Should I or you be worried? Your info to apps.

[westernmass]

Just curious, and maybe really not an issue but I figured I would ask. There are lots of apps that are not officially from the company that requires you to log in, flickr,netflix etc(no offence just two I thought of) . I just wonder how worried we should be that we are using a 3rd parties app to access your personal info. I honestly am not overly worried but just thought it would make for an interesting discussion.

 

[CommanderData]

Just curious, and maybe really not an issue but I figured I would ask. There are lots of apps that are not officially from the company that requires you to log in, flickr,netflix etc(no offence just two I thought of) . I just wonder how worried we should be that we are using a 3rd parties app to access your personal info. I honestly am not overly worried but just thought it would make for an interesting discussion.

I agree that there should be concerns about third parties and access to your account information. Not that any particular app/author is doing anything wrong at the moment, but it is something to think about.

How hard would it be for them to forward your info to their own data collection server? Not hard at all, there's no Firewall or Lil-Snitch type program running in the background to warn you and block the data being transmitted to a location other than your intended destination. It's unfortunate that we live in a world where we have to consider these possibilities...

 

[crsd36]

Apparently Apple goes through all applications w/ a fine toothed comb. I wouldn't be too worried about your personal info.

 

[CommanderData]

Apparently Apple goes through all applications w/ a fine toothed comb. I wouldn't be too worried about your personal info.

While that sounds comforting, I don't think they're as thorough as you believe. I am an iPhone certified developer, but have yet to submit a completed app for approval. With that said, I have reviewed the entire submission process, and at no time that I can see do they (Apple) request the source code to your application. This means they can only play around with your completed binary to see how it behaves on the iPhone, and accept/reject it based on their own subjective criteria. If they had to review every line of source code of every app submitted we'd probably have about 50 apps available right now instead of over 1500.

With that said- I'm sure they probably have a sandboxed network with packet sniffing to see what the iPhone tries to do while the app is running. That should catch most trouble, unless the app has a time bomb in it to prevent sending info for 30 days (so it can get approved first).

 

[marksman]

Apparently Apple goes through all applications w/ a fine toothed comb. I wouldn't be too worried about your personal info.

This is not even close to being accurate and I think you should refrain from repeating this as you will provide people a false sense of security.

 

[Night Spring]

Apparently Apple goes through all applications w/ a fine toothed comb. I wouldn't be too worried about your personal info.

I suppose you missed the hoolaboo over Aurora Feint uploading your contact list to their server. Plus they let NetShare and "I Am Rich" slip through their approval process. After those debacles, I'm wondering if Apple actually has any approval process in place at all.

 

[DipDog3]

I wouldn't give a 3rd party "party" app my information.

Say I create a banking app. Are you going to put in all of your banking info? It's no different with any other account, just a matter of degree.

 

[BuzzLightyear]

Apparently Apple goes through all applications w/ a fine toothed comb. I wouldn't be too worried about your personal info.

OK, what about all the apps that are tracking you every time you use their app, even if it is "anonymously"?

The web company Pinch Media provide developers with "Pinch Analytics" which allows them to "track the number of unique, active users, the length of time your application is being used, and, if enabled, the geographic location of your users ... Statistics are updated hourly".

So far, I've found no way to block this and other similar data collection that occurs in iPhone apps. I'm considering blocking access to pinchmedia's servers in my firewall so at least when I'm wifi I won't be tracked.

I for one wish that Apple had a "Little Snitch" type firewall built-in to the iPhone to alert me to such "behind the scenes" connections and allowed me to block them.

 

[skubish]

Depends on what the app is. I wouldn't give my banking, paypal, ebay info to a 3rd party. I don't mind giving out my account info for twinkle.

 

[TechJunky]

Even if they don't doing anything with the information, they can always sell it to someone who would.

This is just one of the reasons why I would never use a password app.