Are Your iPhone Apps Spying On You?
The iPhone continues its huge popularity and the amount of software from the App Store continues to grow, but what if the apps you install were spying on you? According to a report, this is exactly what is happening.
PinchMedia is a company offering a service which tells app creators about how their software is used after installation on customers’ iPhones. It does this by sending information from the iPhone back to PinchMedia.
Now a blogger known as Oth3lo has been looking deeper into what information is sent from your iPhone back to PinchMedia – and it may set a few hearts racing.
Data being sent back on PinchMedia-enabled apps includes (by the company’s own admittance);
The ID number of your device, the model and operating system version, application name and version, whether the device is jailbroken, whether the app is pirated, how long the app has been used and the user’s co-ordinates (latitude and longitude). If FaceBook is enabled the gender and age of the user is also reported.
For those interested to read more, Oth3lo has some informative posts titled PinchMedia: The Anatomy of a Spyware Vendor and another which lists the ‘infected‘ apps which will phone home to PinchMedia.
PinchMedia’s response to the allegations can be found here.
[...] http://freakbits.com/are-your-iphone-apps-spying-on-you-0822 [...]
[...] a company that offers a service to iPhone application creators about how their apps are used after installation is gathering more details than is necessary. Similar to the Palm Pre problem, instead of just [...]
[...] Firma PinchMedia oferuje twórcom aplikacji dla iPhone’ów us?ug?, dzi?ki której zyskuj? oni dost?p do wielu informacji o Twoim urz?dzeniu – jego numerze seryjnym, modelu, wersji systemu operacyjnego, nazwie i wersji u?ywanej aplikacji, a tak?e czy urz?dzenia ma z?amane zabezpieczenia, a nawet o Twoim po?o?eniu (wspó?rz?dne geograficzne). W przypadku us?ugi FaceBook twórca dowie si? tak?e o Twojej p?ci i wieku – podaje serwis FreakBits. [...]