13GB of "secret" Snapchat leaked on the internet

To prove that there's no point in using an internet service that makes your messages and photos disappear after a while, here's the latest leak scandal: "The Snappening", with 13GB of private photos leaked on the internet.

Snapchat ghost Captcha took less than 30 minutes to crack

Snapchat has been highly criticized for the way they've been dealing with the security issues some security researchers have reported - completely ignoring them at first, then publicly dismissing it as being "nothing serious" no one would take advantage of, etc. But people did take advantage and leaked millions of user records online; and each "fix" they stubbornly implemented has been shown to still leave some open doors.

One of the last changes was adding a ghost captcha system to prevent automated fake user account creation at massive scales, where people need to prove they're human by selecting images where their ghost logo is present. But just like we predicted... it didn't last long.

Usually, computers can't make any sense from what's in a image: its just digital data. That's why you need to manually tag your photos, instead of being able to tell your computer to show you just the pictures you took in a mountain, or with your car on frame, etc. But when it comes to find a specific pattern in a imagem, well, that's a lot easier. Something proven by Steven Hickson, who created a small program that cracks Snapchat ghost captcha in under 30 minutes and less than 100 lines of code.

This is particularly worrying because it shows that besides the "attitude" problem, Snapchat really doesn't have a clue on how to make things secure. And worst of all, while you might not give a damn to what Snapchate security issues are, it makes us wonder just how many other startups or rising services might fall under the same category, unwittingly lacking the knowledge or the skills required to keep your/our data reasonably safe.

How to Capture Snapchat Photos Undetected

Snapshat is an App that incites you to send some naughty pictures, with the assurance they'll self destruct in a few seconds. Of course, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the system is inherently flawed, as anyone might simply use another camera to snap a photo of the ephemeral moment while it is visible, and keep it for eternity. In the iPhone, you can even use the system screen-capture feature (home+power)... but, if you do so, the App detects what you've done and notifies the sender. Unless...

Yes, someone already figured out a simply way to capture a snapchat photo without alerting the sender. And it's quite simple to do it although you might want to practice a bit first.

All you have to do is to perform the usual screen capture home+power button press, while at the same time touching the screen. Then, while still touching the screen, you double click the home button to call the App bar.

And that's it... you'll now have a photo capture of the elusive snapchat photo, without the sender knowing about it. (Strangely enough, this technique doesn't work with Facebook's similar Poke app).

Facebook Poke copies SnapChat

Facebook has decided to bring back its old poke feature as a rematch to SnapChat, and the result is Poke for mobile. The Facebook has been around on the web since 2004 (wow, time does fly!), allowing you to - well - poke someone. It might be of less interest now that most people are connected 24/7, but considering the success of SnapChat, Facebook decided it should have his own disposable message service.

Yes, unlike regular messages, the text, photos and/or videos you send via poke to your friends will only be seen for 1,3,5,10 seconds before vanishing forever. If you're a SnapChat user, here are the slight differences you can expect:

Tough nothint stops you from photographing or recording the message with another smartphone or camera, at least you'll know if your friends try to "screen grab" the message or photo, as the iPhone app will alert you.  And as for what might be done with the data in Facebook servers, access keys are deleted after two days, and everything is cleared up after 90 days.

As a last note, the voice you hear as the notification alert is Mark Zuckerberg's own voice.