The BBC reports on a woman who was sent pictures of a penis via Apple AirDrop.
The victim received two pictures of an unknown man's penis on her phone via Apple's Airdrop sharing function.
Lorraine Crighton-Smith, 34, said she felt "violated" and reported it to the British Transport Police (BTP).
Supt Gill Murray said this particular crime was new to her force and urged people to report any other incidents.
Ms Crighton-Smith, who was travelling on a train in south London, told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme: "I had Airdrop switched on because I had been using it previously to send photos to another iPhone user - and a picture appeared on the screen of a man's penis, which I was quite shocked by.
The article later describes how to make sure that AirDrop is set to only allow pictured from known contacts.
Is this a major privacy issue or is it simply a case of a misconfigured device?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday August 18 2015, @03:43PM
[quote]Is this a major privacy issue or is it simply a case of a misconfigured device?[/quote]
Can't it be both? Clearly its a security and privacy issue if you can just receive information from unknown devices left and right. This time it was a penis (oh the horror!) next time it could be child-porn or some gruesome picture of dead humans etc.
But then most people doesn't seem to think about the configuration issues. They set things up once to it "works" and then they don't think about it anymore until they get an unwanted dick-pic. That said what kinda sheltered life has MS Crighton-Smith lived if she gets traumatized by a picture of a penis? Is the clue in the "MS"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 18 2015, @03:50PM
Personally I'd feel more traumatized and privacy-violated if my unusual name, age and travel arrangements were published in the national news. They claim to have a quote from her, so presumably she willingly permitted this.
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Tuesday August 18 2015, @04:19PM
Clearly its a security and privacy issue if you can just receive information from unknown devices left and right.
Security issue? Maybe. Privacy issue? No. If you want a device that will only receive information from known devices, then don't use a cell phone. Every part of it is designed to work with unknown devices. Does your phone only take calls from your family members? Can you only receive texts from friends? Does your email client block everything except what is specified in a white-list?
(Score: 3, Funny) by tibman on Tuesday August 18 2015, @05:41PM
Penis over voice is not nearly as effective because it comes off as a tapping sound that sounds like a bad connection. It simply wasn't an issue (unless you knew what that sound was!)
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 18 2015, @10:50PM
Except that its the intended usage of the app in question. If I configure an app to receive pictures from anyone (like the person in question here has done), and some random person sends me a picture, exactly as I have configured the app to accept, then there is on issue except for user idiocy. An non-intrusive, non-malicious app working as exactly designed and as intended cannot be a security or privacy issue.