Apple: Privacy Trumps Security?
June 16, 2011
Remember the story earlier this week about the Top 10 passwords to avoid using on your iDevice? Well, the guy behind the survey actually used his free Big Brother security app to uncover those passwords. Now Apple has pulled the app from the App Store, according to news first reported by the iPhone Download Blog. What’s going on here?
Daniel Amitay used his free app to anonymously record passwords from iPhone owners who use his application. The end result was a list of ten passwords users should avoid, which was then published by Amitay.
Apparently that last part wasn’t such a good idea.
Apple pulled the app, apparently because “collecting sensitive data like user’s passwords doesn’t sit so well with the folks in Cupertino.”
According to the iPhone Download Blog, Amitay has sent Apple an update to the app without the password-collecting code. Whether Apple reinstates the Big Brother security app to the App Store is anyone’s guess.
We were pretty excited when Amitay’s discovery was revealed. After all, knowing what passwords were most likely to be cracked was a benefit to our readers.
However, after thinking about it, we recognized that Amitay’s data was collected in such a way that proved squeamish to many. Obviously, Apple agreed.
What do you think? Was Apple right to pull the app? Let us know by using the comments below.