And, in case you haven’t figured this out yet, everything that you transmit and/or store on the internet, in the cloud or an internet connected device is vulnerable, everything. Think The Fappening is a big deal? Yes it is, but the Snappening is huge because it includes hundreds of thousands of people.
And, a high percentage of Snappening victims are likely minors.
First of all, Snapchat claims that its servers were not the source of (not going to dignify this with the word “leak”) the stolen videos and images:
We can confirm that Snapchat’s servers were never breached and were not the source of these leaks. Snapchatters were victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our Terms of Use precisely because they compromise our users’ security. We vigilantly monitor the App Store and Google Play for illegal third-party apps and have succeeded in getting many of these removed — SnapChat
Moreover, Snapchat points an accusatory finger at third-party services that can intercept and store SnapChat messages, including text, pictures and videos:
Snapchatters were victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our ToU.
— Snapchat (@Snapchat) October 10, 2014
While Snapchat correctly lays out how it happened, assigning blame to the victims isn’t going to wash.
Earlier this year, Snapchat and millions of its users were victimized by a hack. However, aside from phone numbers and user names, no other data was lost.
This time, though, Snapchat wasn’t itself hacked, but the data lost is likely far more sensitive.
Snappening: Who’s To Blame?
That said, the source where the Snappening images and videos were first made public was the ever infamous 4chan, which also played a role in the Fappening. However, because around half of Snapchat’s users are 13 to 17 years old, the complexion of this data theft and its posting to the public internet is probably vastly different:
4chan users say the collection of photos has a large amount of child pornography, including many videos sent between teenagers who believed the files would be immediately deleted after viewing. Half of Snapchat’s users are teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 — BusinessInsider
So, who’s to blame? SnapSaved is the third-party site/app, often used by Windows Phone users, identified by 4chan posters as the original source of the data. Snapchat doesn’t offer an official app for Windows Phone devices.
Ultimately, like kids throughout the ages, today’s teens and young adults are exploring and experimenting with their bodies and sexuality. In the past, though, these forays didn’t involve a worldwide communications medium immediately accessible to all — society needs to square kids’ need for expression with our need for security.
SnapSaved, which is now offline, had been collecting and saving every Snapchat image and/or video its users transmitted over the course of several years.
With the Snappening, the world has changed and people are going to jail…
What’s your take?