What some are calling “The Snappening” – a huge archive of intercepted nude photos and videos – has been released by a group of hackers through a third-party Snapchat application called Snapsave, including images of underage users.
A group on 4Chan, a popular photo sharing website, has downloaded the data and created a searchable database of the images and videos by Snapchat username.
The Snapsave application allowed Snapchat users to archive Snapchat images and videos which are usually only available for up to 10 seconds before being deleted from the application.
In a statement by Snapchat, its spokesperson stated, “Snapchatters were victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our Terms of Use precisely because they compromise our users’ security.”
Although Snapchat says they have not been compromised directly, one could make a case for the ability of an application like Snapsave to easily circumvent their privacy controls, which in turn has been compromised.
Their statement appears to place blame the users of the third-party application, which exploited this design vulnerability. However, when a user sends these images to a third-party running Snapsave users are not aware of it.
Some argue Snapchat is somewhat complicit in this crime through the way it markets the application implying that the communications through the app are private and has not appropriately outlined the risks of third-party applications, or other workarounds that can be utilized to store images and videos that circumvent their privacy control.
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