21st Century Learning and Teaching

So, how did this happen?
Snapchat, the self-destructing photo-sharing app that turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer by Facebook, uses what’s called an Application Programming Interface (API).

Typically, an API is shared widely in order to attract a large pool of developers wanting to use a company’s capabilities. Not so with Snapchat. Snapchat instead keeps its API to itself, using it only to help its applications talk to its servers.

But just because Snapchat doesn’t publish its API doesn’t mean it isn’t up for grabs. In fact, Snapchat’s API has been reversed engineered to the point that it’s not only widely shared, but openly critiqued by security professionals and actively used by third party app developers on both Google Play and the Apple iTunes Store. One of these third party apps (many of which aren’t well secured) is called Snapsaved, which, like its name describes, saves Snapchat’s supposedly fleeting images for users to later retrieve—and that’s where we see a problem.

Learn more:

- http://gustmees.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/often-asked-questions-are-there-cyber-security-dangers-with-apps-and-whats-about-privacy/