Snapchat Photos Don't Really Disappear - Blog

Posted on: 04-05-2013

If you haven't heard of it, Snapchat is an app for iOS (iPhone, iPad, etc.) and Android-based mobile devices. It allows you to share photos and videos with a friend, but allows the recipient to view it for a short amount of time that you are able to specify. After this specified amount of time, the image or video supposedly disappears forever.

The idea behind Snapchat is that you can send weird photos of yourself or even a bit of a naughty photo without worrying about the recipient forwarding it on to friends. This is the idea, but it appears it is not necessarily the case. It turns out that on the Android version of Snapchat, all received photos seem to be stored on the device. They are renamed so they are not picked up by any gallery or video apps, but they are still there and can be opened by the more tech-savvy of us.

It's a bit of a worry since the whole point of Snapchat is supposed to be that the photo or video is deleted immediately after the recipient views it.

If you want to read further into the technical details this issue with Snapchat, you click the link below:
http://www.decipherforensics.com/publications

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