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Snapchat, You've Made a Huge Mistake

blog.etanzapinsky.com

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Re: Snapchat, You've Made a Huge Mistake

#81

Post by thiloberlin »

VuongN wrote: post #58
itcmcgrath wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All seems very pointless when you can 1) Take a screenshot, or 2) take a photo of it. Once you give someone the ability to see or hear something, there is no guaranteed way to take it back. I say this because: "You revoke access to anyone in the future that even if they have the image, without the privilege, the file is useless"

Even the foremost thinker in security, Dan Geer ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Geer ), once said: "...The most serious attackers will probably get in no matter what you do. At this point, the design principal, if you’re a security person working inside a firm, is not no failures, but no silent failures." In the same respect, you can't really stop people from taking screenshots or take a photo of... a photo. What…

A watermark won't help me with at an anonymous service like snapchat.

Re: Snapchat, You've Made a Huge Mistake

#82

Post by lehrblogger »

I disagree with etanz's post, and think it makes sense for Snapchat to make this feature more accessible (as others have pointed out, profiles have existed on the web for a long time).

In particular, the people we communicate with is not "one of our tightest guarded secrets," especially among the teenage demographic. The term 'bff', for example, has meaning because teenagers like to declare their relationships publicly. Of course our friendships define who we are, and we use those friendships to express our identity in the same way we use fashion to express our identity.

I doubt a large part of Snapchat's usage is for extramarital affairs and the like, and the company is probably happy to make the app less useful for that, and more useful for communication between friends. By making the top friends visible, if user A looks at user B's profile and sees herself as third in the list, and is jealous of the people in the first two spots, then the best thing for user A to do about it is... send more snaps.

Re: Snapchat, You've Made a Huge Mistake

#83

Post by jerf »

ansible wrote: post #76
jerf wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. That ends with no service existing at all. Money has to come from somewhere for the service.

Does this really need to be a centralized service though? Isn't this the sort of thing that could be implemented as a peer-to-peer networking service?

That doesn't get away from the issue of payment, it just moves it around. I think it does so in a way with a lot of positives, but there's the whole P2P bootstrapping problem in the way, both in terms of creating the code that even works and then actually bringing the network online, and unfortunately it seems that's a pretty big negative in practice.

Re: Snapchat, You've Made a Huge Mistake

#84

Post by chanux »

ryandvm wrote: post #35

I find Snapchat's charter fascinating. I say this as the author of a competing, and much less successful, product called Privy ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appidio.pr... ). I wrote Privy with a very simple use case in mind. It was for sending messages that you never want to resurface. Privacy, of course, was paramount. After reading a few interviews with the Snapchat guys, I was amused that the…

`unlike snap chat there is no account setup required`

So do you authenticate with IMEI or phone number?

Re: Snapchat, You've Made a Huge Mistake

#85

Post by cwb71 »

Interesting that this would bubble to the top today in light of the Verizon FISA story.

The White House and others defending the practice keep repeating “it’s just metadata.”

Knowing exactly who you talk to, when, where, and for how long can expose a lot about you and be pretty incriminating!

Re: Snapchat, You've Made a Huge Mistake

#86

Post by darkarmani »

itcmcgrath wrote: post #56
VuongN wrote: post #36

If you want to check out an alternative, our nCryptedCloud iOS has a secure camera that would encrypt the image (in memory) before it even gets to the device. Once encrypted, you manage access rights. You revoke access to anyone in the future that even if they have the image, without the privilege, the file is useless. You could also send a quick share (time-controlled SnapChat style) with anyone--pdf files too! It's…

All seems very pointless when you can 1) Take a screenshot, or 2) take a photo of it. Once you give someone the ability to see or hear something, there is no guaranteed way to take it back. I say this because: "You revoke access to anyone in the future that even if they have the image, without the privilege, the file is useless"

That sounds like a DMCA violation and so does telling other people how to circumvent a copyright protection mechanism.

Re: Snapchat, You've Made a Huge Mistake

#87

Post by greenyoda »

This is a perfect example of what has been said about the recent revelation that the NSA is collecting the metadata for all phone calls (calling number, called number, etc.): you can learn a lot about a person just by knowing who they've communicated with and how often, without having to know anything about the actual content of the communication. If your girlfriend sees that someone with a female name she's never heard of is your number one Snapchat contact, that's probably all she needs to know.

Re: Snapchat, You've Made a Huge Mistake

#88

Post by mikegioia »

rhizome wrote: post #79
speeder wrote: post #29

Today lots of posts on privacy... To those saying that if you have nothing to hide you should not have a problem with this, you are missing some points, and situations... For example, sometimes you do things that are controversial, but not necessarily wrong, or "sketchy", and you don't want the negative attention. For example, regarding the Verizon call list: What if people discover you have made lots of calls to KKK…

What if people discover you have made lots of calls to KKK? They will quickly jump to conclusion that you are probably a neo-nazi, but maybe you was like that black guy that made a KKK documentary The thing is, Verizon isn't handing over identities. This isn't to absolve Verizon here at all, but to illustrate that the US Government can't find terrorists this way.

Interesting argument, but don't you think the NSA/FBI are just just going to say "we're not collecting/analyzing enough data"?

Re: Snapchat, You've Made a Huge Mistake

#89

Post by anonymfus »

pseut wrote: post #72
samstave wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he was trying to grab an example that would be easy to jump to conclusions about (calls to the KKK)

It's a poor example. If I were black, I'd be pretty unconcerned about the possibility of my friends and family thinking I'm a Klansman, no matter what my phone records say.

Probably you misunderstand example.

> They will quickly jump to conclusion that you are probably a neo-nazi, but maybe you was like that black guy that made a KKK documentary (I forgot the name, I saw in school many years ago, a teacher showed us) and interacted a lot with them.

It does not means that you would be black, it means only that you would be making KKK documentary like that black guy.

Re: Snapchat, You've Made a Huge Mistake

#90

Post by reddit_clone »

greenyoda wrote: post #87

This is a perfect example of what has been said about the recent revelation that the NSA is collecting the metadata for all phone calls (calling number, called number, etc.): you can learn a lot about a person just by knowing who they've communicated with and how often, without having to know anything about the actual content of the communication. If your girlfriend sees that someone with a female name she's never he…

Hey, that's my Nana who likes to keep tabs on me!
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