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Developer Warns That Granting iPhone Camera Permissions Allows Apps to Secretly Capture You
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Weve seen review failures in the past, so its entirely possible.
This is the problem with sandboxes and app stores. People are trained (by Apple) to think that their devices are safe from spyware, malware, viruses and malicious app activity in general. This is not the case.
Uber was tracking people before and after journeys & tracking IEMI numbers, Path was and Foursquare is uploading a user's entire address book and contacts to their servers, and the Chinese App Store was infected with malware through Xcode - including apps like WeChat and Angry Birds 2.
Apple creates a false perception that any app on the App Store is safe, while allowing apps to ask for permissions (or permission levels) that are entirely unnecessary for the app to function.
Uber was tracking people before and after journeys & tracking IEMI numbers, Path was and Foursquare is uploading a user's entire address book and contacts to their servers, and the Chinese App Store was infected with malware through Xcode - including apps like WeChat and Angry Birds 2.
Apple creates a false perception that any app on the App Store is safe, while allowing apps to ask for permissions (or permission levels) that are entirely unnecessary for the app to function.
Because some are old and wrinkled or otherwise out of fashion.
Some yahoo is going to hide some code in an app to detect when someone is running around in their birthday suits and then upload the pictures. Then, of course, Apple will get blamed for it for not screening the app properly and it will be an awful mess with a lot of hurt people.
And you think Apple would be the real victim in that situation? Jesus...
1) if this is possible, surely Apple would catch this when screening apps before allowing them on the App Store?
2) Clarify: some apps request access to the camera roll (or your photos), which does not grant them access to the camera, only previously taken photos, correct? You touch the camera icon and then it requests access to your camera.
So the real question is, does this guy sell camera covers? If so, he could be sued for defamation, and whatever the legal term is for when one points out a flaw in order to benefit financially?
2) Clarify: some apps request access to the camera roll (or your photos), which does not grant them access to the camera, only previously taken photos, correct? You touch the camera icon and then it requests access to your camera.
3) surely this story will go out with major FUD, and many will miss the fact the app must be in the foreground, and people will buy camera covers.
So the real question is, does this guy sell camera covers? If so, he could be sued for defamation, and whatever the legal term is for when one points out a flaw in order to benefit financially?
Really nothing new here. There are lots of things that could be done on both iOS and Android by developers who are not honest.
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This can be disabled. The LED indicator is a false sense of security.
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This can be disabled. The LED indicator is a false sense of security.
So will people put tape over the front facing camera on their phones like they do on their computers?
Well if they see my naked ass then that’s what they get for being nosy.
When kids ran up in-App purchases without parents permission Apple not only got blamed, but sued.
Mine is in series to the power signal line for the camera module, can't speak for other laptops.
WatchDots could market a new product...
iSight Camera dots! I never take selfies or use the front camera anyway.
Wait, when I grant permission to an app to use the camera, it can actually use the camera?!? Woah!!!! /s
That is a good idea in theory, but actually enforcing that would be pretty difficult, what if the app has a fullscreen camera UI that has popups that blur the camera? You could say it just has to be a view in the view hierarchy, but then you could just put the view underneath all your content. Or put it there and scale it to 2 pixel widths and stick it in a corner.
I think the most ideal solution would be the hardware LED. But a simple solution could be just adding a software "camera active" icon to the status bar. Apps that hide the status bar could get away with it, but it could also show when you pull down notification center, so apps that did that could still be found out.
To be honest, it is very likely that someone like Facebook is already doing this. Their app is huge, they could very well have machine learning modules in there to judge your expressions locally while you are browsing content.
excuse my ignorance...but,..
that does not address the issue of the image presented being taken to the cloud and uploaded elsewhere without the users explicit permission to initiate that act.
If true, I am not really that worried.
I use the same rule of thumb for any OS. Only download apps I need, and evaluate if apps I want are really necessary. Despite the good memory management in iOS, I still kill applications I am not actively running, and despite reasonable storage space, I delete apps I rarely use.
I use the same rule of thumb for any OS. Only download apps I need, and evaluate if apps I want are really necessary. Despite the good memory management in iOS, I still kill applications I am not actively running, and despite reasonable storage space, I delete apps I rarely use.