Friday, July 29, 2016

SwiftKey Keyboard Leaked User Information to Strangers

Cara McGoogan (via MacRumors, Hacker News):

A British keyboard app that uses artificial intelligence to predict the next word you want to write has suspended part of its service after users reported receiving predictions meant for other people, including email addresses and phone numbers.
[…]
“A few days ago, I received an email from a complete stranger asking if I had recently purchased and returned a particular model of mobile phone, adding that not one but two of my email addresses (one personal and one work address) were saved on the phone she had just bought as brand-new,” said the user.
The stranger with the new phone went through each letter of the alphabet and told the user the suggested words. They included names of the user’s friends and addresses for private servers they connect to for work.

Previously: iOS 8 Keyboards.

Update (2016-07-29): Rosyna Keller: