The phones that Google launches on the market always carry the latest in terms of software updates. software and security improvements. The company that owns Android releases monthly security patches that are added to the operating system to strengthen itthus protecting its users.
However, this does not make them totally insurmountable devices, let alone free of failures. But pay attention to the last problem that would put our privacy at risk when we share screenshots where we hide information.
A user has shared On twitter the website that includes a tool to reveal everything we have hidden in a capture made with a Pixel. But let’s go back to the beginning to explain what happened.
When we take a screenshot, the Pixels show a popup from which we can share it, or edit it. If we access that fast editor, we can hide certain parts of the imageas we would do in the event that private data or other types of sensitive information appear.
At that time, the software Google allows us to save the capture, overwriting the original. As a result, we have the censored (or cropped, which can also be done) shot in an image in PNG format. The curious thing is that this file still retains all the information prior to editing.
This issue has been documented by Google on its issue tracking platform, so it’s been reported and will be fixed soon. We have been able to verify it and indeed, the tool returns the recovered image in which we can see the hidden information. As proof, see the screenshot below.
This type of problem is striking, and although it is still something very specific, could be used with malicious intent. If you are the owner of a Google Pixel, you know, edit your images from another application, which luckily there are many and of good quality. We hope that it will be corrected soon so that users do not see how their privacy is compromised in the most absurd way.
In Xataka Mobile | These Pixels will make better night photos: the Google Camera reaches version 8.8