If you’re reading this because you want an answer to the “why” in my headline, you’re gonna be sorely disappointed. Today, I am stunned, slowly shaking my head at my computer screen. The “me generation” has struck again. Let’s back up a moment. The big story I’m seeing today is an iPhone-related story. So, if you could care less about iPhone stuff, you know what to do. Anyway, there’s this video game that was released, for free, to the iTunes AppStore for iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s a basic block-matching puzzle game, but it’s got some nifty features and storylines built in, so it’s pretty damn fun to play. I’ve had it on my phone for almost a week. One of the nifty features, apparently, is a “Community” mode of play. So, you can team up with your friends and play the game together. I say “apparently” because I never bothered to opt-in for the Community mode. Thankfully. Y’see, the developers of this game did something terribly sloppy. When a user “opts in” for the Community mode, they’re asked for their phone number and email address. Then (if the reports are correct) the app compiles a list of all the people/info in your phone’s addressbook, and sends that data IN THE CLEAR (without encryption) back to their servers. The game developers are apparently not doing anything with this data yet (if you believe them), and aren’t even storing the data on their servers (again, if you believe them). But the fact that you could be sitting in downtown Mountain View, playing the game at the bus stop, and suddenly all of your contacts’ phone numbers, email addresses, street addresses, etc, are all broadcast in-the-clear across a completely un-secured public WiFi network…that’s fuckin’ scary. But here’s the thing: on public forums and bulletin boards across the internet, from what I’m seeing, the prevailing attitude is “so what?” and “who cares?” Seriously, here are two direct quotes from the comment section of the Gizmodo article:
I mean, they released a quality game at an unbeatable price, what’s not to like? I don’t understand why it’s so bad for someone to see your contacts…worst case scenario is someone saying “OMG, user Substance_D has someone named Erika D on his contact list! Should I prank call her up? I can even see the number since these servers are unencrypted!” Wtf, who cares.
First, stop pretended your contact list is of any desire to anyone; you don’t know anyone we want to talk to anyways. Furthermore, 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.
I can’t believe how shallow people’s views are. Well, yeah I can, because I know full well that reading comment sections of websites is a really good way to lose faith in humanity. But I just can’t get past the fact that nobody GETS it. I, for one, don’t trust MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn. I don’t use those utilities that crawl your email address book to find your friends. It just feels wrong to me. Too much trust. But I can understand how others would set aside any such fear. OK, fine. But granting the same trust to some independent game development shop who has had absolutely NO presence in the market before, and who has done absolutely nothing to instill trust? FUCK no. Maybe it’s a complete lack of understanding of the technology…I’d imagine a huge percentage of the world just thinks the internet works by “magic.” Actually, I’ve seen plenty of commentary from folks who think “oh, if someone really wants your data, they’ll find a way.” Really? Man, you don’t know anything. And you’re part of the problem. You give up before you even know, and you encourage others to do the same. The last quote up above was a direct response to this guy, who gets it:
OK. I think I understand. So here’s the reasons why it’s apparently OK that they STOLE YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST:
1) They make a fun game, so who cares if they STOLE YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST?
2) they’re cool, so it’s OK they STOLE YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST.
3) it’s nanny Apple’s fault who, in this one single instance, should be more closed not more open, so a rogue developer can’t STEAL YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST. (not that they’re rogue or anything)
4) the developers didn’t want to inconvenience users by making them type or something, so they STOLE THEIR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST.
5) since the developers only had 10 weeks they had no choice but to STEAL YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST.
6) Since your gaming community is going to include every single person you know, why not just STEAL YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST?
7) the developers are new to computers, the internet, privacy, and Earthlings, and had no idea anyone would mind if they STOLE THEIR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST.
Did I miss any reasons why it’s OK they STOLE YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST? Oh yeah.
Think of all the fun their summer intern is going to have searching their database for the privates on Steve Jobs, Buckethead, Brian Lam, and other known people whose numbers may not be in your iPhone, but may be in the PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LISTS THEY STOLE.
Several people have defended the developers, saying YOU (as a user of the game) had to opt-in. But as far as I can see, the game only asked me for my email address and phone number (which I did not give). I wasn’t asked for my whole contact list. That ain’t exactly transparent. I think we’ll see a handful more fuck-ups like this from iPhone developers, but I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the apathy monster that’s running around, rampant.