Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in iPhone Game Fumbles Security, Gets Delisted From The Store

Re: iPhone Game Fumbles Security, Gets Delisted From The Store

Fireant — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:06:24 -0000

does not surprise me

Re: iPhone Game Fumbles Security, Gets Delisted From The Store

Mike Gowen — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:16:03 -0000

I could be wrong but I imagine Loopt must be doing this too since they display my contact list with indicators of who is able to run Loopt and who is already running it.

Re: iPhone Game Fumbles Security, Gets Delisted From The Store

Lionheart — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:35:33 -0000

Maybe they were adviced by Mark Zuckerberg.

Re: iPhone Game Fumbles Security, Gets Delisted From The Store

Jason Citron — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:28:26 -0000

I would like to clarify that we do not know why our application was removed from the store. We submitted an update hours before being delisted. Apple has not contacted us and their policy is to contact developers when an app is removed. It's possible there is a bug in their update system. We have been trying to figure out a way to contact someone at Apple who can give us more information. All media reports that we were removed due to "lousy security practices" are pure speculation.

Please see our message to the community at http://aurorafeint.proboard... for more details.

Re: iPhone Game Fumbles Security, Gets Delisted From The Store

Tom — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:56:13 -0000

Eric, you are right, itÂ´s obviously an opt-in feature, but according to those who used it, there was never any mention of what did happen (sending contact list). This is why people are really offended.
Second, there is no word as yet that the infos stored are really deleted - on the contrary, the initial post on the Aurora Feint forum clearly states what data actually IS stored.
As for the bad intentions part... I do hope that there were no bad intentions, but what makes me wonder: IF you setup such a scenario, you are normally perfectly knowing what you are doing. It is at least kinda "strange" that you forget all about this it a minutes before you publish the game - and recall everything once the problem gets public. Furthermore, it is questionable when I can just say "yes" to sending all my contacts, because I do not have to right to say "yes" for every person I have put in there (they are in for another reason than gaming usually)

Re: iPhone Game Fumbles Security, Gets Delisted From The Store

Alexus — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:52:49 -0000

I agree with GalinMD.
If you don't want to share your contacts don't opt-in to the community feature.
People make choice by yourself and the complain that someone breached your security.
The only reason this information was unencrypted was because the developer didn't expect the game to become so popular and didn't plan for that many users.

Re: iPhone Game Fumbles Security, Gets Delisted From The Store

Eric — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:26:03 -0000

My understanding of the situation is that the game only sends your contact list if you OPT-IN to have it automatically search for friends. The data isn't stored after the search is complete.

This is still an obvious breach of security, but since the developers have admitted their mistake and been very open about the whole situation, I truly believe there were no bad intentions.

Here's hoping that we'll see a version of this amazing game in the App Store soon, minus the security issues!

Re: iPhone Game Fumbles Security, Gets Delisted From The Store

GalinMD — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:38:10 -0000

All the big social networking sites let you voluntarily (and I know Aurora Feint left that part out) give up your contact list to them and its stored on THEIR servers even after they find your friends. So to think that your info has never been given up to MySpace, Facebook or Linkedin just cause YOU didn't agree to a search is pretty naive since with all the members they have statistically speaking one of your friends/family, that has YOUR contact info, has submitted to the search. The exception to that is of course if you don't have any friends.

Searching someone's contact list is not new and not evil, most social programs do it. Stop demonizing these developers.

Re: iPhone Game Fumbles Security, Gets Delisted From The Store

addebook — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:16:50 -0000

terrible~

Re: iPhone Game Fumbles Security, Gets Delisted From The Store

lolly — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:57:57 -0000

This does not surprise me at all. I wonder how long it's going to take before you have to 'invite your friends' to use an app on your iPhone...