Let’s take a moment to talk about one of our favorite apps:    Snapchat. We all know and love this photo-sharing app that allows us to send a picture, of whatever we please, to our friends for a few seconds just to have it disappear -- unless, of course, they dare to screenshot it. The legitimacy of Snapchat has been questioned, over the past year or so, after breaches into the “deleted” pictures -- and with reason. Now, not only is it possible for the Snapchat server to be hacked into, but there are also third-party apps that are able to save the Snaps your receive automatically. So, your Snapchats do not just “disappear.”     

According to a CNN article titled, “Snapchat Isn't Private. Period,” by Jose Pegliery, “numerous third-party apps like SaveSnap, SnapBox and SnapSpy offer users the ability to save incoming photos.”

You might be thinking to yourself, why do I need an app to save Snaps when I can just screenshot? Good question. And the answer is, many of these third-party apps allow you to save whatever you receive, photos and videos, without having a notification sent to the sender. It’s pretty serious and creepy stuff.      

Most of us send Snaps of selfies, our pumpkin spice lattes, dogs, and other basic things. But for those of us who are more daring in their Snapchatting, you may want to rethink what you’re sending because it really isn’t secure. The CEO of one of Snapchat’s competing apps, Wickr, stated that, “if Snapchat sent encrypted messages -- that only get decrypted by the Snapchat app -- it could have blocked third-party apps and avoided this entire fiasco.” In other words, the leaders of Snapchat have yet to make security a priority because they could prevent these third-party apps from functioning. In addition, they could work to ban these apps from existing, as a whole. As a consumer, it’s difficult to really trust Snapchat when these other apps exist, and their administration denies security breaches.      

To make the mess of security even larger, there has been a threat of having over 100,000 photos stolen from not just Snapchat’s server, but also the server of one of the third-party apps. So, now, you’ve got screenshots, third-party apps, and breaches of both of these apps and Snapchat, itself.

One of the scariest things about this whole fiasco is that, according to CNN, half of Snapchat’s users are between the ages of 13 and 17, the years of invincibility and not realizing that what you do can, and will, affect your future. Many people hear that what we send via the Internet is always there, and never really gone, but sometimes it’s difficult to comprehend that you don’t need to be a computer genius to get what you want -- it can be as simple as downloading an app.      

So, please, don’t be naïve about what you are Snapchatting, or about what your sending, in general. New technology is constantly being creating to undermine what we once trusted. Let me know if this changes how you feel about Snapchat by emailing me at hlavendi@purdue.edu.