Feint Security

Well, I don’t even have an iPhone yet and I’ve already caused trouble in Apple-land.  I read a lot of great reviews about this free iPhone game, Aurora Feint, and recommended it to a few people, including our own Anski.

So, of course, that has to be the one app which causes a firestorm about lax security.  According to this post on Gizmodo, if you used the game’s community feature, it was sending your contact list info to the server unencrypted.  The programmers of the game have been very honest and upfront about the problem.  You can read their remarks and the comments of the community in this forum thread.

On one hand I think the outcry over this has gotten way out of control.  Was it great security?  No, but I don’t think it was the end of the world either.  As one of the game’s developers states in reply to this Mashable post, Apple hasn’t even explained exactly why the app was delisted.   So a lot of the hue and cry is still speculation.  And to be clear, you had to opt-in to the community feature which sent your contact info (although how it worked was not clearly explained).  It was not on by default. 

While this story got big after the Gizmodo post, it really started a few days ago over at Macenstein.  You can find solid info there as well as a Q&A with one of the game’s creators. 

I am afraid that this mess is going to cause Apple to really crack down on testing and securing all apps.  That may seem like a good thing and I do wonder what someone truly evil and not just inexperienced could pull off.   But, personally, I’d rather take my risks and control my own destiny than have Apple delay app updates and enact more controls on the software. 

It’s just too bad this whole thing is happening to a game that pretty much everyone agrees has a ton of promise.

Update: Aurora Feint is back in the App Store with improved security and other bug fixes.   I’m glad everything worked out.