

  2. Re:What snapchat claimed to do was a form of DRM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, it's like a bank telling you that it's not their fault when you make a check out to "cash" and someone other then who you intend cashes it.

    Assuming snap chat is correct. In order to be a victim here one of two things needs to have happened:
    1: You use a 3rd party client that leaked your photo - This is 100% your fault
    2: You need to have sent a photo to someone using a 3rd party client which leaked your photo - Maybe you should have shown better judgement when sending out a photo if you were going to get upset about it being released.

  3. Re:What snapchat claimed to do was a form of DRM by QuasiSteve · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What snapchat claimed to do was a form of DRM

    I'm not sure if this has always been the case, or was added later, but for a very long time now, at least the Play Store's description has included:

    Please note: even though Snaps, Chats, and Stories are deleted from our servers after they expire, we cannot prevent recipient(s) from capturing and saving the message by taking a screenshot or using an image capture device

    So nobody should have been under the illusion that it was, in fact, impossible to save these images even if they lived a sheltered life and never imagined the analog loophole.