“Holy crap. It seems that Google is going to have some pretty serious explaining to do this morning, as one of our readers has sent us in a tip that reveals a major security flaw involving Google Voice,” Michael Bettiol reports for The Boy Genius report.
“After entering “site:https://www.google.com/voice/fm/*” into Google, our reader was shocked and discouraged to be greeted by 31 voice mail messages belonging to random Google Voice accounts,” Bettiol reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it… The Google Voice application replaces Apple’s Visual Voicemail by routing calls through a separate Google Voice telephone number that stores any voicemail, preventing voicemail from being stored on the iPhone, i.e., disabling Apple’s Visual Voicemail. Similarly, SMS text messages are managed through the Google hub—replacing the iPhone’s text messaging feature. In addition, the iPhone user’s entire Contacts database is transferred to Google’s servers, and we have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways. These factors present several new issues and questions to us that we are still pondering at this time… We are continuing to study the Google Voice application and its potential impact on the iPhone user experience. – Apple Inc.
Hmmm… that kinda seems like quite a significant flaw…
Google is Evil and dumb.
Google’s goal … to be the Microsoft of the 21st Century.
its a good thing apple disapproved it.
Hey Sergey WTF? Call me ASAP
Magic Jack! Nuff Said!
Umm, looking at all the messages most if not all are gibberish. It looks more like something that was used in testing rather that voicemails belonging to actual people.
Think you should read the whole story before making any stupid comments.
Haha-
“Shut the hell up, Bumbass”
https://www.google.com/voice/fm/06974281305002571178/AHwOX_BZv6FHmLoE8u1sr0JsFLsFUv2j_ij1GTLU__9K0x0ta3_OuVxudk0T4oS90mMVyJKZnRrZSupdMLUW-pN92R09lEfFQz1RPTFlfhVm3ZtpOJ-DY2rmafTgzRU7c6uZ54SlgKXCF4ZXDAxDR9EsXiRYULexzA
It’s not just the fact that the text of the voicemails are appearing in public that creeps me out. It’s also that Google obviously intends to transcribe and store the full text of all of its users’ voicemail messages forever. I’m not comfortable with that, but I’m sure law enforcement will love it.
I was listening to some , one guy said ” go fsck yourself”
forget google, vonage, or magicjack. go to nettalk.com and get their tk6000
Are any of them from Tiffany?!? Did she finally call me back!!! (Hope springs eternal, even in nerds)
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@Steev
Well, yes, the audio does sound like “Shut the hell up, dumbass,” but as Google Voice explains, the actual comment was “she’ll tell welcome donna office.” Easy mistake to make.
MW “slowly,” as “You need to listen more slowly.”
@ Evanglize:
http://tiny.cc/lol55
‘Well, yes, the audio does sound like “Shut the hell up, dumbass,” but as Google Voice explains, the actual comment was “she’ll tell welcome donna office.” Easy mistake to make.”
So is this what’s replacing spinning records backwards to listen to the devils message?
Magic word: YES as in “Yes it is.”
I’m sure that is why. Not. Apple should spend more time testing the OS instead. 3.1 was so buggy it made Apple look like Microsoft!
Looks like Google might be using their users’ voicemail as raw data to test and tune their voice transcription software. (Which, as Joe pointed out, presumably means they’ll be keeping copies & transcripts of their users’ voicemails indefinitely as well.) I wonder what other uses they have in mind for it.
YouMail is actually really good at this voicemail thing. I wish Apple had bought them out and used there service rather then their current Visual Voicemail.
YouMail has been around for years and they have an app in the app store approved by Apple.
“she’ll tell welcome donna office.”
Looks like one of those damn spam posts that keep popping up on older MDN articles. Those assholes.
I had no idea my messages were now public.
Right on! And Microsoft has become the new Apple! Apple can’t slouch anymore now that they fixed Vista. Still using iTunes 8 and iPhone OS 3.0. I learned that upgrading from Apple is getting worse than from Microsoft.
What do people expect from ‘free’ Google apps – quality?
Google is simply duplicating Apple to beat Microsloth, but why do it on the iphone is the question. Google is a one trick pony – it’s no Apple, GV proves this. Remember, Google wanted to scan copyrighted books as a ‘service’, that should tell you a lot about their methods. I WOULD trust Apple with my data, I WOULDN’T trust Google. And as for ‘free’ apps, you have no recourse if they screw you, so it’s to their advantage to be in BETA for a few years.
My favorite:
“Jul 10, 2009 … this is a test in google voice we want to see how well it transcribes my message you can read about his in my block please visit davidson …”
Yeah, it’s transcoding just fine.
Actually, according to updated information (see the updated article and comments farther down the list), there doesn’t seem to be an actual problem, since the messages to be found that way are apparently only those which the respective users themselves had chosen to make public.