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Many popular iPhone apps are recording user sessions without asking

techcrunch.com

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Re: Many popular iPhone apps are recording user sessions without asking

#3

Post by mcphage »

corbett3000 wrote: post #2

Anyone have an idea for how to block this on your iphone? Perhaps content filtering glassboxdigital.com? Not sure if that would stop however it is that they're transmitting back to their servers.

If you can monitor it via a web proxy, then you should be able to block it the same way.

Re: Many popular iPhone apps are recording user sessions without asking

#4

Post by AndrewConn »

corbett3000 wrote: post #2

Anyone have an idea for how to block this on your iphone? Perhaps content filtering glassboxdigital.com? Not sure if that would stop however it is that they're transmitting back to their servers.

Possibly... I might try using Charles Proxy mobile app to observe what domains data is being sent/received from, then on your home network use something like Pi-Hole to block those domains.

Re: Many popular iPhone apps are recording user sessions without asking

#6

Post by katsura »

A two/three years ago I noticed that inspectlet (similar tech for the web) was happily sending the passwords in clear text to their servers, even though on their website they mentioned that passwords are never sent. I sent them an email and they eventually fixed it, but I wonder how many passwords and credit card CVC data did they collect before that?

Re: Many popular iPhone apps are recording user sessions without asking

#7

Post by threatofrain »

> Apps like Abercrombie & Fitch, Hotels.com and Singapore Airlines also use Glassbox, a customer experience analytics firm, one of a handful of companies that allows developers to embed “session replay” technology into their apps.

> These session replays let app developers record the screen and play them back to see how its users interacted with the app to figure out if something didn’t work or if there was an error. Every tap, button push and keyboard entry is recorded — effectively screenshotted — and sent back to the app developers.

Re: Many popular iPhone apps are recording user sessions without asking

#8

Post by fitzroy »

"Record the screen" could be more precise. I assumed the article was saying apps were literally recording a video of the screen, complete with alert popups etc (like the Screen Recorder app).

I realize there isn't functionally much difference within an app. But unless I'm reading it incorrectly, it's not recording the screen it's just the UI of the app. That's not nothing, but I always assumed (sadly?) that a lot of apps have been doing that for years to hone their UX dark arts.

Re: Many popular iPhone apps are recording user sessions without asking

#10

Post by jrockway »

fitzroy wrote: post #8

"Record the screen" could be more precise. I assumed the article was saying apps were literally recording a video of the screen, complete with alert popups etc (like the Screen Recorder app). I realize there isn't functionally much difference within an app. But unless I'm reading it incorrectly, it's not recording the screen it's just the UI of the app. That's not nothing, but I always assumed (sadly?) that a lot of…

Yeah. An equally hysterical article could be written about web servers recording your IP address and what page you visited.

Maybe this is a bit much, but developers do need some data as to how their app is performing in the real world. You might have some metrics that says 0% of visitors to your order checkout page on FooPhone 1.0 are completing orders successfully. With a screenshot, you can immediately see that that screen doesn't even work on that device. It doesn't sound like a tragic loss of privacy to me, but rather an important tool for developers to help smooth over the reality of massive device incompatibility.

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