Snapchat privacy policy after terms change freaks out users

Several places reported on this,
here is an excerpt from PC World:

– Nov 1 2015
Snapchat clarifies privacy policies after terms of service change freaks out users

“company says the changes are not nefarious and nothing to worry about.”

Click / Tap for full article at PCWorld.com – Snapchat clarifies privacy policies after terms of service change freaks out users

stop-looking-at-our-phones-and-pics-violating-pervsQuite frankly I am confused about snapchat and similar services entirely. From my little info of everything snapchat, I thought it got popular because it let you send and receive a picture with some words, and the picture would auto-erase on the other person’s phone after a short time. I can see why that would get popular! Many started using this service with the understanding that pictures sent to them were only visible for a short time, then they would be erased. Am I right on this?

So later people find ways to take screen shots and save the pictures that people are sending them – and those people sending the (I guess often naughty, or otherwise desired to be semi-secret and ephermal )- those people are under the impression that the other devices they sent to / through would be private and auto erased. Then it comes out there are multiple ways to save these pics and the company was also saving pics on it’s servers. Then some other changes happened..

Now a privacy policy change comes out saying they can use all of your snaps in any way they want, anywhere in the world, for any reason. Am I getting this right?

Now some back peddling after someone starts to tweet about it. how-many-are-seeing-you-naked-phone

Interesting.

I am looking forward to the time when we have some more chat options that give people better privacy and security from the beginning to end of the chats. Hopefully we will have some more options in the near future that better enhance the phone / tablet usage, providing more options for securing your chat connections. This is something we think about and work on just about everyday.

As I write about this and open a tab to research something I see an article hit the news stream from Wired:

Signal, the Snowden-Approved Crypto App, Comes to Android
At least there are people working on this whole secure your chat thing.
I’m not sure any solution is 100% secure, but certainly there are better options that the top / most popular phone chat services like wechat, snapchat and others.

I do believe that consumers need to choose applications that encrypt your photos, videos, and messages, ON YOUR DEVICE. Then your device only sends, or backs up your naughty texts, nude selfies, and the nude pics and videos you have of others on your phone / tablet / computer device in a way that others can not look at them too.

I wish some people would get together and help put together some estimated numbers about how many can access your dick pics and tits / pussy / clit pics. how-many-see-your-girl-naked-pics

I would like this set of numbers to be broken down by each service starting with the following this list perhaps.

Snapchat
WeChat
Standard phone company sms / mms –
(above broken down each company)
Internet Providers
Telegraph
Chat Secure
Facebook Messenger
Skype
One Drive / LiveDrive / Skydrive
Google Cloud / Drive / Photos
DropBox

There are many other services I’d like to add to this chart, so if anyone has any suggestions please add them in the comments below or send me a message and I will get it added to the list here.

As consumers we should also be made aware at least once a year about whatever companies are holding data about us, how that data is stored (encrypted? Plain text?), and how long the data is kept. We should also be made clearly aware if that data is in part or whole being transferred to other third parties, even contractors that may listen to your siri or google now audio for quality assurance. I like companies that give you an option to download or otherwise transfer / backup your data, and to get a glimps of what data is being help in relation to you.

Google has some methods for these things from what I have seen in the news. The ability to take a look at your past search history, listen to the audio files saved for your voice searches, seeing gps locations of everywhere you have been with an android phone or tablet, and things like that. I have also noticed that Apple is taking encryption seriously and encrypts the newer iphones in a way that needs the password creator and phone holder to actually unscramble the information saved on the phone.

how-many-watching-small-big-cameraI had seen some rumors that google was going to make newer android phones fully “whole disk” encrypted by default, but then I think that may not have rolled out, and if it did I am not sure if that relates only to android “pure editions” and other manufacturers like samsung, lg and asus may not enable that by default.

I have seen some recent reviews on the security of some android apps that purport to “hide your photos in a secret folder, and encrypt them so you need a password to find them and oepn them” – the reviews I saw pointed out that several filed to hide photos on the phone from basic file explorers, and they were either not encrypted, or the password to “de-crypt” was saved in plain text where anyone could get it and open your photos / videos.
(citation needed here)

Currently the security of our communication devices is what I consider quite poor mostly. Hopefully various groups will continue to make strides in creating / requiring strong safeguards to our data and communications. In the meantime be careful with your devices out there, make a backup of your good stuff onto a flash drive, and scramble it – even if you simply encrypt the backup with 7zip. Be aware that many people can access your data right now, and that some services offering benefits like cloud backup, saving backups of your photos, or providing you with the means to send data to others, are likely less secure that you may think, and they look at your data (texts, pictures, videos) as something that is both an asset and liability, and more and more a way to earn money.

Another android app that caught my attention recently was one called G Data Secure Chat (article / review via Pc Mag )

Off to research some more! May update this post, or just add extra info in comments.