In response to a recent snapchat leak, aptly named “The Snappening” took place over the weekend and a reported 200,000 users had their photos and videos compromised. A statement has been released on the company’s blog on the use of its unofficial API. As a result, Snapchat has taken zero responsibility on the photo leaks.Last week, Snapsaved, a third-party application that allows the user to view and save snaps as well as send snaps, says the reverse engineered Snapchat API was breached. This resulted in a leak of photos that were 500mb in size. Snapsaved has since then taken responsibility for the leak.
In a recent statement to The Verge, Snapchat has made it clear that it never officially allowed the access of its API to third-party applications, though it seems that reverse engineering it presented itself to be a trivial task for the people at Snapsaved. An application programming interface, or more commonly abbreviated as API is used to allow third-party apps to access services like Facebook or Twitter. But due to the lack of an official Snapchat API, programmers resort to creating unofficial APIs that send data over Snapchat’s network.
As Snapchat is still a relatively new app to the scene of social media, it has yet to develop its own official API. Instead of focusing on developing an official API, Snapchat have spent the last year focusing on their “Stories” feature. The importance of an API cannot be stressed enough especially after “The Snappening”. An official API for Snapchat would enable them to track third-party applications as well as to guard their own platform with complete control.
Snapchat’s next best course of action would probably be to allocate more resources or shift its priorities to ensuring that the privacy of its users are safe after a leak of this magnitude.
[Source: Snapchat, TechCrunch]
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