Apple to iPhone Passcode Finder App: Get Lost

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passcode
Photo: citizenmccord.com

Just one day after we posted the top ten most common iPhone passcodes, Apple has yanked the app that generated them. According to the developer, though, he was only following Apple’s own rules.

In an email to Daniel Amitay, Apple Tuesday said the app was “surreptitiously harvesting user passwords.” In his defense, Amitay blogs that his app falls under Section b. of the iTunes EULA. The section states:

b. Consent to Use of Data: You agree that Application Provider may collect and use technical data and related information, including but not limited to technical information about Your device, system and application software, and peripherals, that is gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, product support and other services to You (if any) related to the Licensed Application. Application Provider may use this information, as long as it is in a form that does not personally identify You, to improve its products or to provide services or technologies to You.

“First, these passcodes are those that are input into Big Brother, not the actual iPhone lock screen pass codes,” Amitay writes. “Second, when the app sends this data to my server, it is literally sending only that number (e.g. “1234”) and nothing else. I have no way of identifying any user or device whatsoever.”

The developer said he’d planned on using the data collected to update his Big Brother app, warning users not to pick the common pass codes.

When we originally posted this story, we originally arched an eyebrow at Amitay’s publication of iOS passcodes, but once we saw it was not only anonymously collected, but data mined from his own app, we felt more comfortable with it. What do you think, though? Did Amitay act disreputably, or was he providing a valuable lesson in passcode security using data he had been given permission by Apple to use as he saw fit?

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