Prepare to freak out! iPhone developers are using apps to pass your phone number to telemarketers
Filed under: Apple Bashing, Rumors, Security, iPhone
Our good friends over at the French Mac site Mac4Ever have alerted us to a somewhat alarming development. Apparently a few days after purchasing the Swiss app MogoRoad, a free radar tracking application, users are reporting receiving telephone calls asking them if they’d like to purchase the FULL version of the application. When asked how the caller had obtained their number, the responses vary, but generally the person tells you that Apple sent them their number at the time of purchase.
Obviously this is not the case, as Apple does not forward any information on its customers to third parties, so Mac4Ever did a little testing using the latest iPhone SDK and discovered that it is extremely easy for a developer to send a user’s phone number to their servers without their knowledge. In fact, the hole has been around since the 2.1 firmware.
“But after deep investigation, it appears that programmers are able to retrieve the personal iPhone’s user number, with one unique line of code! This data can then be sent to remote databases, which collect personal information, without notifying the user.
We tried this method quickly with the official SDK: it works !
Readers mostly pointed out mogoRoad , a swiss application that gives traffic information for free. When reading comments on iTunes, it’s clear that a lot of people did receive the famous call as well.
Currently, the buyer explicitly gives its coordinates as Apple. Developer side, Apple is the only interlocutor, and it is impossible to have access to personal data of customers. But the access number is available since firmware 2.1, according to our survey. Moreover, it seems surprising that those responsible for the validation does not check that certain sensitive data, such as phone number, do not pass freely through the internet. This could be the beginning of a real scandal for the firm Iceberg, because nobody knows how many applications currently collecting phone numbers. “
We’ve yet to hear of any reports of this type of data collecting here in the US, but this is exactly the type of thing that tends to freak out privacy advocates (and rightly so, if true), so prepare for this one to spread across the interweb even faster than the usual anti-iPhone news.
God, I wish I cared about this event…
Filed under: Cynicism, Rampant Speculation, Rumors, Slow News Day, iTunes
Faithful Macenstein reader The Boston Spangler writes:
Hi Doc,
A friend of mine works at EMI music, and he just posted this pic up on facebook… Thought it might help fuel the Apple/ Beatles debate until we hear a real announcement today…
So, whaddya think?Thanks!
The Boston Spangler
Macenstein’s “Mac Chick of the Month” (September 2009): Yael Markovich
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, Mac Chick of the Month, Opinion, Rumors
Welcome to Macenstein’s “Mac Chick of the Month”. Each month we feature a different die-hard, Mac-loving girl who is (almost) as well designed as the Apple products they love. This month we present you with the lovely Yael Markovich, an Israeli model who just happens to be a die-hard Mac Chick!
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Snow Leopard to hit next Friday (August 28th) - support training has begun
According to reliable West Coast sources, support training for Snow Leopard has begun, signaling an imminent release of the next major release of OS X. Sources claim a date of Friday, August 28th is extremely likely. Below are screenshots from the current Apple Support Snow Leopard training course for those of you are who are so into Apple minutia that you’d care about such things (guilty!).
Confirmed? TomTom’s iPhone GPS Car mount will work with iPod touch, as well as 3rd party navigation apps
Our good friends over at Mac4ever had a sit down with Yann Lafargue, who handles PR for TomTom, and were able to confirm a couple pretty interesting things about TomTom’s forthcoming GPS car kit. It has been known for some time that the car kit was more than a simple mount and charger – it also includes a built in GPS unit designed to replace the iPhone’s somewhat more flaky GPS. Lafargue confirmed many people’s suspicions/hopes by announcing that thanks to the built-in GPS on the cradle, it will work with the iPod touch, thus turning it into a GPS unit - no iPhone required. (It should be noted however that at the moment the official Tunes listing for the TomTom app states it is only compatible with the iPhone).
But perhaps most surprising is the revelation that TomTom says their cradle’s GPS will also work with third party GPS applications. This is a little surprising as the increased accuracy of their cradle would seem to be the big selling point for TomTom’s unit, but perhaps TomTom is looking to make its money on the iPhone through hardware sales moreso than software. No word yet on which apps will be supported or how they would go about tapping into TomTom’s more accurate GPS.
Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader Arnaud for the tip!
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