Slashdot Mirror


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."

1 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. "Their use".. well, actually.. the recipient's use by QuasiSteve · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Snapchat [...] is now is saying its users were instead victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps.

    While I suppose it's possible that that the reference to 'users' in 'their' is a different subset, the phrasing makes it seem that somebody who sent a picture was victimized by their own use of a third party app, while in reality all signs are pointing to the recipient of the photo using said app.

    The recipients hopefully feel doubly-awful not just for betraying their friend's trust (not saving the image implied by the use of snapchat - technical feasibility and analog loopholes aside) in the first place, but for playing a pivotal role in those images possibly becoming public.

    While I'm certainly in favor of educating people that when you send stuff to others, you have lost all control over it, no matter what assurances you get, I'm also in favor of educating people not to be jerks (be that the recipients, or the hackers).